IDE"VOTEID E3::CIjTJSI^^EIL.'"S' to bees .A.TST1D HOlJTE^ST 



~ No. VII. 



Vol. III. 



JULY 1, 1875. 



FOUL. BROOD. 



II^EARFUIKNl) NOVICE -.—Ever since yon open- 

 Ill ffl Cii your column of "Blasted Hopes" I have 

 fc-Sssr thought I nil;;lit help fill it, but did not because 

 1 hoped to have a hand in "Reports Encouraging." 



It was not until 1870 that I got nicely into movable 

 frames and Italian bees. Then every "thing went well 

 for awhile and in 1S72 every hive averaged loO pounds 

 very nice honey besides increase. Much encouraged 

 by such favorable results and expecting of course to 

 inake this my only pursuit, I determined to make a 

 business of it." In the fall of '72 I bought a large stock 

 •of bees and material for hives which I made in the 

 winter. Every thing went well until Feb.. when that 

 universal disease seated itself in my Apiary and in 

 spring I had six left and trvo hundred empty hives and 

 «othing to "pay the Undertaker." Not wishing to 

 give up, with the comb and hives I had, I determined 

 to try once more and although *very poor season, 

 reached a nice little Apiary again by fall. But what 

 this time? One of the swarms obtained, contained 

 yonl Brood, which swept off all but //ij-ce by spring '74. 

 Deciding to try again. I have now '25 very large 

 swarms in good condition and what I send you for 

 "Reports Encouraging" remains yet to be told. I think 

 sny experience will yet be worth all I have lost. 

 What think you brother bee-keepers.' lu conclusion 

 I would say, "I hope yet to make a pleasant and iirolit- 

 able business. 



I think fowl brood will make a good thorougb sweep 

 nmong old fashioned hives around here. I have had 

 it two years and have pretty well conquered It. I 

 think I "will only bo safe when" it runs its unce here. 



F. H. CrKENiiTs, Oswego, N. Y. Feb. 17th, '75. 



MESSRS. A. I. ROOT & CO., Yours of Nov. 20th, was 

 <luly rec'd, and would have been answered sooner, 

 but hoped to lind some foul brood which I could cut 

 out and send you. but do not find now, a fair sample. 

 It is much reduced now in my Apiary from what it 

 was some years ago. I believe it was introduced here 

 by some comb sent me from Indiana, and it got very 

 \ni(\ before I knew what it was. 



Foul Brood is the larvas which has died, and become 

 putrid in the combs after it is sealed over, emitting a 

 peculiar offensive oder, which once recognized would 

 be readily known in any hive, if there was much of it. 

 AVhen but little, it miglit not be detected by the odor; 

 but if sus|)ected, by seeing scattered over a comb a 

 few capped cells, open them, and if they contain dead 

 larvje in a partly j>vtrt'.scent state, it is foul brood. If a 

 few cells have a hole in thp cap freguently about as 

 large as a pin, it is foul brood sure, and the jtunctures 

 are made by the bees apparently starting to remove 

 larvae and (juittlng it, probably from its being so offen- 

 sive, or from its pasty state. In winter however they 

 do clean out many combs it not too bad, or the swarms 

 too weak. I think they only remove the dead larvai 

 after it get gets dry. 



The swarm which was most populous, ami produced 

 most suri)lus honey this season, (nearly 100 lbs.) was 

 foul brooily last fall, but cast no swarm, this season or 

 last. Like cases have been noticed before. 



Chas. Cakpentek, Kelley's Island, O. Dec. 5, '74. 



Here we have a case where the bees did re- 

 cover after all, and seemingly without any aid. 

 Althonirh we are unprepared to advise without 

 having had any experience, had we an infected 

 hive, we should certainly try to "weed out" the 

 diseased cells, before deciding to destroy the 

 whole colony. It' all tjie bees were removed iu 

 llie winter, and the hive and combs subjected 

 to an intense freeze, Avould it not destroy the 



germs ? Dr. Salisbury has decided that it is a 

 microscopic fungus, Cri/piococcus Alveario, (wc 

 always feel better when we know('?) what it is) 

 Can he tell us whether freezing would be likely 

 to prove fatal to it ? 



UrilVTERIlVG TROUBLES IW CAIVABA. 



BY ILA MICHEXEK. 



BEAR NOVICE:— I do not fcsel despondent nei- 

 ther am I grieved, for "the Lord giveth and the 

 ._- Lord taketh awav, blessed be the name of the 

 Lord," but we have had a revisitatlon of the troubles 

 of '72. For two years we have had great success win- 

 tering In a bee 'house, bu> this winter the reverse. 

 And now I am more thoroughly convinced than ever 

 that 'twas not the cold that killed the bees. The 6 we 

 wintered on their summer stands are all alive yet, 

 while of the 13 wintered in the bee house, only (> re- 

 main ; 3 died of dysentery, 3 swarmed out and joined 

 other hives and one lost their Queen. 



I am sure it was the late gathered honev that killed 

 them. The Golden rod yielded abundantly, and some 

 of our hives had too too much honey even if it had 

 been all sealed. The Italians were the first to die, 

 'twas ambition killed them ; they gathered far more 

 than they could get sealed. If I had only put the 

 combs in the extra(;tor, and slung out the unsealed 

 honey I might have saved them. We have only one 

 Italian stock remaining, they are hybrids, and were 

 wintered on the summer stand. They had not had 

 their early gathered honey extracted, in fact all those 

 wintered out doors had been left for box honey, none 

 extracted, exce])t about half of one hive, and that hive 

 has had the dvsenterv to some extent. But it was not 

 the extractor" that killed mv bees, for I extracted all 

 the honev from one stock, after the frosts came, fed 

 them thick sugar syrup, wintered them in the bee 

 house, and they have come out all right. I never saw 

 a swarm of bees winter better than they did ; they 

 hardly lost a dozen bees, while all the rest that were 

 wintered on honey gathered from Autumnal flowers, 

 have soiled their hives and combs badly, have died or 

 dwindled away till thev are quite weak, and here 

 Novice let me ask you, h"ow do you clean combs soiled 

 with excrement ? I will not want any lioney labels 

 nor any thing else until I see whether I can get them 

 huilt up again. I am not the only one that has had 

 losses in this part of the world, some have lost all 

 their bees. I believe I'ullv one half of all the bees In 

 this part of Canada have died, but if you look around 

 you will see that it is the late swarms generally that 

 k.-vve failed, and this agrees with what I noticed when 

 "I was but a child." that late or buckwheat swarms 

 did not winter well, even if they had their hives well 

 filled. 



You ask for "minute reports" from those using the 

 cold frames, well after receiving Herbert A. Burch's 

 book I was foolish enough to try one. I ma<le it tJxlO 

 feet with the glass VA feet from the bottom. I put 

 two swarms in It about the middle of March, and they 

 eventually got together in one hive, except those that 

 bumped their brains out against the glass. ])oor things. 



The cold frame might do forgiving bees a fiy occa- 

 sionally during the winter, if you had a mind to stand 

 there and shiver in the cold, with your eye on the 

 thermometer beneath the glass, for fear of its getting 

 too warm inside, and then go inside the frame after 

 the bees were done flying, and gather up those that 

 remain on the sash and put them In their respective 

 hives, but even then there is the danger of bees get- 

 ting in the wrong hives and killing the ijueens, or 

 perhaps after a while thev will all get In one hive, as 

 mine did; I only ti-ied two swarms. But for building 



