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THE AMERICAN BEE JOLH^^AL. 



Oct. 29, 1903. 



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Contributed Articles 





L. L. Langstroth and Bee-Stings. 



BY DR. G. BOHRER. 



HAVING seen some statements in the American Bee 

 Journal concerning- what I infer to be injurious results 

 having- followed bee-stings, in Mr. Langstroth's case, 

 I will state that I was well acquainted with Mr. Langstroth, 

 and happened to visit at his home in Oxford, Ohio, when he 

 was suffering from one of his attacks of mental depression, 

 to which he was subject from an early period of his life. 



He was in his apiary when I passed through his yard- 

 gate, and seeing him there I went directly to him. It was 

 not his custom to go outside of his house when under the 

 influence of these attacks, so he and his family informed 

 me, but he had done so on this occasion, hence our meeting 

 was accidental, so Mrs. Langstroth told me, stating he 

 would not have consented to see me, nor any one else, ex- 

 cept as it occurred in this particular instance (by accident), 

 and she expressed the hope that it might be the means of 

 cutting short this particular attack. 



I inquired of him if he attributed these attacks to any 

 particular cause. "Yes," he said, " when I was young I 

 received a lick on the head," at the same time placing the 

 fingers of his right hand upon the right side of his head, 

 near the top. Beestings were not mentioned as having 

 anything to do with his case. 



When he died, the papers reported that he died of apo- 

 plexy, having been attacked while in the pulpit preaching, 

 or about to preach, a discourse. Knowing what I do about 

 his case, I doubted the statement, but was then, as I am still, 

 of the opinion that he died of a stroke of paralysis of the 

 brain. But in this I may possibly be mistaken, but be this 

 as it may, I never heard that his death was caused by the 

 accumulation of poison from bee-stings. 



I will further state that in all my study and practice of 

 medicine, during a period of 47 years, I have never learned 

 of or heard of bee-poison accumulating in the human sys- 

 tem. Nor have I, after receiving thousands of bee-stings, 

 with quite a sprinkle of yellow jackets, bumble-bees, and 

 bald-hornet stings thrown in, been any the worse off, so far 

 as I can detect. On the contary, with time bee-stings seem 

 to be, if anything, less painful. 



When a boy I had one of my " windows " closed a time 

 or two, once by a hornet, and another time by bumble-bees. 

 Yellow jackets have peppered me pretty thickly upon my 

 arms and other parts of my body, but not' about the face. I 

 am now past 70 years old, not as old as Mr. Langstroth was, 

 but none the worse, as far as I know, as a result of stings. 



Price Co., Kans. 



Foul Brood and Kindred Bee-Diseases. 



BY C. P. DADANT. 



I READ with interest the article of J. E Johnson, on page 

 648. I think I can throw a little light on this subject. 

 I have been very much astonished to read, at different 

 times, that boiling the hooey did not destroy the germs of 

 bacillus alvei, unless the boiling was kept up for several 

 hours— three hours, I think. It had always seemed to me 

 that boiling, if it was but for a minutes, would kill any 

 germ of living organisms, whether animal or vegetable, 

 and I yet wonder whether there might not have been some 

 error in the experiments when it was reported that live 

 germs were found after an hour of boiling. 



The immunity of beeswax that has been once rendered 

 seems to me well established. We have been manufactur- 

 ing foundation for over 25 years, and during that entire 

 time our bees have had access to the wax-receiving room. 

 It is difficult to handle large packages of beewax, barrels, 

 hogsheads, sacks, etc., in a closed room, and our wax-weigh- 

 ing room would have been a trap for the bees, had we not 

 arranged to let them go out of it of their own accord. Yet, 

 with an apiary of 60 to 80 colonies close at hand, we have 

 never yet seen a case of foul brood So we are convinced 

 that beeswax is absolutely safe after it has been once ren- 

 dered at the ordinary temperature. Yet, if the scientists 



are right in their experiments, the beeswax would have to 

 be boiled three hours, at least, to destroy the germs. 



I have thought of an explanation which would recon- 

 cile the necessity of long boiling with the fact that beeswax 

 is immune, and that is : Is it not possible that the hot wax 

 soaks the germs and embalms them — mummifies them — in 

 such a way that further development is impossible ? Our 

 own experience, and that of Mr. France, are conclusive as 

 far as wax and foundation are concerned as to their harm- 

 lessness. 



It is true that foundation, when manufactured, has passed 

 through several heating processes, both for refining the 

 wax and for sheeting it. In many cases the wax remains 

 hot for hours, but in some cases it is certainly not hot for 

 three hours together. But dip anything you please into hot 

 beeswax, and it at once becomes soaked with it, and when 

 the wax cools, it becomes stiff. All bee-keepers who have 

 had anything to do with rendering beeswax know how it 

 soaks into everything, how it coats all sorts of utensils, or 

 the insects, or particles of vegetable matter, wool, cotton, 

 etc., that may happen to come in contact with it. It seems 

 to me very plausible that the bacilli which come in contact 

 with it would be so thoroughly soaked with wax as to be- 

 come perfectly harmless, even if we have to grant that an 

 hour's boiling would not kill them ; though, with all due re- 

 spect for the experiments made, it looks to me almost impos- 

 sible that any life on our planet could be capable of resist- 

 ing only a thorough soaking in boiling water, even. 



If the surmise is right, it will explain how beeswax, 

 even when only once rendered, would prove safe from the 

 germs of brood diseases. It would not then require more 

 than a very thorough heating and melting of it to soak all 

 germs so as to make them harmless. 



OIL OF EUCALYPTUS FOR DISEASED BROOD. 



During the past year I have been asked a number of 

 times about cases of diseased brood, and a number of sam- 

 ples have been sent to me. In each case but one I have 

 concluded that the samples sent me were not foul brood. In 

 the one case alone, a piece of brood-comb sent from Oregon, 

 I recognized the well-described symptoms — the coffee color 

 and glue-pot smell of the disease. I have treated two cases 

 of dead-brood with entire success, by the use of oil of 

 eucalyptus, which has been recommended by several writers 

 in the Revue Internationale D' Apiculture ; but I am satisfied 

 that neither of these cases was foul brood. The manner in 

 which the remedy was applied was as follows : 



A small cardboard box, such as jewelers use for small 

 articles of jewelry, was filled with cotton-batting, a small, 

 round hole, a half inch or so, made into the end of the box, 

 and as much oil of eucalyptus as the cotton would soak was 

 poured in. This was placed just over the combs that were 

 infected. 



In the first case, the colony produced quite a crop of 

 honey while undergoing treatment, and not only was the 

 smell of eucalyptus strong enough to notice it when the 

 wind was right, some 20 feet away, but the honey which was 

 extracted from this colony had a distinct smell of the oil of 

 eucalyptus, though not strong enough to tn.ake it objection- 

 able. 



The oil was applied for five weeks regularly, every four 

 days, so that the colony was constantly kept under the in- 

 fluence of the drug. The bees did not seem to suffer from 

 it in any way. According to our Swiss friends, the greatest 

 objection to this drug is that it attracts robber-bees. I did 

 not notice any trouble on this score. But it was used dur- 

 ing a honey crop, this time. 



The other case was in the apiary of a friend in Mis- 

 souri. Two colonies were attacked, and he found a third 

 just as he began applying the remedy. In less than four 

 weeks all traces of dead brood had disappeared. This case 

 was apparently what has been termed " black brood," for 

 the sealed larva, or chrysalis, turned black in the cell. 



I do not believe that it would be advisable to rely too 

 much on this remedy in a case of true foul brood. All 

 authors seem to agree in advising bee-keepers to avoid 

 drugs. Yet it is to drugs that we all turn if we want to 

 avoid the more radical means of fire. There is no doubt in 

 my mind that eucalyptus will render great service in cases 

 where the disease is not clearly foul brood, and I believe I 

 would try it in very mild cases, and, by all means, would em- 

 ploy it when colonies are in danger of the disease, as a pre- 

 ventive. The fact that oil of eucalyptus is a strong anti- 

 septic would indicate its usefulness in this respect. Its 

 strong smell tainting the honey would lead one to think 

 that it might even destroy germs existing in the honey. 



At any rate, I would strongly recommend oil of eucalyp- 



