284 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



May, 1919 



THOSE CONFUSING SYMPTOMS 



l^t a Ne-w Foul ^rood 'Disease, 



but a Hitherto Unrecognized Form 



of an Old Disease 



By E. R. Root 



OU E old 

 friend, the 

 enemy, is 

 attacking us un- 

 der a camou- 

 flage. It is no 

 other than Euro- 

 pean foul brood 

 in its last stages. 

 While in its ear- 

 ly stages it shows up in the old ways and 

 form, yet, as if to make confusion worse 

 confounded, in 'its later stages it tries to 

 sail under the colors and the camouflage of 

 the American type. This has caused endless 

 confusion among beekeepers all over the 

 country, with the result that thousands of 

 good combs have been wasted by burning 

 or melting, supposedly infected with the 

 American foul brood. 



During the last six or seven mouths that 

 I have been on the road, I have observed a 

 form of brood disease very much resembling 

 American foul brood, but lacking some of 

 the characteristics. I have found it in 

 seven or eight States in the East. I have 

 found it and have heard of it all over Cali- 

 fornia. Sometimes I thought it was a new 

 disease because it was not quite American, 

 and certainlv it did not look like the Euro- 



pean which I 

 had known so 

 long. Whatever 

 it was it would 

 behave like 

 European, but 

 appeared very 

 much like the 

 American. Was 

 it possible that 

 there was a milder form of American that 

 would disappear of itself or yield to the 

 treatment of requeening? Was it possible 

 that some new organism had gotten into the 

 American type of disease and modified it, 

 so that it was less virulent? 



I talked with Dr. Phillips of the Bureau 

 of Entomology about it, and he was sure 

 we didn 't have any new disease and the 

 matter was dropped for the time being; but 

 like Banquo 's ghost, whatever it was, it 

 would not down. Here and there I was 

 hearing about and seeing what looked like 

 American foul brood, that would either dis- 

 appear without treatment or yield to Euro- 

 pean treatment and strengthening. 



I began writing to Dr. Phillips insisting 

 that we had some very confusing symptoms 

 in California — the same symptoms I had 

 seen in several Eastern States. I urged that 



Fig. 1. — Government Bneteriologist A. P. Sturtevant tellins? the beekeepers how to distinguish tlie dil'terence 



between the last stages of European and regular American foul brood. He has his microscope in front of 



him, so that he can make an examination of the germs of the two respective diseases. 



