292 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



May 7, 1903. 



Chicago-Northwestern Convention. 



Report of the Chicag-o-Northwestepn Bee-Keep- 

 ers' Convention, held in Chicag-o, 

 Dec. 3 and 4, 1902. 



BY OUR OWN SHORTHAND REPORTER. 



(Continued from page Zil.) 

 FOUL BROOD— ITS CAUSE AND CURE. 



A Member — Is comb foundation made from diseased 

 comb safe to use ? 



Mr. France — Yes, sir. Three years ag'o I experimented 

 with 82 good colonies in 15 of the best apiaries I could find 

 in the State of Wisconsin, where they had never seen foul 

 brood. They took a good deal of coaxing to let me go into 

 their apiaries, but with the confidence that I had gained 

 with my brother and sister bee-keepers, one said, "Go 

 ahead." I told him if there was a sign of disease I would 

 pay him well for it. To this day they wish they had tried 

 more of it, because those colonies experimented on were 

 the best they had. 



A Member — Would you recommend this for other people 

 also ? 



Mr. France — I would in this way : That no one need 

 be afraid of getting disease through comb foundation. Any 

 process which will make comb foundation will kill the 

 germs of disease in wax. I recommend the use of the foun- 

 dation regardless of where it comes from. 



A Member — Suppose you had diseased combs, would 

 you melt them up and use the wax for foundation ? 



Mr. France — Most certainly, I would. 



A Member — Would you not destroy the diseased combs ? 



Mr. France — No. About a year ago, in a certain api- 

 ary where there were 108 good, strong colonies of bees, I 

 found disease in four of them, and he said he would do it. 

 I then went on, and came back a year afterwards, and 

 there were no live bees left, but there were 2500 combs in 

 the cellar, all diseased. "Now, Mr. France, this is pretty 

 hard ; I am going to put a match under the whole thing 

 and burn it up," he said. I told him not to get discouraged 

 with that, because that beeswax, if nothing else, is worth 

 •saving ; and I had him send for one of those German wax- 

 presses to test its merits, and rather than to burn it up I 

 ran 2000 combs through that wax-press the first day, and 

 the balance the next day, and shipped the wax to one of our 

 Wisconsin comb foundation men and he sent me a check for 

 — well, for the was, ar.d said, "I want more." 



Mr. France^lf you have not got a good press you 

 would better get a good wax-press. 



A Member— What is a good one ? 



Mr. France — The German wax-press. That is the only 

 one that I know of that is worth recommending at the pres- 

 ent time, because you can do so much in such a short time 

 with it. I have something at home that does about as well, 

 that is, a large boiler that I had made. It holds about three 

 barrels ; put it down on a large stove and I can do about as 

 well with it as a German press, but I can not take it with 

 me, and this other I take free of charge, checking it as my 

 baggage, and have melted combs here and there, and I can 

 do it up in such a short time. 



A Member — How many pounds of wax do you get out of 

 100 brood-frames ? 



Mr. France — It depends altogether on the age of those 

 combs. One beauty of this wax-press is that you can get 

 more wax in proportion than you can with any other. I 

 think, on an average through our State, that we get about 

 three or four pounds of wax to a set of 8 or 10 combs. 



Dr. Miller— Mr. France, you are in a position to learn 

 about that. I wish you would give close attention to that 

 matter, and perhaps give us the exact figures as to the 

 amount. I formerly had the impression that there was wax 

 put there in the first place, and never any addition to that 

 wax, but I find that across the ocean, by a careful examina- 

 tion, they tell us that there is a layer of cocoon then a fresh 

 layer of wax, then more cocoon, then more wax. I have 



lived a good many years thinking that there was never any 

 wax added. I wish you would give us the exact figures. 

 Take some very old comb and find out the percent of wax 

 you get from that when you have squeezed it all out ; then 

 take some newer comb, not quite so old, and give us the 

 proportion of that. 



Mr. France — I have planned to try that about the first 

 of April. I have about 500 old black combs that I am hold- 

 ing for that purpose. There are some improvements to be 

 made on the German press. 



Mr. Moore — Will you tell us what is necessary to make 

 the hives themselves safe to use again ? 



Mr. France — In about nine-tenths of the cases nothing ; 

 in the other tenth, if there has been any honey dropped 

 from the diseased combs in there, or there are combs on the 

 side of the hive, scrape them off clean. I have boiled only 

 three lots of hives in the State of Wisconsin in the last six 

 years. The disease would not get into the honey until it 

 has gotten into the diseased cells. 



A Member — Is it not in the bee-bread ? 

 Mr. France — Not unless the bee-bread has been put in 

 the cell. I do not believe the bees carry disease with them 

 from a hive back to the flowers. When they go back from 

 the flowers they have a new lot ; that is the reason why 

 we want to try this during the honey-flow. 



A Member — If the honey from that comb which con- 

 tains foul brood was put under a microscope would it indi- 

 cate foul brood so that yon could observe it ? 



Mr. France — I think it would, although the chances are 

 it may have become dried down so that at this stage of the 

 season it would be so hard it would take some little time, 

 heat and moisture to show it as plainly as in June. If you 

 have a good glass you will see that those little germs of 

 foul brood are rod-like in shape. They are longer in pro- 

 portion to their thickness, and seem to have power similar 

 to that of a fishworm. They become large, break off and 

 spread out. You need a very powerful glass to detect the 

 germs of foul brood. I have to use our State glass in the 

 Normal School. 



A Member — I would like to ask if the outside of the 

 combs of the hive that is diseased that contain nothing but 

 honey, never having brood in, would take the disease. 



Mr. France — I think not, but you would take great 

 chances. 



A Member — Is there any danger of using the tools that 

 have been used in the handling of these bees ? 



Mr. France — If they have in any way become soiled or 

 stained by the honey from the diseased hive, yes. 



A Member — Can you cure a diseased hive of bees in the 

 fall ? 



Mr. France — If we have plenty of sealed honey in the 

 healthy combs. 



A Member — Would you starve the bees ? 

 Mr. France — I do not think that it would be necessary 

 at this time of the year. 



A Member — What harm would there be if you made 

 public the names of the places and owners of diseased api- 

 aries? Have not the bee-keepers the right to know who 

 has it, and where it is ? 



Mr. France — I think you ought to know if your bees 

 have it. Suppose some one whose bees have foul brood is a 

 breeder of bees, and I should say in my annual report A, B 

 and C have foul brood, would you buy bees of them ? Prac- 

 tically I would have " cut their throat." 



A Member — Would it be right for a breeder to sell such 

 bees ? 



Mr. France — No, sir ; and if you had legislation in the 

 State you would stop him from doing such business. 



A Member — How would you stop him if nobody knows it? 

 Mr. France — By inspectors going through the yards 

 and finding it out. Some bee-keepers have asked me to go 

 to them and give them a certificate for or against. But if 

 you get a queen from any one abroad and you are not cer- 

 tain, if you will take the queen out of the cage she comes 

 in and put her in a clean, healthy cage, I do not think there 

 is one chance in a thousand in getting a disease. I do not 

 think the queen herself is ever diseased enough to transmit 

 it to a colony. It is in the food in the cage. One of our 

 city girls, who was at the Normal School, thought that she 

 would make a present of a box of comb honey to her 

 mother. She sent the little box by mail ; it came from the 

 west in the mail-bag until it arrived at Madison. There it 

 was transferred to the Northwestern train which came 

 to my city, and right in Madison, in the making up of the 

 mails, I received some queen-bees from a distance that I had 

 paid a good price for. My queen-cages were thrown in the 

 same mail-bag with this box of honey, and the surface of 



