May, 1919 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



he send his bacteriologist here where he 

 could do actual field work and perhaps de- 

 termine what we had. I had given up all 

 thought of any one 's coming, especially 

 after Congress adjourned without making 

 certain appropriations. About that time, 

 however, I received a letter from Dr. Phil- 

 lips saying that I would be glad to know 

 that Mr. Sturtevant, his bacteriologist, was 

 on his way to California, and would I be 

 kind enough to place him in touch with 

 some of these confusing cases about which 

 I had been writing. Very fortunately a 

 series of field meets among the California 

 beekeepers had been scheduled, and I lost 



ous field meets give the beekeepers the 

 symptoms by which the ordinary bee in- 

 spector or beekeeper could detect and dif- 

 ferentiate between these confusing forms. 

 This he did. After hearing him give these 

 symptoms a number of times I am able to 

 leport the following synopsis: 



New Light on An Old Subject. 



It has been customary in describing the 

 differentiation of symptoms between Ameri- 

 can and European foul brood to say that 

 American usually attacks the brood after 

 capping while European attacks before cap- 

 ping. .This is true of typical cases. But 



-Bacteriologist Sturtevant looking for Bacillvs alvei in European foul brood. 



no time in getting him on the programs at 

 these meetings. 



Numerous samples were brought in by the 

 beekeepers, most of which samples were 

 either clearly American or clearly European. 

 Later on we found some cases that were 

 very confusing and one sample looked so 

 much like European in some of its charac- 

 teristics that several of us were confused. 

 Mr. Sturtevant finally made the remark that 

 he had better examine it under the micro- 

 scope, with the result that he found it to be 

 a clear case of American. 



I have learned of a good many other cases 

 that were just a« confusing and I, therefore, 

 suggested that Mr. Sturtevant at the vari- 



within the past year or two more and more 

 instances have appeared where this distinc- 

 tion had become obliterated. This has 

 brought about a confusion in the minds of 

 beekeepers as to which disease they were 

 dealing with. 



Under the microscope, says bacteriologist 

 Sturtevant, the two diseases are easily dif- 

 ferentiated, as the germs causing them are 

 entirely different in appearance and habits. 

 In American foul brood there is almost 

 never found anything but the one organism, 

 the cause of the disease — Bacillus larvae. 

 This fact accounts for the uniformity of 

 symptoms of this disease under ordinary cir- 

 cumstances. The germ is very characteristic 



