SEPTEMBER 1. 1915 



GENERAL COEMESPONDENCE 



EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN FOUL BROOD 



UY I{. F. HOLTERMANN 



It lias at Inst ht'cume inv experience to 

 kiunv wliat it is lo have European foul 

 hrood among my l)eos. Could 1 do so it 

 would not be lirp.ecially edifying" to tell any 

 one liow 1 got it; but for some years 1 have 

 been looking for its apjiearanee, and, ac- 

 oording to advice, 1 have aimed at having; 

 only Italian bees- Just now I am not pre- 

 I>aied to say that tlie disease attacks black 

 colonies more readily or inore severely than 

 Italians; yet 1 ha\e no doubt, from the 

 abundance of disinterested testimony, that 

 such is the case, aJid I am substituting Ital- 

 ian queens for blacks in such cases. 



ITS SPREAD. 



Some one has written to me saying that 

 I can be thankful that it is not American 

 foul brood;- but at present I can by no 

 means agree with that view. Contrary to 

 the statement of those who have gone by 

 hearsay, I hav(! never had more than seven 

 colonies out of a hundred in any apiary 

 with American foul brood, and 1 think I 

 am correct in saying that only once in over 

 thirty years of beekeeping have I liad that 

 much. 



With American foul brood 1 have sought 

 to isolate the occasional cases of disease; 

 and in doing what I could I have burned 

 and buried not only brood-chamber combs, 

 but surplus combs and honey, and charred 

 the inside of the hive and burned 12-oz. 

 duck quilts. This burning was done for 

 fear of any little slip in handling or ren- 

 dering that which might have brought them 

 in contact with the disease. In this way I 

 have been able to staraj? out the disease, 

 and, to illustrate, have not seen a cell of 

 American foul brood in any apiary of ours 

 for some time. T feel confident that, witli 

 care, T can get rid of American foul brood 

 by isolation and by the destruction of any 

 thing that I know has the germ about it, 

 bearing in mind the prevention of robbing 

 or of feeding any honey back to the bees, 

 even if T think there is no disease in the 

 apiary. Feeding back honey has resulted 

 in tlie extensive spread of the disea.se in 

 the apiaries of some very well-known bee- 

 keepeis. 



When it comes to European foul brood, 

 the possibility of stamping the disease out 

 when once it has been introduced appears 

 to be a question which can be answered by 



many only as being doubtful. Probably 

 some prefer Iviropean foul brood because 

 the bees can clean it from the cells or be- 

 cause souie advise not shaking the combs, 

 and in this way a saving appears to be 

 made. 



TREATMENT- 



When the first cases of the disease were 

 found T was not quite sure what it was. 

 Owing to a })ressure of work the actual 

 condition of things did not take proper 

 hold of me. I wrote the inspector, who was 

 absent, and left matters for about a week 

 or ten days. Then I decided, let it be what 

 it might, I would treat the colony as if it 

 had American foul brood, feeling that 1 

 had lost valuable time over it. I shook 

 every colony having any trace of it, and 

 put the bees on starters and then on full 

 sheets of foundation. But, as many of us 

 know, this takes the courage out of bees, or 

 wears out their powers to secrete wax. 



I decided to take out all combs with more 

 than a few cells of diseased brood, stack 

 this brood upon a colony with the disease, 

 let the healthy brood hatch, and allow the 

 bees to clean out the dise.ase. Thinking this 

 matter over during the night, I decided I 

 had made a mistake. The disease is trans- 

 mitted in some way different from Ameri- 

 can foul brood, and one great distinguish- 

 ing characteristic is that in American foul 

 brood the diseased brood is untouched by 

 the bees. In the other case it is cleaned out. 

 In the process of dragging out the diseased 

 brood, the bees get the germs on other parts 

 of the comb, and their own bodies become 

 germ-carriers, even to the field, garden, and 

 wood, and leave them on blossoms, even 

 miles from the apiary. Thence the}' may 

 be carried miles in another direction by 

 visits from other bees, and be brought in 

 contact with brood in other hives. 



In fact, in my estimation a colony of bees 

 quite distant fi'om a diseased colony getting 

 the disease shows that it is not likely to 

 have obtained it from stray bees. For the 

 above reason I try to allow no cells to be 

 cleaned out by the bees- Where a cell or 

 iAvo or even more are found in a hive we 

 have cut around it, keeping away from the 

 disease, and can put this cut-out comb into 

 a tiri can and afterward burned it. 



Where the disease is in an apiary, and 



