November, 1915. 



American l^ee Jonrnal 



wards, be strongly attractive to bees 

 causing silent robbing amongst the 

 colonies of the apiary and of neighbor- 

 ing apiaries over a radius of several 

 rniles ? I ofifer this theory in explana- 

 tion of thealmost simultaneous appear- 

 ance of the disease in so many colonies 

 of the apiary and in neighboring api- 

 aries. This theory is strengthened by 

 my observations that, as a rule, the 

 stronger colonies are the first to be- 

 come infected, and the weaker ones — 

 those with comparatively few field 

 workers— are usually the last to take 

 the diseise. If this silent robbing the- 

 ory is correct, it oflfers one exidanation 

 why adjacent colonies, or those near 

 each other, are usually found to be in- 

 fected rather than a uniform distribu- 

 tion of infected colonies throughout 

 the apiary. 



There is far more mixing of bees of 

 an apiary, or of neighboring apiaries, 

 by bees gaining entrance and being 

 allowed in colonies other than their 

 own than is generally supposed. Also 

 it is well known that the disease flour- 

 ishes best in the early spring or later 

 when there is a dearth of honey from 

 natural sources, which fact also 

 strengthens the above theory; since, 

 when nectar is plentiful the bees imme- 

 diately discontinue robbing, yield more 

 readily to treatment and abatement of 

 the disease is plainly noticeable. 



As to the infection being in the 

 honey: In an experiment by the 

 writer, in which an unusually strong 

 colony, badly afifected with the disease, 

 had stored and capped a super full of 

 clover honey before treatment, the 

 honey was saved and used in the "fall 

 treatment " of two colonies; that is, 

 the colonies were placed on these 

 combs of honey for wintering. They 

 did not take the disease. But still I am 

 not so sure the honey was not diseased 

 since good Italian stock, such as were 

 these colonies, are quite able to keep 

 the disease cleaned out. When it 

 comes to honey being stored in which 

 diseased larvs have recently died, or 

 where the same have not been thor- 

 oughly cleaned out, as is likely to hap- 

 pen when a heavy honey flow is caus- 

 ing a rapid contraction of the brood- 

 nest, I would suspect such honey to be 

 contaminated. I doubt if any one who 

 has had much experi-nce with the dis- 

 ease would advise allowing the bees to 

 rob out the combs of diseased colonies 

 that contain only dry diseased larva and 

 none fresh enough to be juicy. 



Mr. Dadant offers as proof that " Eu- 

 ropean foulbrood is usually transmitted 

 by the queen," the statement quoted 

 from Cheshire to the effect that upon 

 the dissection of a queen bacilli were 

 found in both the ovarian tube and the 

 half developed egg. Also he offers the 

 experiment of M. G. Dadant, where 51 

 colonies were treated for European 

 foulbrood, and in three cases queens 

 from infected colonies were introduced 

 to weak uninfected colonies all of 

 which contracted the disease. 



As to the latter of these proofs. If 

 the results of Mr. Dadant's experiment 

 is to be accepted, then the theory of 

 what has been supposed to be an effec- 

 tive treatment of the disease falls flat. 

 That theory, as is well known, is to 

 deprive the bees of all infectious food 

 for the larvic by the best means possi- 

 ble or practicable. This is accom- 



plished by shaking or brushing, a la 

 McEvoy, with two shakes, or, accord- 

 ing to some other authorities, with but 

 one shake, or by caging the queen a 

 number of days, a la Miller, or by keep- 

 ing the colony queenless 20 days, then 

 giving a ripe queen-cell from good Ital- 

 ian stock, a la Alexander and other 

 methods practiced by other apiarists. 



Now if the disease is inherent in the 

 queen, what is to be accomplished by 

 these methods (except, of course, the 

 ."Mexander method which contemplates 

 a new queen) ? Xo/hhiff. With .51 dis- 

 eased colonies in an apiary it may be 

 suggested that there could be no defi- 

 nite assurance that these three were 

 not infected before the queens were in- 

 troduced, as some time, perhaps sev- 

 eral days, may elapse after infection 

 before the same is discoverable by the 

 unaided eye, even though they were 

 weak and less likely to bring the infec- 

 tion from without than stronger colo- 

 nies. May not bees from other colo- 

 nies have entered the hives and brought 

 the infection ? I have noticed more 

 than once that black colonies of bees 

 will become dis ased after the most 

 thorough treatment, but have always 

 attributed it to reinfection from outside 

 sources or to the propensity of black 

 bees to harbor the disease. 



On the other hand I have treated many 

 colonies of Italians and hybrids, and the 

 cure remained permanent. Moreover, 

 good Italian stock, when badly in- 

 fected, will yield readily to treatment 

 and remain cured which, it seems to 

 me, would not be the case if the disease 

 was inherent in the queen. It may be 

 said that not all Italian stock are 

 highly resistant. I have occasionally 

 had a recurrence of the disease in col- 

 onies of what otherwise appeared to be 

 the best of Italian stock. 



In May, 1912, the United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture issued circular 

 No. 1.57, entitled, "The Cause of Euro- 

 pean Foulbrood," by G. F. White, M.D., 

 Ph. D., Expert in Bacteriologv. In this 

 work it is shown that Bacillus ah'el, 

 when isolated from diseased brood, and 

 pure cultures of the same were fed to 

 colonies of healthy bees, foulbrood 

 was not produced in any instance. 

 Also it is sho vn, by a process of elimi- 

 nation, that Barillus plulon is the or- 

 ganism that causes European foul- 

 brood. Also it was proved by Dr. 

 White, in 1907, that Hacillus lariuc is 

 the cause of American foulbrood. As- 

 suming the findings of Dr. White to be 

 true — and I have not the least doubt of 

 their truth — the presence of Bacillus 

 ali'ci in the ovarian tube of the queen 

 and in the half developed egg, as shown 

 by Cheshire, would be no proof that 

 the disease of European foulbrood 

 was inherent in the queen. 



Permit me to quote from a paper by 

 Dr. E. F, Phillips, Ph. D., Washington, 

 D. C, In Charge of Apiculture for the 

 United States Department of Agricul- 

 ture, published in the Annual Report 

 of the Beekeepers' Association of the 

 Province of Ontario, 1011, page 3(). 



" Early in 1884, Cheshire was invited 

 by the British Beekeepers' Association, 

 to read a paper on "foulbrood," al- 

 though he had not previously interested 

 himself on this subject. About two 

 months after his work was instituted, 

 there began to appear articles in the 

 British Bee Journal, in which he 



claimed to have made great discoveries 

 concerning the disease. In .-Kugust of 

 that year he took a single piece of 

 comb to a bacteriologist, Mr. Cheyne, 

 from which an organism was isolated 

 and described, and to which Mr. Che- 

 shire's name, Bacillus alj'et, was given. 

 Cheshire came to deny the existence 

 of two brood diseases, although they 

 had been previously differentiated, and 

 attributed all infectious troubles of the 

 brood to this organism. That he mi.xed 

 the two diseases in his description 

 seems certain, and there can be little 

 reasonable doubt that the sample taken 

 to Mr. Cheyne was what we now call 

 European foulbrood. 



" Following these papers it was com- 

 monly accepted among beekeepers 

 that 'foulbrood' is caused by Bacillus 

 ali'ci, but the name 'foulbrood' was 

 most commonly applied by beekeepers 

 to the disease now called American 

 foulbrood. American beekeepers were 

 strengthened in this erroneous view by 

 the statements of Cowan, who, on e.x- 

 amining a sample of dead brood in the 

 United States, pronounced it to be the 

 same as the ' foulbrood ' of England, 

 and stated that he found Bacillus alvei 

 present. The examination made was 

 obviously entirely inadequate, and the 

 conclusion that Bacillus alvei is the 

 cause of the trouble was entirely un- 

 warranted. Since Bacillus alvei had 

 never been shown to be the cause of 

 any disease, we may omit discussion of 

 those papers in which further studies 

 of Bacillus alvei were made." 



In view of the better facilities for re- 

 search work than obtained for tlie use 

 of investigators earlier in the field ; the 

 exhaustive researches of Dr. White, 

 extending over years of time ; his sci- 

 entifically correct methods of investi- 

 gating the causes of these diseases, as 

 shown in the circular above mentioned, 

 the conclusion seems inevitable that 

 Cheshire made a mistake as to the 

 effect of Bacillus alvei on the brood 

 and queen ; that his findings on this 

 subject cannot be accepted as authority, 

 and that the utmost faith may be placed 

 on the conclusions of Dr. White. 



Kenmore, N. Y. 



Was Beet Sugar the Trouble? 



BY FREDERICK GRIFFITH. 



MR. J. A. HEBERLE, B. S., in the 

 October number of the Bee Jour- 

 nal, presented an able discussion 

 on this question, contending that beet 

 sugar has been found by experience, in 

 Germany, to be of equal value for feed- 

 ing to cane sugar. In California, api- 

 arists will not use beet sugar, claiming 

 that it kills their bees. 



In 1914, the writer gave his parents a 

 strong colony with scant stores, with 

 directions to feed them. Every week 

 or so following would find a carpet of 

 the poor dead creatures in front of the 

 hive, many still quivering in the throes 

 of death, on the pile, every time we 

 looked at them At first we thought 

 they were dead robber bees, but soon 

 found that the colony was fast dwind- 

 ling. We thought we knew all about 

 bees, and began to study their malady, 

 but were entirely balfied. 



Presently an old lady from Califor- 

 nia asked what we were feeding the 



