308 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 15. 



spring but two colonies showed slight indica- 

 tions of foul brood, and were again transferred. 

 If I had known of drugs as a preventive, per- 

 haps not even that much would have reappear- 

 ed. 



" An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of 

 cure," said one of our Denver bee-keepers, re- 

 ferring to foul brood; and every one who has 

 had it among his bees will say amen. The 

 question becomes doubly important when we 

 reflect that, as Mr. Getaz suggests, whatever 

 cures foul brood will probably cure paralysis, 

 and therefore prevent it. No, sir: we can not 

 go back on drugs yet. I move that the bee- 

 papers change their attitude in this respect. 



Arvada, Colo., Mar. 4. 



[I sincerely wish there were a reliable drug 

 cure; and I shall be only too glad if such has 

 been found. 



I believe I never said that carbolic and sali- 

 cylic acid would not cure; but the former, at 

 least, seemed to do no good in our case. I tried 

 (or, rather, a college jfriend for me) carbolic 

 acid diluted according to Cheshire. A quantity 

 of this mixture was introduced into test-tubes 

 containing pure cultures (i. e.. the growing 

 germs of foul brood in beef-gelatine). Did it 

 kill them? Not at all. 



Every one, so far as I know, has been success- 

 ful with the mere starvation (or foundation 

 and clean hive) plan; but very few by the drug 

 plan; hence I have recommended the former. 



I am not opposed to the drugs, and I sincerely 

 hope that the time will come when we all shall 

 be able to use them with satisfaction, because 

 it will be far cheaper. Perhaps you will be in- 

 terested in the foUowins: very readable article 

 from Mr. Gravenhorst: but don't forget to note 

 that he says foul brood will go ofif many times 

 of itself. If he is correct, and I think he is, it is 

 easy to explain some of the drug cures. — Kd.] 



LYSOL 



ITS USE AS A CURE FOR FOUL BROOD; CRUDE 



CARBOLIC ACID PREFESiRED TO THE 



REFINED. 



By C. J. H. Oravenhorst. 



Referring to a report from Germany, where a 

 Mr. Fulde has cured foul brood by means of a 

 new disinfectant, lysol. Dr. C. D. Miller asked 

 in Gleanings, page 88. "What's lysol? and will 

 it work as well in the English language as in 

 the German?" The editor remarks thereon: 

 " I should be interested, also, in knowing 

 whether the disease stayed away. Perhaps Mr. 

 Gravenhorst will answer the question." 



Yes, I will answer the question according to 

 the best information I can get. I have not 

 tried lysol, because I did not know of it before 

 September of last year. 



The new disinfectant has been manufactured 

 for a few years by Schi'ilke it Mayr, at Ham- 

 burg, Germany. They produced it from coal- 

 tar. It has a brown color, and smells like tar. 

 In Germany it is to be had in every drugstore, 

 and perhaps in America also. Mr. Fulde pur- 

 chased a bottle of lysol for 2} .3 cents, and there- 

 with cured his bees, which were badly infected 



with foul brood. He took ten pounds of sugar- 

 syrup, boiled and skimmed it, and mixed it up 

 with 24 drops of lysol and 4 drops of carbolic 

 acid. He gave a colony a soup-plate full of this 

 food. After three days he found the sick larvte 

 dry in their cells, and in a lapse of three weeks 

 not a trace of foul brood was to be found in his 

 colonies. They were sound, and did swarm. 

 Later he has fed lysol in the same way, partic- 

 ularly in the spring, to protect his bees against 

 foul brood. He never saw a trace of it again. 



That's all I know about lysol. I hope some 

 of the German and American bee-keepers will 

 try the new disinfectant. It would be a great 

 benefit to bee-keeping if lysol should prove to 

 be a remedy for such a rapidly spreading disease 

 as foul brood. Then it would be a trifle for 

 every one to cure the malady himself. How- 

 ever, I confess that I do not have such confi- 

 dence in lysol as Mr. Fulde has. Experienced 

 bee-keepers in Germany, and I myself, too, are 

 of the opinion that the disease will disappear, 

 oftentimes, without any cure other than a good 

 honey-flow, when good sound honey is coming 

 in, and that most of the remedies tried in such 

 cases did not cure foul brood at all. The good 

 honey-flow only, did it, nothing more. Hun- 

 dreds of remedies have been recommended, but, 

 when tried, they would not work as was 

 claimed. May be that, in one or the other case, 

 the remedy was not used as it should have been ; 

 but I think most of the recommended remedies 

 are worthless, and rest upon illusion. 



On account of the importance of the matter, 

 it may not be out of the way to report concern- 

 ing a disinfectant that I have used nearly 

 twenty years, with such resu>ts, that, for my 

 part, I hold the foul brood question as fully 

 solved. I have had to fight hard against foul 

 brood, as I resided in Brunswick, and, later, 

 here in Wilsnack; but I have never lost one 

 colony by it. I had to guard my apiaries 

 against neighboring bees infected with foul 

 brood, in apiaries only a thousand paces, or less 

 than half a mile, distant. Well, it was a very 

 bad position for myself; but I have fought it 

 out. In a few cases, where the neighboring 

 apiaries were lost by foul brood, I have found 

 in some of my hives slight traces of the disease. 

 However, they disappeared swiftly by my treat- 

 ment. I used, and have used till to-day, al- 

 though I have not at present any apiaries near 

 by that are infected with foul brood, carbolic 

 acid — not the refined article you get at the 

 drugstore in the shape of white crystals, but 

 black and unrefined carbolic acid, which is in- 

 termingled with coal-tar, and mostly used as 

 paint. Refined carbolic acid is too strong, and 

 the sanative power of the tar is absent in it. I 

 am of the opinion that just the tar, in connec- 

 tion with the carbolic acid, has much to do in 

 the cure of foul brood, as Dr. Preuss said. 

 He was the first bee-keeper who studied 

 foul brood. This opinion is confirmed by 



