326 



THE SEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



LL HONEY NOT CON- 

 TAMINATED IN A 

 FOUL BROODY COL- 

 ONY. BY ELMER 

 TODD. 



^^ ^^ ^^ 



Friend Hutchinson — 

 Back numbers of the 

 Review have been re- 

 ceived and contents 

 partly digested. I am 

 specially pleased with C. A. Huff's article 

 on foul brood, and have ordered galvan- 

 ized iron to line a room lo x 5 x 8, and 

 am going to give the formalin method a 

 thorough test next summer. 



I have been experimenting with foul 

 brood with a view to saving all I could 

 with safety from a diseased colony, hop- 

 ing to eventually save all the combs if 

 possible without having to render them 

 apart, and am very glad if Mr. Huff has 

 solved the problem. 



Some of my experiments have turned 

 out well and niight be of interest to some 

 of the readers of the Review, so I give 

 the following: While working with dis- 

 eased colonies my observation has led me 

 to believe that not all the honey in the 

 combs of a diseased colony is of necessity 

 contaminated, and that unfinished sec- 

 tions from such a colony are not very 

 likely to be a source of contagion when 

 placed on a healthy colony, and this sum- 

 mer I concluded to test the matter as 

 fully as my supply of material and time 

 would permit. 



In making my annual clean up of foul 

 brood ( I perhaps ought to explain here 

 that I am so located that I have a fresh 

 supply brought in every fall and spring 

 by robbers) I left five strong colonies for 

 experimental purposes, those which I 

 knew the foul brood would not injure for 

 honey gathering this season even though 

 they were not freed from the disease. 

 Two of them I had inoculated b}' using 

 diseased combs which I had tried to reno- 

 vate, but not by the formalin method. 

 At the opening of the clover-flow, they 



had just a few cells of diseased brood, 

 the worst one having pronably not over 

 50 diseased cells in a brood nest of 12 L. 

 frames of brood. They all swarmed on 

 their first case of sections and I prepared 

 hives for the swarms on your plan of fur- 

 nishing the brood chambers with frames 

 having only narrow starters of founda- 

 tion, placing a queen-excluding zinc on 

 the frames and then the case of unfinish- 

 ed sections from the parent colony on 

 top of that. 



Now, if foul brood is in all the honey 

 from a diseased colony, then all those 

 swarms ought to have developed the dis- 

 ease in some of the first brood reared, be- 

 cause from the very start they had free 

 access to the partly filled sections from 

 the diseased parent colonies. They were 

 hived in June, and all through the sum- 

 mer and up to the present time they have 

 not shown the first symptom of the dis- 

 ease. 



After allowing the swarms a month's 

 time and seeing no symptoms of the dis- 

 ease, I then gave unfinished sections from 

 diseased colonies of last season to three 

 clean colonies, and up to date they show 

 no diseased brood. If foul brood is in 

 all the honey from a diseased colony, to 

 what do these colonies owe their immun- 

 ity? 



In the case of the swarms it (the dis- 

 ease) was not in the sections, nor in the 

 honey sacs of the bees composing the 

 swarm, or else immunity from disease 

 was due to the conditions under which 

 they were hived, which were as follows: 

 A large swarm ( during a slow but steady 

 honey flow) hived on starters in the 

 brood nest with drawn comb above a 

 queen-excluder. The bees must have 

 stored into the sections all the honey 

 they brought with them, or else used it 

 up in comb-building before there was 

 any brood to feed, but as the field fur- 

 nished ample supplies, they fed no honey 

 from the sections, but, instead, kept on 

 storing in them. 



When using the unfinished sections 

 from last year, they were put on three 



