1895 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



557 



HOW TO GET RID OF FOTJL BROOD. 



THE FOUNDATION PLAN EXPENSIVE ; A PLEA 



FOR THE PHENOL TREATMENT; DO 



QUEENS CARRY THE INFECTION? 



By Wm. F. Clarke. 



I consider this the most important practical 

 question at present before bee-keepers, and I 

 should like to say a few words in reference to 

 some editorial remarks on the subject in last 

 issue of Gleanings, page 537. I hardly think 

 the suggestion that intelligent and progressive 

 bee-keepers offer to furnish foundation, frames, 

 and new hives to owners of foul-broody stocks, 

 is at all likely to be carried into general effect. 

 What a wealthy firm can do in this line is 

 no rule for individuals who are keeping bees on 

 a limited scale. It seems to me that what is 

 necessary in order to secure a riddance of this 

 fell disease is, first, to find some cheap and easy 

 method of cure; secondly, to find an effectual 

 preventive ; and, thirdly, to thoroughly dis- 

 seminate a knowledge of the means of preven- 

 tion and cure among bee-keepers. 



What Is now generally known as the McEvoy 

 cure is too costly for general adoption. The 

 expense per colony is about as follows: Two 

 sets of frames, one set of starters, and one set of 

 full sheets of foundation, from SI. 25 to $1.50. 

 If the suggestion made in Gleanings is fol- 

 lowed, the cost of a new hive must be added, 

 say $1, making K.aO. The work can be satis- 

 factorily done only during the honey-harvest, 

 and consequently it involves a loss of all sur- 

 plus that season. For this item add $5, making 

 a total of ?7.50 per colony. 



When I started my present apiary, which 

 was certificated by the Foul-brood Inspector as 

 perfectly healthy, I had a bee-keeping neigh- 

 bor whose apiary consisted of 80 colonies which 

 were known and admitted by him to be foul- 

 broody. The inspector chalked 14 of those 

 hives to be burned, and ordered the remainder 

 treated on the costly method above mentioned. 

 By the time the work was done the apiary was 

 reduced to 40 stocks. This reduction of stocks 

 adds another and a large item to the cost. 



Gleanings deserves commendation for the 

 full information it has given its readers con- 

 cerning various methods of drug cure and pre- 

 vention. It is, I am persuaded, along this line 

 that we are to work out the general salvation 

 from foul brood. 



I have been greatly astonished at the fail- 

 ures reported by bee-keepers who have tried 

 the Cheshire recipe; but a long and painful 

 experience has taught me the secret of this 

 general failure. It has resulted from the re- 

 fusal of the bees to take the medicated syrup. 

 I have not met with one case in which a bee- 

 keeper has I'eported failure after the bees had 

 taken, stored, and fed upon phenolated syrup. 

 Mr. Cheshire virtually predicted this failure. 

 He said in Vol. II., page .562, of his great work: 



" Ligurians refused the food, and succumbed to 

 the disease." * * * " To place the food with 

 added phenol, on the hive, will, however, do 

 nothing in the greater number of cases. If 

 honey be coming in, the bees will not touch it; 

 but open the stocks, remove the brood-combs, 

 and pour the medicated syrup into these cells 

 immediately around and over the brood, and 

 the bees ivill use a curative quantity of phenol." 

 As I read these directions I gathered that the 

 bees would use a curative quantity administer- 

 ed in the above manner, even when honey was 

 coming in. But I could not succeed in making 

 them do it. However, I subsequently discover- 

 ed a couple of wrinkles which I am very 

 anxious to make known, in order that bee- 

 keepers may experiment in view of them. The 

 first is to feed the phenolated syrup at a time 

 when there is absolutely no honey coming in. 

 Take advantage of the period of complete 

 cessation of nectar-yielding, when the bees are 

 ravenous for food, and are like a hungry man 

 who will not be particular to get quail-on-toast, 

 and other epicurian dishes. 



The second wrinkle is to take care not to 

 medicate the syrup too strongly with phenol. 

 I overlooked in my first trials this pregnant 

 sentence: " ^Jn dispatched the bacillus quickly 

 when honey was coming in, and ^Jj when it 

 was not." I found that, even in a time of 

 scarcity, the bees refused the ^J^ decoction, and 

 I kept diluting the syrup until they took it free- 

 ly. I do not wish to " holler until I am out of 

 the wood," and I am not yet prepared to tell 

 fully "what I know "of foul brood; but I do 

 not want to delay until another season at least 

 a partial detail of my experience. The present 

 season is so unfavorable that considerable 

 feeding will have to be done this fall; and I 

 want to say to bee-keepers who know or sus- 

 pect that they have foul brood, do your feeding 

 not later than August, and medicate your 

 sugar syrup with phenol anywhere between the 

 ^Jn (t'^d the yI^. It is my firm belief, which it 

 will take a large amount of rebutting evidence 

 to shake, that, if these rules are strictly follow- 

 ed, Cheshire's recipe will cure any case of foul 

 brood that is curable. I believe, too, that the 

 same prescription will be an effectual prevent- 

 ive. The cost of the phenol is a mere baga- 

 telle, and need not be made a.ccount of at all. 



There is a great deal more I could say on this 

 subject; but " my time is not yet." Longfellow 

 says in his Psalm of Life, " Learn to labor and 

 to wait," which is what I am trying to do. 

 There is only one thing more I feel it necessary 

 to say now, and that is this: I am afraid your 

 confidence in the safety of taking queens out of 

 foul-broody hives, and introducing them into 

 healthy ones, is misplaced. You say a very 

 few cases of queens carrying foul brood from 

 one colony to another have been reported; but 

 there are so many other ways in which it could 

 have been carried that you are inclined to 



