1887 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



891 



FOUL BROOD: 



tHE THEORY OF IT IN GERMANY. 



£RNEST R. ROOT:— With grreat interest I read 

 how you worked to overcome foul brood. I 

 wrote an ai-ticle for the Amcricnn Apicidtu- 

 rist, 18S5, on the subject of foul brood, where 

 T gave an approved method of cure. But 

 this found little attention. Well, last winter I e.\'- 

 pected you would ttnd foul brood ag-ain in the 

 spring', 1887, because .your cure was in no way a .s«>e 

 one, and so it happened. I was many times willing' 

 to write to you to sive ray meaning, but you and 

 your father talked so severely against any drug to 

 be used in the apiary that I was afraid you would 

 not believe me. You now use carbolic acid to 

 spray the colony, hive, etc., and describe the fur- 

 ther modus operandi in Gleanings, Oct. 1. With all 

 your care, I am afraid you will And foul brood 

 again next spring. I will tell you why. The bacil- 

 lus alvei was first discovered by Schonfeld, in Ger- 

 many, long before Cheshire, and this man experi- 

 mented very much with the disease. The whole 

 question is in Germany a settled matter, and so is 

 the cure. The germs of the bacillus you can And 

 everywhere in an infected hive, in the brood, in the 

 honey, and outside, adhering to the bees, frames, 

 combs, and hive. By spraying with carbolic acid, 

 sometimes in intervals, as you do, you can kill this 

 bacillus and the germs, and so the foul brood seems 

 to be cured; but your microscope will show you 

 that the bacillus and its germs are inside of the 

 living bees of an infected hive too. You will find 

 them, at least in the two stomachs. 



In the inner stomach Is prepared the royal jellj- 

 for the young larva?, and so comes the germ again 

 In the young larva; it grows here, and kills them 

 when capped, and in a short time you will find the 

 disease again when the germs become plentiful 

 enough. 



You can not kill these germs inside of the bees 

 by starvation. The only way to do this is by feed- 

 ing any antiseptic, which kills the germs but not the 

 bees and larva\ Your cure will be a success if you 

 combine it with feeding disinfected honey or su- 

 gar-water. Which drug is best to be used for leed- 

 ing. has to be found out by experiment. You can 

 give salicylic acid and carbolic acid in very small 

 quantities, say for a quart of honey-water 50 drops, 

 i'„ solution. This will in no way hurt the bees or 

 larvte. Hydrargyrum bichloratum is lately recom- 

 mended. This inside cure is as important as the 

 outside cure, and here is the point why our Eng- 

 lish friends sometimes fail to cure foul brood by 

 using salicylic acid, or phenol. Carbolic acid, pure 

 or common, is preferable for outside cure, because 

 it evaporates and finds its way everywhere in the 

 hive, killing the germs of foul brood except inside 

 of the living bees. If you rub the bottom-board 

 with carbolic-acid solution, say once or twice a 

 week, it will do for the prevention of the spread- 

 ing of the disease in an infected apiary. 



You further say, " It is not certain that the bacil- 

 lus alvei is the cause of the disease." Schonfeld 

 made many experiments for this purpose. You 

 say Mr. Sargent will get the foul-brood germs 

 growing on gelatine. He will do better if he mixes 

 the liquid with the soap of healthy bee-larvsr. 

 This is the very ground for the bacillus alvei. The 

 so grown bacilli you can see in the microscope 

 moving, and every thing is lively, like a skating- 



rink. Then give some salicylic or carbolic acid in 

 the mixture, and look through the microscope, and 

 every thing is dead, like an ice-field. These artiti- 

 cially raised bacilli, or the germs planted on the 

 brood of a healthy colony, will raise foul brood in 

 proper form. All this, and more, has been known 

 in Germany for some years, and a careful man can 

 experiment with foul brood without any danger of 

 spreading it. Further, many times I observed a 

 disease like foul brood; in fact, the capped brood 

 dies in the same way, and it is not possible to de- 

 tect any difference between this disease and the 

 real foul brood, except by a good microscope, which 

 will show the bacillus, or the germ, when real 

 foul brood is in question, and not if the other dis- 

 ease is before us. Many times you will find more 

 killed brood and more hives infected— sometimes 

 all the hives of an apiary quite suddenly; neverthe- 

 less it is called the milder form of foul brood. This 

 disease cures itself by and by. Many times it Is 

 some honey injurious to the bees or larvie, which 

 is the cause of this disease. Extracting all the 

 honey, and feeding good sugar, is here the usual 

 cure. 



I believe that many reports of curing foul brood 

 by starvation have nothing to do with real foul brood 

 at all. If the bacillus theory Is correct, and I be- 

 lieve it is, the starvation plan can not cure the 

 real foul brood, and your experience shows this 

 again; but it is possible that, by this plan, often re- 

 peated, and by help of a good honey-harvest, the 

 bees may be able to overcome, sometimts, the dis- 

 ease by the help of their sting-poison, which is, 

 without doubt, a good antiseptic. In this way 

 Dzierzon cured foul brood about 40 years ago by 

 enormous labor, during some years, and the loss of 

 more than half of his colonies. We are better off 

 now; but we have to use what other men found 

 out. 



I do not know whether these few lines will help 

 you or not; but I think it is my duty to write to 

 you. May be I did wrong not to write earlier. 



L. Stachelhausen. 



Selma, Bexar Co., Texas, Oct. 20, 188T. 



Accept my thanks, friend S., for your kind 

 suggestions. The more I see written in re- 

 gard to foul brood, the more thoroughly I 

 am impressed that it is indeed a deep sub- 

 ject. You say that the germs of the bacillus 

 can be found everywhere in an infected 

 hive — in the brood and in the honey. I be- 

 lieve we have never had any doubt as to the 

 existence of these germs in the places you 

 mention, but I was not aware that any one 

 had actually discovered them in honey. 

 Neither Mr. Cheshire nor Mr. Cowan has 

 succeeded in finding them there. There is 

 no question but there is something that 

 does exist in honey, and which does make a 

 vast amount of trouble. Again, you say 

 that we can not kill these germs inside the 

 bees by starvation, and that the only way to 

 do this is to feed an antiseptic. This does 

 seem to be reasonable ; but at the same time 

 all colonies treated by the starvation plan in 

 our apiary have never yet shown even the 

 slightest trace of a reappearance of the dis- 

 ease, and we have treated something like 50 

 colonies by that plan. I believe Mr. Jones 

 has had experience quite similar to it. — Mr. 

 Sargent did succeed in growing what ap- 

 peared to be bacillus, in beef gelatine. He 



