16 



SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



Foul Brood and Other Diseases of Bees. 



Foul brood — bacillus alvei — is a fatal 

 and contagious disease among bees, 

 dreaded most of all by bee-keepers. The 

 germs of disease are either given to the 

 young lan^al bee in its food when it 

 hatches from the egg of the queen-bee, or 

 it may be contagion from a diseased colony, 

 or if the queen deposits eggs, or the worker- 

 bees store honej' or pollen in such combs. 

 If in any one of the above cases, the disease 

 will soon appear, and the germs increase 

 with great rapidity, going from one little 

 cell to another, colony to colony of bees, 

 and then to all the neighboring apiaries, 

 thus soon leaving whole apiaries with only 

 diseased combs to inoculate others. The 

 Island of Syria in three years lost all of its 

 great apiaries from foul brood. Dzierzon, 

 in 1868; lost his entire apiary of 500 

 colonies. Cowan, the editor of the British 

 Bee Journal, recently wrote: "The only 

 visible hindrance to the rapid expansion 

 of the bee industry is the prev^alence of 

 foul brood, which is so rapidly spreading 

 over the country as to make bee-keeping 

 a hazardous occupation." 



Canada's foul brood inspector, in 1890 

 to 1892, reported 2,395 cases, and in a later 

 report for 1893 to 1898, that 40 per cent 

 of the colonies inspected were diseased. 

 Cuba is one of the greatest honey-pro- 

 ducing countries, and was lately reported 

 to me by a Wisconsin bee-keeper who has 

 been there, and will soon return to Wiscon- 

 sin: "So plentiful is foul brood in Cuba 

 that I have known whole apiaries to 

 dwindle out of existence from its ravages, 

 and hundreds more are on the same road 

 to sure and certain death. I, myself, 

 took, in 90 days in Cuba, 24,000 pounds 

 of fine honey from 100 colonies, but where 

 is that apiary and my other 150-colony 

 apairy? Dead from foul brood." Cuba, 

 in 1901, exported 4,795,600 pounds of 

 honey, and 1,022,897 pounds of beeswax. 



Cuba at present has laws to suppress 

 foul brood, and her inspector is doing all 

 possible to stamp the same from the 

 island. 



Even in Wisconsin I know of several 

 quite large piles of empty hives, where also 

 many other apiarici where said disease had 

 gotten a strong foothold. 



By the kindness of the Wisconsin bee- 

 keepers, and, in most cases, by their willing 

 assistance, I have, during the last five 

 years, gotten several counties free of the 

 disease, and at the present writing, March 

 12, 1902, have what there is in Wisconsin 

 under control and quarantined. This 

 dreadful disease is often imported into our 

 State from other States and countires, so 

 we may expect some new cases to develop 

 until all the States shall enact such laws 

 as will prevent further sipread of the same. 

 Arizona, New York (1899), California 

 (1891), Nebraska (1895), Utah (1892), 

 Colorado (1897), have county inspectors, 

 and Wisconsin (1897), and Michigan (1901) 

 have State inspectors. The present Wis- 

 consin law, after five years of testing and 

 rapid decrease of the disease, is considered 

 the best, and many other States are now 

 making efforts to secure a like law. 



There are several experimental apiaries 

 in Canada, under control of the Ontario 

 Agricultural College; also a few in the 

 United States, especially in Colorado, that 

 have done great work for the bee-keeping 

 industry, and their various published bul- 

 letins on the same are very valuable. The 

 Wisconsin State Bee-Keepers' Association 

 ha;» asked that an experimental apiary 

 might be had on the Wisconsin Experi- 

 mental Farm, but at present there are so 

 many departments asking for aid that I 

 fear it may be some time before bee-culture 

 will be taken up. 



CAUSES OF FOUL BROOD. 



1. Many writers claim foul brood origi- 

 nates from chilled or dead brood. 1^. 

 Howard, of Texas, one of the best practical 

 modern scientific experimenters, a man of 

 authority, has proven beyond a doubt that 

 chilled or common dead brook does not 

 produce foul brood. I have, in the last 



