680 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Oct. 24, 1901. 



spores were present and the bees would 

 carry it into the cell where there was 

 a larva. Isn't that a case where the 

 disease could develop ? 



Mr. McEvoy— Certainly. 



Mr. Hershiser — Sometimes we are 

 working with a hive where we do not 

 give them the opportunity to secure 

 the honey. Suppose they take the 

 honey that is running down the side of 

 a hive, and take it into a cell where 

 there is a larva, wouldn't that com- 

 municate the disease ? 



Mr. McEvoy-~Ninety-nine parts out 

 of a hundred of it are pure. 



Pres. Root — As I understand Mr. 

 McEvoy, where he speaks of a small 

 portion of the honey being diseased his 

 recommendation is that all the combs 

 or wax be burnt. In order to be sure, 

 he considers it safe to burn every 

 comb. 



Mr. McEvoy — Yes, sir. every comb. 



Dr. Mason — I have had a good deal 

 of experience with foul brood, and I do 

 not exactly agree with Mr. McEvoy 

 because he is the best authority we 

 have on earth. I do not consider it ad- 

 visable, in my experience, to take foul- 

 broody bees, comts, etc., out of a hive 

 and use that hive without disinfecting. 

 I would not do it. You may lift a 

 frame out of there witli the greatest of 

 care and crush a bee with foul-broody 

 honey in it and leave it there, and when 

 it is so easily disinfected, I don't see 

 why it should not be done; but if a hive 

 has foul-broody honey on it, or in it 

 anywhere, it is a foul-broody hive and 

 needs disinfecting, and even Mr. Mc- 

 Evoy will admit that. 



Dr. Miller— I want to ask Mr. Mc- 

 Evoy if he ever tried using a hive 

 again that had had foul-broody bees 

 in it. 



Mr. McEvoy— Oh, thousands of them. 



Dr. Miller— I would like to knovp defi- 

 nitely. I want to know something 

 definite in numbers. Did you ever have 

 half a dozen hives used in that way, or 

 how many ? Give us something defi- 

 nite about it. 



Mr. McEvoy — I don't know, I sup- 

 pose I could put it safely at 5,000. 



Dr. Miller— Of that 5,000 how many 

 of them ever succeeded in giving the 

 disease ? 



Mr. McEvoy — Not one, that I ever 

 knew. Not a single case, that I ever 

 knew. 



Dr. Miller— Now. if in 5,000 cases 

 that you have tried there has not been 

 a single failure. I am willing to take 

 what risk there is. 



Pres. Root — After I had learned of 

 Mr. McEvoy's experience, in which he 

 had tested something like three or four 

 thousand hives at that time, I con- 

 cluded that we would try to cure the 

 disease without boiling the hives, and 

 ever since that time we have found 

 that we could cure it just the satne 

 without boiling the hive. Some years 

 ago, when we had the disease all 

 through our apiary, we boiled all our 

 hives, but we left about 10 of them and 

 thought we would see what would re- 

 sult. I think that tRere were four or 

 five out of the ten that we left that had 

 the disease, but I have thought since 

 that that experiment did not amount 

 to anything, in view of what Mr. Mc- 

 Evoy says that he has tried it in 5,000 

 cases. 



Mr. Hershiser — I would like to ask 

 how many of those apiaries have been 

 treated more than once, and how many 

 times those apiaries have been treated 

 that have had foul brood ? 



Mr. McEvoy — That is a close ques- 

 tion, and it is all right. You know it 

 is one thing to handle a disease and it 

 is quite another thing to handle the 

 men. Some men would make a perfect 

 cure, others, again, you would have to 

 go to several times, and it is just how 

 they do the work. Some of them will 

 blunder once in a while, but it isn't the 

 hive; they don't do their work: they 

 often put it like this. "Well, how long 

 will I boil the hive? " Now, that de- 

 pends upon how long you intend to 

 boil the bees; surely, you are not going 

 to do one without the other. Are you 

 going to take these bees that have 

 walked all over the putrid eggs, with 

 their dirty little feet, without boiling 

 them ? If you are going to boil the 



hive half an hour. I think you ought to 

 boil the bees an hour 1 And I don't 

 know a place in Ontario where they 

 boil now. 



Dr. Mason — Foul-broody hives need 

 disinfecting just as surely as do foul- 

 broody bees, and they can as surely, 

 and more easily, be disinfected with- 

 out boiling than can bees. 



Pres. Root — Perhaps it ought to be 

 stated in this connection that Thomas 

 William Cowan, and quite a number of 

 scientists across the water, feel that it 

 is very necessary to disinfect the hives, 

 but, as I have stated, we haven't disin- 

 fected our hives since, and we haven't 

 had any trouble. 



Dr. Mason — You haven't had foul- 

 broody hives, then. 



Dr. Miller — It seemed to me that it 

 was a foolhardy piece of business for 

 Mr. McEvoy to insist that there was no 

 necessity fordisinfecting. forit seemed 

 to me there must be plenty of spores, 

 but if you come to think about it, what 

 is going to take those spores where 

 they can do any harm ? And the fact 

 remains that if he has had so many 

 cases, and inozcs that no evil results 

 have come from them, we ought to be 

 able to go on and do what he has done. 



W. H. Heim, of Pennsylvania — I 

 should like to know whether those are 

 the only two remedies for the disease — 

 by burning the combs or boiling ? 



Mr. McEvoy — Do you mean that you 

 think that they can be disinfected? 



Mr. Heim — Yes. 



Mr. McEvoy — You can use the disin- 

 fectant till those combs will fairly 

 smoke, and you try them over again 

 and it will break out. 



Pres. Root— I talked with Mr Gem- 

 mill and one of the other inspectors, 

 and asked if his experience coincided 

 with Mr. McEvoy's, and he said it did. 



A Member — Do I understand Mr. 

 McEvoy that the combs should be 

 burned up, or made into wax ? 



Mr. McEvoy — I think they ought to 

 be all turned into wax, and if made 

 into comb foundation it is all right, too. 

 fContinued next week.] 



I Contributed Articles. 



Ants Fighting Bees— A Colorado Experience. 



BY D. W. WORKING. 



(Small ante often make their nests about hives, to have the bene- 

 fit of their warmth. They are annoying to the apiarist, but neither 

 molest the bees nor are molested by them. — Dadant's Langstroth, 1900 

 edition, page 476.) 



YESTERDAY I went out to look at a beehive where I 

 had often noticed black ants running about as if they 

 were perfectly at home. There were the ants, as usual, 

 going in and out of the hive and climbing up some other way 

 — whether to help themselves to honey or just for the fun of 

 the thing, I may not say. Possibly their object was to get 

 the benefit of the warmth of the hive. The day was fairly 

 warm and sunny for early October in this land of sunshine. 

 Comparatively few bees were passing in and out of the hive. 

 I went out to look, as I have said. I did more; I got down 

 on my knees to watch, for there seemed to be some excite- 

 ment. 



Watching quietl}', as is advisable when you are close 

 enough to see bees and ants "shake their fists" at each 

 other, I saw what made me feel sure of a thing I had be- 



fore suspected — that everything you may read in a book is 

 not absolutely true because it happens to be in that particu- 

 lar book. There were the ants actually molesting the bees. 

 Of course the bees were not "molesting" the ants; for an 

 uninvited and unwelcome intruder is not "molested " even 

 when you kick him out of doors for trying to carry off your 

 property. My bees evidently did not like the assurance of 

 the ants, and it appeared to me as if they were trying to put 

 them out of the hive. 



Now, what do you suppose these visiting old-maid ants 

 did when they were told at the door that it was not " com- 

 pany day " at that house? Did they make their apologies 

 and go liome? Not they. They actually insisted on going 

 in, as if the hives were a post-office and not a private dwel- 

 ling. When a bee opposed the entrance of one of these bold 

 intruders, she would rise on her hind feet in offended dig- 

 nity, as much as to say, "Would you get in the way of a 

 lady? " And when the bee answered that the queen's house 

 was to be entered only by those having special invitations, 

 this six-legged Amazon actually attacked the guard and 

 drove it back. The same ant would attack several bees in 

 succession, never seeming to be afraid of the sting of the 

 bees or of their buzzing or scolding. Indeed, it seemed that 

 it was not possible for the bees to injure the ants. 



Of course I did not like the insolence of these brazen fe- 

 males. To force their way into my bee-hive was to insult 

 me. Indeed. I suspect that their purpose was robbery. So 

 I picked up the hive and set it a foot or so away from its 

 place. Then there was excitement in antdom. On the bare 

 ground where the hive had stood was a pile of pupa; lants' 

 eggs) looking like a handful of barley-grains, which the 



