THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



389 



destructive durin<j the spring' and 

 early summer, often almost disappear- 

 ing in late summer and auamin. 



The treatment for both American 

 foul brood and European foul brood is 

 practically the same. It is impossible 

 to give minute directions to cover every 

 case, but care and common sense will 

 enable anj' bee-keeper successfully to 

 fight diseases of brood. 



Drugs Drugs, either to be given 

 directl}' in food or to be used for fumi- 

 gating^ combs, can not be recommended 

 for either of these diseases. 



Shaking Tkkatmknt — To cure a 

 colony of either form of foul brood it is 

 necessarj' first to remove from the hive 

 all of the infected material. This is 

 done by shaking the bees into a clean 

 hive or clean frames with small strips 

 of comb foundation, care being taken 

 that infected honey does not drop from 

 the infected combs. The healthy brood 

 in the infected combs may be saved, 

 provided there is enough to make it 

 profitable, by piling up combs from 

 several infected hives on one of the 

 weakest of diseased colonies After a 

 week or ten days all the brood which 

 is worth saving will have hatched out, 

 at which time all these combs should 

 be removed and the colony treated. In 

 the case of box hives or skeps the bees 

 maj' be drummed out into another box 

 or preferably into a hive with movable 

 frames. Box hives are hard to inspect 

 for disease and are a menace to all 

 other bees in the neighborhood in a 

 region where disease is present. 



The shaking of the bees from combs 

 should be done at a time when the 

 other bees in the apiary will not rob 

 and thus spread disease, or under 

 cover. This can be done safely in the 

 evening after bees have ceased to fly, 

 preferably during a good honey flow. 

 Good care should be exercised to keep 

 all infected material away from other 

 bees until it can be completely de- 

 stroyed or the combs rendered into 

 wax. Wax from diseased colonies 

 should be rendered by some means in 

 which high heating is used, and not 

 with a solar wax extractor. The 

 honey from a diseased colony should 

 be diluted to prevent burning and then 

 thoroughly sterilized by hard boiling 

 for at least half an hour, if it is to be 

 fed back to the bees. If the hive 

 is again used, it should be very 

 thoroughly cleaned, and special care 

 should betaken that no infected honey 

 or comb be left in the hive. 



It is frequently necessary to repeat 

 the treatment by shaking the bees onto 

 fresh foundation in new frames after 

 four or five days. The bee-keeper or 

 inspector must determine whether this 

 is necessary, but when there is any 

 doubt it is safer to repeat the ojiera- 

 tion rather than run the risk of rein- 

 fection. If repeated, the first new 

 combs should be destroyed. To pre- 

 vent the bees from deserting the strips 

 of foundation the queen may be caged 

 in the hive or a queen-excluding zinc 

 put at the entrance. 



Treatment WITH Bek-P:scapk The 

 shaking- treatment may be modified so 

 that instead of shaking the bees from 

 the combs the hive is moved from its 

 stand, and in its place a clean hive 

 with frames and foundation is set. 

 The queen is at once transferred to the 

 new hive, and the field bees fly there 

 when they next return from the field. 

 The infected hive is then placed on top 

 of or close beside the clean hive and a 

 bee-escape placed over the entrance of 

 the hive containing disease so that the 

 younger bees and those wich later 

 emerge from the cells may leave the 

 hive but cannot return. They there- 

 fore join the colony in the new hive. 



Fall Treatment If it is desirable 

 to treat a colony so late in the fall 

 that it would be impossible for the bees 

 to prepare for winter, the treatment 

 may be modified by shaking- the bees 

 onto combs with plenty of honey for 

 winter. This will be satisfactory only 

 after brood rearing- has entirely ceased. 

 In such cases disease rarely re- 

 appears. 



In the Western States, where Ameri- 

 can foul brood is particularl}- virulent, 

 it is desirable thoroughl3' to disinfect 

 the hive by burning the inside or by 

 chemical means before using it again. 

 This is not always practiced in the 

 Eastern States, where the disease is 

 much milder. Some persons recom- 

 mend boiling the hives or disinfecting 

 them with some relialile disinfectant 

 such as carbolic acid or corrosive sub- 

 limate. It is usually not profitable to 

 save frames because of their compara- 

 tively small value, but if desired the^- 

 may be disinfected. Great care should 

 be exercised in cleaning- an3- appa- 

 ratus. It does not pay to treat very 

 weak colonies. They should either be 

 destroyed at once or several weak ones 

 be united to make one which is strong- 

 enough to build up. 



Recently some new "cures" have 



