230 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Mar. 24, 1904. 



powered to appoint assistant foul brood inspectors in the dif- 

 ferent divisions of the State. 



Motion [jrevailed. 



On motion, adjourned sine die. 



J AS. A. Stone, Sec. 



At the close of the meeting the Secretary forwarded all 

 the names of the members to the National Bee-Keepers' Asso- 

 ciation, and they were duly acknowledged as members of thi^ 

 same. J. A. S. 





Contributed Articles 





No. 1 -FOUL BROOD. 



Something- About Its Development in the Col- 

 ony, Its Manag-ement, and Methods of 

 Treating- It. 



BY R. C. AIKIN. 



THIS disease is one of the most dreaded in the list. That 

 it is a bad one cannot be denied, but ignorance of its 

 methods of growth and development, and the means of 

 contagion by which it spreads, makes of it a much worse 

 enemy than it should be. Having seen and handled much 

 of it, I will give some of my observations and conclusions 

 to aid and guard those who have not, so far, been hard up 

 against the foul thing in their experience. 



This disease cannot develop in any colony that does not 

 have the contagion somehow placed in it, and it is simple 

 foolishness to talk of foul brood coming from chilled brood, 

 or any other kind of brood or disease ; just as well expect to 

 grow corn from wheat, or apples from potatoes, as to get 

 foul brood from a dirty hive, old combs, lack of ventilation, 

 or anything except the foul-brood seed planted in its medium 

 of growth — and that medium is the body of a larval bee. I do 

 not mean that it can not grow in something else besides a 

 growing larva ; our chemists grow it in the laboratory, but 

 they plant in the medium or soW, foul brood seed. 



Let the reader understand that I am not discussing this 

 question as a scholar and learned scientist, but as one who 

 has had to do with it in the apiary, battling with it at close 

 range. When it comes to handling it in the laboratory, and 

 cultivating it, studying it under a glass, and as our college 

 professors and scientists do, I have no experience whatever ; 

 but 1 take their work and conclusions as to what the disease 

 is, whether animal or vegetable growth, and its form and 

 manner of reproducing, then continue its study under 

 natural conditions, such as we are liable sooner or later to 

 have to meet. Let me again affirm that this disease is a 

 thing of itself, and does not come from nothing or from 

 some other disease. 



It is, according to our scientists, an animal growth. Its 

 natural soil in which it thrives and grows is the body of a 

 larval bee. I often describe it to bee-keepers as an infantile 

 disease among bees, likening it to scarlet fever, diphtheria, 

 croup, and such-like in the human family — diseases attack- 

 ing the young, and, like them, must be planted in its kind to 

 reproduce. 



How, then, is a colony to become infected with foul 

 brood ? I firmly believe that only through the food can the 

 disease be contracted, and have arrived at these conclusions 

 from many evidences, and I will here give quite a list of 

 them, all coming under my own observation, and also cor- 

 roborated by many others' experience. 



SOME FOUL BROOD OBSERVATIONS. 



A colony foul to very foul, may stand side by side with a 

 healthy one for two years ; the one remains foul to extinc- 

 tion, and the other healthy all the time. A colony will have 

 foul brood in a brood-nest to one side of the hive, and when 

 the combs on that side become so foul that brood can scarcely 

 be developed at all, will move to the other side of the brood- 

 chamber and start a new brood-nest, and get a new lease of 

 life that may prolong their existence from a few months to 

 even a whole year. A diseased colony may have all combs 

 removed and new frames put in the same hive, with starters, 

 the colony proceeding to build comb and be and remain 



healthy from that time on. One comb in a colony may be 

 fairly rotten with the disease, even to half the brood in it 

 dead, while the comb next to it will scarcely have any dead 

 in it. A two-story hive may have in one part a filthy, rot- 

 ten mass so contaminated that if the colony were confined 

 to that part would soon perish because of inability to mature 

 brood, but by moving to the other chamber may get up a 

 fairly strong colony, and even put up a good stock of sur- 

 plus honey. 



• I expect many will think, and possibly say, that this is 

 the worst kind of heresy ; but they are facts nevertheless, 

 and just what I have seen, and so have others. In this 

 country, where bees and honey are made a special business 

 by many, and not so much a small side-issue as with very 

 many in the East, observations come to us in no mean pro- 

 portion, sometimes. Those who are constantly in contact 

 with large numbers of colonies day in and day out — and, we 

 might say, year in and year out — get a much fuller and 

 more conclusive observation than does the man with the 

 few colonies and a host of other business. Nevertheless, 

 some of the smaller bee-keepers with their few colonies and 

 plenty of time to think and observe, may, and do, find out 

 some of the things that we more extensive and busy men do 

 not have time to get into ; the lesser lights are not to hide 

 their light, as they can give us facts that may be of much 

 help to us to apply in a larger and extensive practice. A 5- 

 colony apiary may show what seems to be a valuable fact 

 or principle ; the same being called to the attention of all 

 can be much more quickly and fully tried and demonstrated 

 in a multitude of colonies where greater variety of condi- 

 tions and material are at hand upon which to observe and 

 practice. But, I am wandering. 



HOW, THEN, DOES DISEASE SPREAD ? 



If you take a comb having the disease in it, that is, the 

 spores or germs, and put it into a colony, that colony will 

 very soon have it, and once a colony is foul (Mr. Editor, put 

 this in capitals or print with red ink) IT IS FOUL TO 

 STAY, UNTIL CURED BY TREATMENT OR UNTIL 

 THE COLONY IS EXTINCT. Once a colony is infected 

 with foul brood it will never let go till that colony is dead, 

 and when dead, there is enough infection in that one hive 

 to fix that whole county or State, if the infection can be dis- 

 tributed and planted in its elements — the inside of a larval 

 bee. I have once or twice had cases — rather, two or three 

 cases — in which I thought I found the beginning of foul 

 brood, but it did not continue. I do not recall more than two 

 or three cases in hundreds, and not a single case where 

 there was a goodly number of cells foul, say as much as a 

 dozen. 



If, then, it be true that in a hive having combs almost 

 rotten, and right beside it one almost free from the disease, 

 we may conclude that foul brood spores are not floating 

 everywhere like so much dust in the air, not even in a hive 

 with plenty of contagion in it; but my experience shows 

 that the spores are transmitted, and once in their element 

 they are certain to work. 



As I understand the development of the disease — I 

 gather these ideas from the scientists — it can be made clear 

 to us common people in the growth of our grains. Put a 

 grain of wheat into soil with moisture and heat, and it is 

 soon a growing plant feeding on the elements in the soil. 

 In feeding, the plant exhausts the soil, or takes out part of 

 its elements and weakens it. The green, growing plant is 

 very easily killed or injured by frost, or any antagonistic 

 force, whatever it may be. So, the spore or seed of foul 

 brood is the ripe seed or kernel ; this seed may lay covered, 

 as it were, in its granary of honey, or massed in the black 

 matter in the bottom of the cell, and how long it may stay 

 there, and just what extremes it will stand and still retain 

 its vitality, we do not know, but it is there as the wheat, 

 just waiting to get a chance. Planted, this spore grows in 

 its element, which is the body of a larval bee, taking from 

 the bee as the growing grain does from the soil — feeding — 

 and so takes the bee-life ; the tender, growing thing is, com- 

 paratively speaking, subject to destruction as is the green 

 wheat, but again it has gone to seed, and it may lie in the 

 granary another month or year of waiting. 



What, then, is more simple than that when a bee takes 

 honey from the comb having these minute seeds in it, it 

 should take with the honey someof the seeds and plant them 

 in a larva with the food ? The infant bee simply eats its 

 death by taking into its stomach the spore of the disease. 



I am quite fully convinced that there will be but very 

 few cases of this disease except where the contagion has 

 been transferred from one colony to another in the food fed 

 to the young. I believe that a colony may carry into its hive 



