272 



European Foulbrood 



By C. C. Miller. 



A CANADIAN correspondent is 

 having trouble with European 

 foulbrood and asks what to do. 

 He seems a little uncertain as to the 

 question of Italians and blacks as to 

 immunity; has heard that I was suc- 

 cessful in handling European foul- 

 brood with hybrids; wants to know 

 whether he should re-queen, etc. 



It is true that I treated success- 

 fully hybrids as well as Italians that 

 were affected with European foul- 

 brood and do not feel at all in dread 

 of the disease, although it is possible 

 that a case may turn up almost any 

 time, it being a well understood char- 

 acteristic of European foulbrood that 

 it is loth to desert entirely anyone 

 with whom it has formed an acquaint- 

 ance. But if one or two cases should 

 occur in the course of a season it is 

 a small matter to take care of them. 

 For the sake of this correspondent, 

 and others as well, I will say just 

 what should be done by anyone who 

 finds European foulbrood in his api- 

 ary. Suppose the disease has got 

 well under headway before it is dis- 

 covered, and that a large proportion 

 of the unsealed brood is of a yellow- 

 ish tint, instead of being pearly white, 

 as healthy brood should be. There 

 will also be larvae more advanced 

 that are black and dead. The disease 

 has been present so long that it is 

 found in a large part of the colonies, 

 and they have consequently become 

 weak. 



The first thing is to strengthen the 

 colonies, and it is perhaps as well to 

 wait until the season is a little ad- 

 vanced and bees are gathering all 

 they need or more. Then double up, 

 making two colonies into one, or, if 

 it is necessary, making three or more 

 mto one, for it is absolutely neces- 

 sary to have only strong colonies for 

 treatment. 



The next step is to make the strong 

 colony queenless, killing the queen, 

 for in a bad case it is almost certain 

 that the queen has become too poor 

 to be worth saving. At the same 

 time that the queen is killed a ripe 

 queen-cell may be introduced in a 

 protector, or a virgin just hatched 

 may be given, the cell or the virgin 

 being of best Italian stock. Or a 

 young laying Italian queen may 'be 

 introduced ten days after the colony 

 has been made queenless. 



That's all the treatment that's 

 needed; just to make the colony 

 queenless for about ten days and 

 then to have the work of laying 

 taken up by a vigorous Italian queen 

 It IS possible that a queen of vigor- 

 ous hybrid stock might answer, but 

 some think there is safety only in 

 Italian blood, and you may as well 

 liave the best. 



The disease may break out again 

 but remember this: no wide-awake 

 beekeeper will ever have a bad case 

 the second time. For he will be on 

 the lookout, detecting the disease be- 

 fore it has had time to become bad. 

 ^>o he will never again have anything 

 more than a mild case, and in a mild 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



August 



case a little different course may be 

 taken, provided a good queen is 

 present. Cage the queen for ten days 

 in the hive, and then free her. The 

 bees will do the rest. But unless the 

 queen is a good one, better treat as 

 in the previous case. 



It may be asked whether there are 

 not Italians that are immune to Eu- 

 ropean foulbrood. so that there is no 

 danger of their taking the disease. I 

 wouldn't like to be too positive about 

 It. but I don't believe there is such 

 a thing as bees that are immune to 

 European foulbrood. There are bees 

 tliat are more resistant than others, 

 at least that will do more than oth- 

 ers to clean up the disease; but 

 they're not entirely immune. It may 

 be, too, that in some mild cases the 

 bees will clean up the disease without 

 any help from the beekeeper, but you 

 can't count on anything of the kind 

 as a rule. But keep watch, and cage 

 the queen for ten days before the dis- 

 ease gets much of a start, and you 

 will conclude there's nothing very 

 formidable about European foul- 

 brood. 



Getting the Queen to Lay in 

 Wooden Cells 



By Jay Smith. 



IN Dr. Miller's "Answers" in the 

 American Bee Journal, page 208, 

 . . June issue, I notice a question by 

 Wisconsin" asking what the Swarth- 

 more plan is to get the queens to lay 

 in prepared wooden queen-cells, as 

 mentioned by me in the "Beekeeper's 

 Review," page 59, in an article ".A. plan 

 for Better Bees and Queens." As I 

 have received numerous inquiries 

 concerning this, I believe a short 

 sketch of the Swarthmore Plan would 

 be of general interest to the readers 

 of the American Bee Journal. 



"Swarthmore" was the name under 

 which the late Eugene L. Pratt of 

 Swarthmore, Pa., used to write for 

 the bee papers. Mr. Pratt had devel- 

 oped queen rearing and babv nuclei 

 to a very high state of perfection and 

 was able to do many things that few 

 of us are able to duplicate, and I feel 

 that the beekeepers of America all 

 owe him a debt of gratitude for his 

 excellent work. 



His method of getting the queen to 

 ay in the wooden queen-cells is in 

 brief as follows: A specially made 

 small wooden queen-cell i's used' 

 these are corded up into a little 

 frame about the size of a 4x5 comb- 

 honey section, after first being waxed 

 the same as a regularly prepared 

 wooden queen-cell. Two of these 

 corded-up frames are placed into a 

 small nucleus hive beside a third 

 frame filled solidly with comb honey 

 leaving no place for the queen to lav 

 except in the wooden cups. These 

 are a little larger than a drone-cell 



I'^j ^^"^ ''?^°"y '^ so small and 

 needed to replace workers, the queen 

 lays only worker eggs in them. 



Mr. Pratt then allowed these eggs 

 to hatch, and removed the wooden 

 cells and placed them in cell holders 

 and gave them to queenless colonies 



I have found no advantage in this, as 

 It was more work than the grafting 

 method and no better results are ob- 

 tained. I believe that if the cells 

 were given to the queenless colony 

 when they contained the eggs the 

 very best of queens could be raised 

 as everything would be left to the' 

 bees, and the human element left out 

 entirely. I have raised a few that 

 way and they were most excellent 

 queens, but the mysterious feature 

 IS that the bees will accept only a 

 few, two or three, perhaps, but never 

 more than four, and remove all the 

 other eggs. They seem to think that 

 where there are eggs there must be 

 a queen and what is the use of 

 raising two or three dozen queens 

 when you only want one, and if this 

 one should not hatch according to 

 schedule, "Why, we will ask the 

 queen to lay us another egg and we 

 will try again." 



In superseding a queen this same 

 condition is observed. Sometimes 

 eggs are laid in three or four super- 

 seding cells, but when they begin to 

 hatch some of these eggs will be tak- 

 en out. If anyone wishes to experi- 

 ment on this he may possibly hit 

 upon a certain condition where the 

 bees will be delighted to rear large 

 numbers of queens from the eggs, 

 but so far they have failed with me! 

 A method that brings splendid re- 

 sults IS as follows: Take a colony 

 that has swarmed. Let them go back 

 into the same hive they came out of 

 Remove their queen. Carefully cut 

 out all queen-cells. Take the royal 

 jelly from these cells and put it in a 

 small glass dish. Dilute it with soft 

 water until it is thin, about the con- 

 sistency of royal jelly when fed to 

 the larva: just hatched. Put this into 

 the prepared cell-cups. (I prefer 

 those that are dipped by the Doolit- 

 tle plan). Now take larva; about 

 twelve hours old, put them into the 

 cups and give thirty or forty to this 

 colony to be finished. If this is 

 properly done they will accept ev- 

 ery one and the lavish manner in 

 which they feed the larv» is aston- 

 ishing. The nurse bees seem to be 

 chuck full of pap and are going 

 around looking for something to feed. 

 In a few hours after feeding these 

 cells the young larva; are fairly 

 swimming in royal jelly. 



A colony in this condition will not 

 only accept these cells but will finish 

 them m the best manner and will 

 finish several batches of these, and 

 no matter how many you give them 

 they seem to think yoii did not give 

 them quite enough and will start a 

 few "on their own hook." So you 

 will have to watch and cut these out 

 for if one queen is left to hatch she 

 immediately organizes a gang of 

 wreckers and they begin operations 

 on your fine batch of cells which but 

 a few days ago they were so crazy 

 to build. They will open them up at 

 the side and drag out the young 

 queens with the frenzy of an infuri- 

 ated mob. and if a queen has devel- 

 oped to the stage that seems to war- 

 rant it, the queen at the head of the 

 destruction gang will back down into 

 the opening made in the side of the 

 cell and sting (I believe) 'he un- 



