(otJ 



(iLEANlN(JS IN BEE CLlLTUUE. 



Oct. 



sltion In which he raises bacteria. Thai is, of 

 course, if bacteria were the prime cause of th(( dis- 

 ease; but I think .\()u will oonclud<' tiefore long- 

 that it is not. I hope so, anyhow. Oko. H. Hovi.e. 

 Moliile, Ala., Sept. 10, 1887. 



Many thanks for your kind words. I'rieiid 

 11. It i.s true, 1 am t-onservalive on the 

 subject oC foul brood, and it is hard for me 

 to be otherwise ; but I am not biaseil in 

 favor of some theory. iSo many theories 

 that I have entertained in regard to foul 

 brood have been overthrown bysonie devel- 

 opments in the apiary, that 1 haven't thought 

 it advisable to be giiided by ;tny of theni to 

 any great e.xtent, howevei' plausible they 

 may have seemed. When the disease dis- 

 appeared and then broke out atter a ])eriod 

 of six weeks, I inferred that the germs had 

 been covered up, and then, as the stores of 

 the bees began to decrease, said germs 

 were uncoveied, and so gave rise to the re- 

 appearance of the disease. This inference 

 I made because others had said the same 

 thing. Now, I don't know that this conclu- 

 sion is supported by any thing that weknoiv; 

 in fact, there are very few things indeed 

 that we do know positively about foul brood ; 

 but the development of certain facts often 

 leads us to draw certain inferences Mhich 

 may be entirely false. You propose anoth- 

 er theory for the entire absence and final 

 reappearance of foul brood — that, in conse- 

 quence of decreasing stores, the bees neg- 

 lected the larva>. The latter, thus weaken- 

 ed, were made more susceptible to the germs 

 of the disease, which were probably present 

 all the time ; but as the larva' had been pre- 

 viously kept healthy, they were enabled to 

 throw off the inlluences of the disease. I 

 am aware that a person in perfect healtii 

 can enter infected districts with very much 

 less liability of catching contagion than one 

 who is less" strong and less healthy. In the 

 absence of more positive facts and data, I 

 shall be just as ready, and perhaps more so, 

 to accept this explanation than that the 

 bees had eaten their stores down to the 

 point where foul-brood germs existed. 



I know that it has been suggested that 

 there is a mild and a malignant form of 

 foul brood — the one curable and the other 

 incurable. From Our Own Apiary of last 

 issue you will see that I express myself 

 rather decidedly that such is not the case. 

 I did so, however, because of what Mr. 

 Cowan had said. Mr. C. has been all over 

 the world, and has examined microscopical- 

 ly specimens of foul brood in his travels, and 

 yet he Hnds that the bacillus alvei are in all 

 cases identically the same. I know there is, 

 apparently, a niild and a malignant form, 

 and I have noticed the same thing among 

 our bees. In one colony the disease will 

 make rapid inroads, the brood becoming 

 rotten witliin ten days from the time the 

 disease made its first appearance. In 

 another colony I have noticed only an occa- 

 sional diseased cell, sometimes all trace of 

 former infection being gone. Such colonies 

 I have left to themselves, to see how it 

 would turn out. Sometimes the disease ap- 

 peared, and then it would disappear for a 

 period of perhaps two months, at the end of 

 which time an examination showed an occa- 



sional cell of foul brood. Now, I can not 

 help but think that the disease was identi- 

 cally the same in both the mild and viru- 

 lent" attacks. In the former, the bees strove 

 so vigorously against the inroads of foul 

 brood that they wer;' enabled to keep it 

 subjugated. In the latter, while the disease 

 made rapid advances, the bees seemed to 

 give it up as a bad job. from first to last. 

 Why this difference V The most probable ex- 

 planation, and the one which I think by far 

 the most satisfactory to my own mind, is 

 this : In those colonies where the disease 

 seemed unable to make a very bad start, 

 I observed that there was a \ery large num- 

 ber of young bees. Noting this fact, J told 

 the boys to put a frame or two of hatching 

 brood in the colonies which were most dis- 

 eased. What did those little fellows do 

 when they hatched out V .lust as soon as 

 they began to assume their duties as nurse- 

 l)ees, they cleaned the combs up nice and 

 sweet. AVe found that a frame of hatching 

 brood did, in every case, make a vast differ- 

 ence in the amount of foul brood in the 

 hive. Some miglit suggest, '• Why would 

 not this be a good way to cure foul brood V '" 

 It would, for the time l)eing ; but the troub- 

 le is, that, after these comlts are nicely 

 cleaned out, eggs, larva', and sealed brood 

 nicely under way. three or four combs will be- 

 come diseased. " If, on the contrary, a frame 

 of hatching brood were given to the colony 

 at regular intervals of, say, once in three 

 weeks, the young bees will keep the hive in 

 pretty respectable shape. In a word, then, 

 I think the reason why the disease makes 

 greater inroads in some colonies than in 

 others, is because of the addition in energy 

 of the bees, and also upon the quantity of 

 young bees present. 



In all cases of foul brood that we have 

 had in the apiary, we have never had more 

 than two cases which cured themselves ab- 

 solutely, and these may yet show their 

 former infection. These colonies, however, 

 never let more than three or four cells re- 

 main diseased in the hive at a time. 



In regard to your last point, Mr. Frank 

 Cheshire is positive that the bacteria are 

 the prime cause of foul brood. Mr. T. W. 

 Cowan is not so sure of it. He says that 

 the fact that these bacteria are always 

 present is not necessarily a proof that they 

 are the cause. But this is a question for the 

 doctors to settle. 



BEE-HUNTING IN TWO CHAPTERS. 



CHAPTER I. 



VALUABLE FACTS ON THE SUBJECT. 



N i)rcsenting- this subject to the readers of 

 Gleanings I shall attempt to present only my 

 ideas and methods. Perhaps some of the older 

 bee-hunters who read this may have a " better 

 way " of their own. Some thoughtless persons 

 denounce bee-hunting as the work of a lazy man. 

 1 beg to differ with them. The successful bee-hunt- 

 er must be a careful, observing, and persevering 

 man. Bee-hunting may not pay financially; but a 

 few days during vacation, spent in rambling 

 through the woods, will have a beneficial effect up- 



