416 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



July 1 



ONE OF HENRY STEWART'S APIARIES AT PROPHETSTOWN, ILL. 



would exploit :iny thine of this kind unless it had 

 real merit. In a word, his general scheme involves 

 the principle of making sick colonies extra strong, 

 and saving all comtas, no matter how liadly dis- 

 eased. Apparentl.v. if a hive lias a large force of 

 young bees it may be ijossible for it to clean infec- 

 tion from combs that are fairly rotten with it. 



We are not so enthusiastic as to believe that Mr. 

 Stewart's method of cure is going to revolutionize 

 our methods of treatment for foul brood. So many 

 things have looked good in the past, apparently 

 were good, and turned out to he failuies after all, 

 that we confess that we are becoming more and 

 more conservative. For the pi'esent. at least, we 

 la.y this treatment before our readers with the hope 

 that many of them, who will be in position to do 

 so. will give it a tiial and reijort results. 



If we can save not only the bees, honey, and the 

 hives as well as the combs, and ,vet keep right on 

 liroducing a crop of honey, it will be worth millions 

 to the industry. A\'e therefore solicit a most care- 

 ful and unprejudiced reading of this and the article 

 that i,s to follow.— Kd.] 



-American foul brood can be cured with- 

 out the loss of a parlicle of healthy brood or 

 of a sinjrlc diseased com V), and without in- 

 terferinj; materially with tlie juoduction of 

 honey, a layiiifi; (jueen beiiifi on duty at all 

 times. Now, if I had read this a few years 

 ago I would luive doubted it; but I have had 

 considerable experience with the disease, 

 and I began with the orthodox treatment, 

 following the advice of the best authorities. 

 I shook the bees on foundation, melted uji 

 the combs, steamed the frames, and burned 

 out the hivesof hiindredsof colonies. When 

 the .\lexander treatment came out I had 

 much faith in it; and as soon as i)ossible I 

 selected several good strong colonies, remov- 

 ed the queens, and watched the results, ex- 

 pecting to re(|ueen, at the i)roper lime, on 

 healthy combs; Ijut the process of cleaning 

 up seemed to go on all right until the last 

 end, when, at the exi)iration of 2M days, the 

 evidence of the disease would be gone with 



the exception of a few scattering capi)ed-over 

 cells. I continued with some of these colo- 

 nies until they were reduced almost to nu- 

 clei, and yet they would not uncap and clean 

 up these cells. My next move was to take 

 some of these nearly cleaned-tij) combs, and 

 get them above ((ueen-excluding honey- 

 boards over strong colonies. I then found 

 that the combs were ([tiickly filled with hon- 

 ey, and the diseased cells cleaned tip. so that 

 all ai)pearance of the disease disai)i)eared. 

 Afterward I extracted the honey from the 

 combs and gave them to healthy colonies 

 to be tilled with brood, the result being 

 healthy combs. 



( )ne Sei)tember I discovered near the shoj) 

 in my home yard a (lucenless colony, weak 

 in bees, with the combs l)adly alTected with 

 foul brood. .\t the time I was taking off 

 honey, and, as usual, I remo\ ed the supers 

 with the bees in them and carried them to 

 the shop, letting the bees leave the combs 

 and pass out through exits in the screens 

 and so return to their hives. Frequently 

 there would be clusters of yoting bees that 

 would not find their way back; and to keep 

 up the strength of this one foul-broody col- 

 ony mentioned I often dumped these clus- 

 ters of young bees in front of the entrance, 

 ex])ecting to destroy the combs later and 

 give the bees to some colony which needed 

 them. This, however, was neglected, and a 

 little later I went to Massachusetts with a 

 carload of honey and was gone several weeks. 

 When T returned T expected to render those 

 fotil-broody combsof thisone colony at once; 

 but. to my stiri)rise, the brood was perfectly 

 healthy. These same combs that were ai- 

 most filled with disease were now cleaned 

 up. Therefore, instead of consigning the 



