March, igio. 



American Hee Jonrnal 



bnfribiited 



Disinfection of Foul - Broody 

 Hives 



BY D. M. MACDOXALD. 



The question, instead of being a neg- 

 ligible quantity, is one of primary im- 

 portance. Before entering on the sub- 

 ject, let me make two short quotations 

 showing the anomalous position the 

 question of nomenclature has fallen 

 into in Canada and the United States. 

 You, as with us on this side, recognize 

 a mild and a virulent type of foul brood. 

 Which is which? Take this descrip- 

 tion of the so-called American type : 



■'You miKht as well expect to cure Ameri- 

 can foul brood by throwintj a cup of cold 

 water in the grass in front of ,vour hives as 

 to expect to cure it by recjueening:. as I rec- 

 ommend for European foul brood."— Alex- 

 ander. 



Now place alongside it this contra- 

 dictory statement : 



" It seems to be of a particularly virulent 

 type. and. inilike ' American* foul brood.it 

 will go all through your apiary in a few 

 weeks. With it we are almost entirely help- 

 less."— BvER. 



Mr. Alexander distinctly sets the 

 American foul brood down as the vir- 

 ulent type; Mr. Byeremphatically takes 

 the opposite side and describes this 

 Black or European foul brood as of " a 

 particularly I'iritletit typc^ I don't rec- 

 ognize the names as appropriate, but I 

 will waive that point at present. The 

 principal consideration is that we have 

 a disease insidious in its working; like 

 the pestiTence it walketh in darkness, 

 and virulent in its distinctive power. 



Now, Mr. McEvoy and his support- 

 ers, backed up by some of your Inspec- 

 tors, and abetted by the editor of the 

 Bee-Keepers' Review, declare that they 

 work cures without disinfecting, and 

 hence they reason illogically, because 

 from a wrong premise, that disinfec- 

 tion is unnecessary. Get the disease, 

 even the virulent type, at a certain 

 stage, and you have to deal with ^erms 

 only. A shaking and a renewal of the 

 works may rid the hive of the seeds of 

 contagion, particularly if the bees are 

 \ made tirst to consume the infected 

 honey they carried away in their sacs. 

 Delay treatment, however, until these 

 germs assume the spore stage, and com- 

 plications at once arise. The vitality 

 of a spore is almost incredible, and its 

 reproductive powers almost fabulous. 

 This once recognized, it will become 

 apparent that spores left in or about 

 the hive after lying dormant for a time, 

 can easily be resuscitated when the cul- 

 tural medium appears. We find in one 

 type of Bacillus alvei, that this arises 

 time and again. Hence our insistence 

 on disinfection. We do not entirely 

 rely on one, or even two, shakes (and 

 I know many in America do not place 



implicit faith on even the latter), be- 

 cause we know that frequently the 

 seeds of future disease are left to blos- 

 som into vile fruit. 



It follows, therefore, that a little re- 

 gard to sanitation will not only scotch 

 the snake, but kill it. What bee-keeper, 

 if he is at heart of the good and true 

 type, would grudge a little toil if he is 

 assured it is for his own and the bees' 

 well-being. This is all we plead for, 

 and our plea is, I think, a reasonable 

 one. So we scorch the interior of a 

 dirty hive, or otherwise disinfect it. 



(In parenthesis might I say here that 

 the absurd insinuation thrown by Edi- 

 tor Hurley at Editor Root, is wholly 

 illogical. This process does not les- 

 sen the number of hives in an apiary, 

 and so does not gain for his firm a sin- 

 gle cent. Mr. Hurley should therefore 

 withdraw from his untenable position.) 



Another feature which should weigh 

 with editors is the fact that their news- 

 papers are not written for experts, in- 

 spectors, or even the giant bee-farmer, 

 but for the average bee-keeper. It fol- 

 lows that what Messrs. Hutchinson, 

 France, McEvoy, etc., might be trusted 

 to do cannot be safely entrusted to the 

 man in the street, and as a logical 

 sequence editors should sink their own 

 personal beliefs on a point over which 

 so much hangs. You and the editor of 

 the Review know that Tom, Dick, and 

 Harry, all estimable men and keen bee- 

 keepers, cannot be entrusted to per- 

 form expert work, such as he and you 

 could do. Leave one spore and there 

 lie the seeds of contagion; leave one 

 foul-broody hive amongst a thousand, 

 and you have still the disease. 



So I plead for a thorough cleansing 

 and disinfecting of efery foul-broody 

 hive. A spore is an almost infinitesi- 

 mal atom, requiring a microscope for 

 its detection, even by an expert. Who, 

 then, can say where it may be present? 

 My own idea is that even where it is 

 presumably absent, the bee-keeper 

 should act as if it may be present, and 

 do his utmost to rid the hive of its 

 presence. Hence I say, emphatically, 

 Disinfect! 



Ballindalloch, Scotland. 



Spring Stimulative Feeding. 



BY C. A. BARBISCH. 



In 1908 I practiced stimulative feed- 

 ing on 8 colonies, but the results were 

 not as expected. The colonies were 

 not larger, nor did they swarm earlier 

 than other years. The past season I 

 experimented again. Out of 18 colo- 

 nies that wintered perfectly I again 

 stimulated 9 colonies, and as they had 

 a good deal more honey than they 



needed — in fact, there was no room for 

 the queen to lay eggs, having eaten 

 but very little honey during their .") 

 months' confinement in the cellar — 1 

 extracted about l(Mf pounds, according 

 to the Alexander plan. Nine colonies 

 were left alone entirely. Now those 

 latter colonies that were not stimulated 

 cast large swarms first, and stored more 

 surplus honey than those that were 

 stimulated, so after this no more stimu- 

 lative feeding for me. Seven colonies 

 were prevented from swarming by cut- 

 ting out all queen-cells every days, 

 giving plenty of room and wide and 

 deep entrances like those that Dr. 

 Miller recommends, and I tell you they 

 were the bees that brought in the 

 honey. In my opinion, colonies that 

 do not swarm will give at least twice 

 as much honey as those* that swarm 

 once give. 



Clipping the queen's wing has its 

 advantages as well as its disadvantages. 

 Colony No. 14 swarmed first with a 

 clipped queen. She was found at once 

 and caged ; the hives were changed or 

 new ones put in their places, but the 

 bees would not come back to the old 

 hive, nor could they cluster, as the 

 queen was not with them. They were 

 all over the whole apiary, and finally 

 after they flew for nearly half an hour I 

 put a cage in the Manum swarm- 

 catcher and set the catcher against a 

 tree, when they immediately clustered 

 and were hived as usual. For some 

 reason or other they are more satisfied 

 when they can cluster. It is natural 

 for them. 



Now this colony went to work at 

 once and never swarmed out again, 

 while 7 more colonies that swarmed 

 with clipped queens came out two and 

 three times, no matter whether I hived 

 them on starters or full sheets of foun- 

 dation, or gave them a frame of un- 

 sealed brood, it was all the same. Of 

 course, we were always there to put 

 the queens back again, but it is lots of 

 work when they act that way. Now 

 why did they do that? Will some ex- 

 perienced reader of the .American Bee 

 Journal give me some light on the 

 above question? I had an idea because 

 it was so tremendously hot during 

 swarming time, and the swarms were 

 so large, was one reason why they acted 

 so strangely. To give an idea what the 

 swarms did, let me tell the followihg: 



Colony No. 10 swarmed at 9 o'clock, 

 a.m. They were hived in a 10-frame 

 hive, and in two days they had drawn 

 out and filled 7 Langstroth frames with 

 honey, and on the third day swarmed 

 out again for the last time. One fine 

 thing in favor of the clipped queen is, 



1 never lose a swarm, while bee-keepers 

 in this vicinity all around me lost from 



2 to ti swarms, letting the bees swarm 

 naturally. In fact, I had quite a large 

 swarm come to my apiary from a 

 neighbor bee-keeper who lives within 

 one-half mile of me. As he did not 

 care for them, I united them with one 

 of my colonies. 



A short time ago I received 2 queens 

 by mail. Both were introduced the 

 same day to queenless colonies. One 

 was accepted, but the other one, on 

 opening the hive the third day, I found 

 the bees balling her. I expected the 

 queen to be half dead when I caged her 

 again, but she seemed to be all right. 



