no 



April, igii. 



American ^ee Journal 



in my estimation — Messrs. France and 

 McEvoy. 



Mr. France re-affirms his testimony 

 as quoted by me, that wherever cells 

 containing sealed brood or honey are 

 left in the combs, t:-e>i after disfyi/fclioii, 

 the disease re-appears. Mr. France's 

 truthfulness is above suspicion. In a 

 letter which urged the passage of an 

 Illinois law, he stated that foul brood 

 is now so nearly stamped out in Wis- 

 consin that he no longer needs the en- 

 tire appropriation allowed by the 

 State. He says that it is about as safe 

 to let foul brood alone as to let small- 

 pox work itself out. 



The statement of Mr. McEvoy is 

 most emphatic. This man, the oldest 

 foul brood inspector in the world, as 

 far as experience goes, is acknowledged 

 by all apiarists whom I have occasion 

 to meet among his acquaintances, as 

 the most successful foul-brood eradica- 

 tor in the country. He promises an 

 article on the subject, but this will 

 probably be delayed some time, so let 

 me give a letter which he wrote me 

 under date of March 1.5, 1911 : 



Friend Dadant:— I receivei your letter 

 of some days ago, calling my attention to an 

 article by Mr. Henry Stewart in the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal for ' February. loii. page 48. 

 i was astonished to see Mr. Stewart claim- 

 ing that his " bees remove the ropy matter 

 as well as the scales" of foul brood— a thing 

 that no bees in the world have ever done. 

 No bees will ever attempt to remove foul- 

 brood matter in its ropy state, and when the 

 foul-brood matter is drying down it glues 

 itself fast to the lower cell-wall and bottom 

 of the cell, and there it will remam as long 

 as the comb lasts. 



Honey in foul-brood colonies becomes dis- 

 eased through being stored in cells where 

 foul-brood matter has dried down, and all 

 the brood that is fed any of the honey taken 

 out of these diseased cells will die of foul 

 brood, and all the brood that is ever fed in 

 these corrupt cells dies of foul brood before 

 it gets to be days old. 



When foul brood once raged so badly in 

 the Province of Ontario. I found it spread in 

 many places through bee-keepers getting 

 combs from apiaries where all the colonies 

 had died of foul brood, and brought these 

 combs home, used them in their extracting 

 supers, and by sodoinggotfoul brood spread 

 all through their apiaries. Putting combs 

 with many cells of foul brood in them over 

 strong colonies during honey-flows, and 

 leaving them there until the bees fill them 

 with honey and seal every cell, only gives 

 the bees a good chance to cover the crust 

 of foul brood which they could not remove 

 on account of these crusts being glued fast 

 to the lower cell-walls. If I uncap these 

 combs, and put one each in the center of a 

 brood-chamber when a colony has brood in 

 it, I will spread the disease at once. 



Yours truly, W'M. McEvov. 



I return to the first suggestion that 

 I made. Mr. Stewart has probably had 

 pickled brood as well as foul brood, 

 and he has found the former cleaned 

 out and concluded that foul brood 

 could be thus cured. 



One credit I wish to give to Mr. 

 Henry Stewart. He has honestly re- 

 fused to co-operate with the 2 or 3 ob- 

 structionists who have tried to miscon- 

 strue our efforts in applying to the Illi- 

 nois legislature for laws concerning 

 bee-diseases. The editor of the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal, as well as some others, 

 are thoroughly indignant at the mis- 

 representations which have been made, 

 and which appear to have no object 

 but to prevent the majority of bee- 

 keepers from securing the legal help 

 they seek. 



At this date (March 11) we have 

 already secured the passage of the foul 

 brood bill in the Illinois Senate. We 

 have to thank the hundreds of bee- 



keepers who have flooded the State 

 House with urgent appeals to the mem- 

 bers of the legislature, and we can as- 

 sure them that if the measures fail, it 

 will be owing to the intricacies of 

 political fights, and not to any credit 

 on their part to the slanderous and 

 venomous letter written by a "dis- 

 gruntled kicker" to some of our repre- 

 sentatives. 



The bee-keepers are fully awake to 

 present conditions. The foul-brood 

 question is not going to be allowed to 

 sleep. It is of too serious a nature to 

 be kept down. It suffices only to at- 

 tend a meeting of bee-keepers in any 

 part of the land to realize the serious- 

 ness of it. But let none of our friends 

 become discouraged. We are as sure 

 to stamp out the disease within a few 

 years as the human has succeeded in 

 keeping Asiatic cholera out of civilized 

 and progressive countries. It will take 

 but a little more united effort. Illinois 

 is behind her sister States, but when 

 she comes to the front it will be with 

 the assurance of success. 



Hamilton, 111. 



[The following is the communicaton 

 referred to by Mr. Dadant, as having 

 been written by Mr. Pyles : — Editor.] 



Editor American Bee Journal:— I have 

 read the articles of Mr. Dadant and Mr. 

 Stewart concerning foul brood. I happen 

 to be personally informed concerning Mr. 

 Stewart's bees, by personal inspection, and 

 desire to say a word. 



Mr. Stewart says that he does not base his 

 auttiority on what some good author has 

 said on success and failure, but that he hsd 

 his system in operation on quite a large 

 scale for 5 years before he gave it to the 

 public. 



One of Mr. Stewart's neighbors, a man who 

 worked for him less than 3 years ago. him- 

 self a bee keeper of ability, says that when 

 he worked for Mr. Stewart, they treated the 

 bulk of the disease by the McEvoy plan, and 

 that he had given the Stewart plan a thor- 

 ough trial himself, and while they seemed to 

 get the combs fairly cleaned up. yet when 

 used for brood-rearing. /// cz'erv case foul brood 

 had reappeared, 



Mr. Stewart says his bees remove the 

 scales and the ropy matter. I visited Mr. 

 Stewart's apiary and examined the hives, 

 and after a month of treatment, a la Stewart, 

 I found that they had failed to do either. 



Dr. Phillips, of the Bureau of Entomology, 

 at 'Washington. D. C, told me that he had 

 found the spores of American foul brood in 

 the nicest kind of white honey in sections, 

 and that if said honey had been fed to larval 

 bees, in all probability the colonies so fed 

 would have contracted the disease. 



If such be the case, how is Mr. Stewart 

 going to remove the germs out of the honey, 

 even if he should finally get the scales re- 

 moved from the brood-combs? 



What I saw of Mr. Stewart's treatment 

 during mv trip of inspection as deputy, July 

 10, loio. leads me to believe that Mr. Stewart 

 is either wilfully mistaken, or is joking, and 

 doing great damage to our work of eradi- 

 cating foul brood. The editors of bee-papers 

 should refuse to publish such statements 

 that would have the effect of scattering 

 foul brood wholesale by every man who 

 tries such a treatment. I. E. Pvles. 



Putnam. 111.. March 1. 



[It seems to us that in view of the 

 statements made by Messrs. Pyles, Da- 

 dant, France, McEvoy, etc., it would 

 be unwise and useless to continue the 

 discussion on the line that bees cure 

 foul brood of themselves. Probably in 

 every such instance it wasn't the gen- 

 uine foul brood at all. And even if it 

 were the real article, it wouldn't be safe 

 to rely upon such questionable pro- 

 cedure any more than it would to allow 

 small-pox or other serious contagion 

 to care for itself. Better be done with 

 carelessness and guess-work when it 

 comes to foul brood, and get after it in 



a vigorous manner, through competent 

 bee-inspectors backed up by stringent 

 State laws, and rid the country of both 

 the foul-brood disease and those who 

 ignorantly or otherwise harbor it in 

 their apiaries. — Editor.] 



Winter Temperature for Bees 



BY DR. C. C. MILLER. 



On page 43, J. L. Byer reports that 

 Mr. Davison keeps his bee-cellar at 35 

 degrees as near as possible, and Mr. 

 Byer says : 



'"I doubt if bees are brought through in 

 better condition by any other man in .Amer- 

 ica, and when asked what he thinks about 

 the orthodox figure of 45 degrees for cellar 

 wintering, he invariably answers. 'All 

 bosh.' " 



Mr. Byer, if you can establish that 35 

 degrees is the desideratum, bee-keepers 

 by the thousand will rise up and call 

 you blessed. With all my heart I wish 

 you might prove that 35 is the best 

 figure. It would be worth many thou- 

 sands of dollars. But whatever my 

 wishes in the matter, my belief is that 

 if you were to proclaim 35 as the right 

 temperature, and should get all bee- 

 keepers to act upon it, a very large 

 number would rise up and call you — 

 well, not very blessed. 



While accepting 45 as perhaps as 

 near as we can get to the right figure 

 in general, I have repeatedly given this 

 advice: "Find out at what tempera- 

 ture bees are most quiet in your cellar, 

 and by your thermometer, and then try 

 to keep your cellar at thattemperature." 

 If Mr. Davison finds that his bees are 

 most quiet in his cellar by his ther- 

 mometer at 35, then by all means he is 

 right in considering -15 "all bosh " for 

 him, and he is right to try to maintain 

 35 degrees. 



But before adopting 35 as the right 

 temperature in general, it would be 

 well to inquire first as to Mr. Davison's 

 thermometer. In a bunch of a dozen 

 ordinary thermometers there may be 

 found a variation of perhaps 10 de- 

 grees. Do you know, Mr. Byer, that 

 his thermometer is correct ? 



If his thermometer proves correct, it 

 does not yet follow that the tempera- 

 ture for him is the best for all. " In 

 order to keep it as low as that it was 

 necessary to have a window open all 

 the time." I think that open window 

 makes no small difference. Little doubt 

 that with the fresh air from an open 

 window the bees will stand a lower 

 temperature than with a closed cellar. 

 But a cellar that needs a window open 

 all the time to keep the temperature 

 down to 35 degrees is hardly the aver- 

 age cellar. There are more cellars that 

 need the window closed all the time to 

 keep the temperature up to 35. Take a 

 cellar of that kind, and if the window 

 is open the temperature will be below 

 35 a good part of the time, and many 

 times so much below that Mr. Davison 

 would hardly consider it warm enough. 



In order to the best wintering, I sup- 

 pose we want to find the point of tem- 

 perature at which bees are quietest — 

 most nearly dormant. Above that point 

 activity will increase, and with greater 

 activity greater consumption of stores. 

 Below that point there must be greater 

 consumption of stores to keep up the 



