DECEMBER 15, 1913 



897 



for seed; and with the sweet clover which 

 grows in waste places it gives an ideal pas- 

 turage for bees. There are many fine apiary 

 locations in diiferent sections of the State, 

 but all of these should be thoroughly inves- 

 tigated before an attempt is made to start 

 an apiary in any one of them. 



Division of State into counties for gener- 

 al farm survey work : 



COAST DIVISION. 



Curry, Coos, Tillamook, Clatsop, Lincoln. 



SOUTHERN OREGOK. 



Josephine, Jackson, Douglas. 



COLUilBIA BASIN. 



Hood River, Wasco, Sherman, Gilliam, 

 Morrow, Umatilla. 



CENTRAL OREGON. 



Malheur, Harney, Crook, Klamath, Lake. 



WILLAMETTE VALLEY. 



Lane, Linn, Benton, Marion, Polk, Clack- 

 amas, Columbia, Multnomah, Yamhill, 

 Washington. 



BLUE MOUNTAINS. 



Union, Grant, Baker, Wallowa, Wheeler. 



EUROPEAN FOUL BROOD 



Alexander Treatment Endorsed 



BY C. F. BENDER 



After seven years' silence I believe that I 

 am entitled to say a few more words as to 

 the treatment of European foul brood, espe- 

 cially as I have rid my bees of the disease 

 completely, not having seen a cell of it for 

 three j^ears. I was among the very first to 

 champion the Alexander treatment (see 

 Gleanings, 1903, and later). Indeed, I 

 used that plan before it was ever published, 

 having discovered it accidentally, as Mr. 

 Alexander probably did. 



When the disease first appeared among 

 my bees, in 1902, I began treating them by 

 shaking on foundation, on the so-called 

 starvation plan, according to the method 

 then in vogaie. The plan was faithfully fol- 

 lowed for two seasons; but there were so 

 many cases of recurrence that I had begun 

 to despair. I think the weak point in this 

 treatment was in leaving the old queen with 

 the bees. If a young Italian queen were 

 given at the time of shaking, I think it 

 would always succeed. But if a young 

 queen is given after keeping the bees queen- 

 less for a while it is not necessary to shake. 



In shaking the sick colonies there was 

 always a lot of brood left over; and the 

 question with me was, what to do with it. 

 It seemed wasteful to burn or bury the 

 combs when so much of the brood was 

 heallhy. The way usually followed was to 

 put a lot of this brood together, leaving it 



for 21 days to hatch out. After hatching 

 was completed the bees were shaken from 

 the combs again, starved three days, then 

 hived on foundation and given a young 

 queen, if they had not raised one that suited 

 me, wliich was not often, as the disease 

 seemed to attack queen-cells worse than 

 worker brood, and in the worst cases none 

 of the royal cells would hatch. 



Toward the end of the summer of 1903 I 

 ran out of foundation and frames, and the 

 combs looked so nice and clean after hatch- 

 ing out that I decided to keep the bees over 

 winter on the combs and shake them in the 

 spring. When spring came I watched these 

 colonies carefully, expecting, of course, that 

 they would be the first to show dead brood ; 

 for I had been taught that, to get rid of the 

 disease, we must get rid of the germs. I was 

 surprised to find dead brood in several colo- 

 nies that had been starved and shaken by 

 the orthodox plan ; and equally surprised to 

 find not a cell of it in those that had not 

 been shaken. 



I was vex'y reluctant to adopt the de- 

 queening plan for a regular treatment, be- 

 cause I could see no reason why it should 

 cure; and it did fail sometimes. Theory 

 said that the trouble was caused by gei'ms 

 that multiplied in the young larva, and 

 finally killed it; that the disease was spread 

 from cell to cell, and from hive to liive, by 

 means of these germs. The rational treat-' 

 ment, according to that theory, was to de- 

 stroy those germs. I tried antiseptics of 

 several kinds, but they all failed to cure. 



As I had read medicine a little, I borrowed 

 some books and read up on epidemic dis- 

 eases in general. I learned that, when a 

 patient recovered from such a disease as 

 diphtheria, for instance, he did not get rid 

 of the germs first. They were often to be 

 found in his system in large numbers, even 

 for weeks after recovery; but for some 

 reason they did no harm, and the doctors 

 did not know why they were harmless. I 

 learned so much about what the sages did 

 not know about germs that I was ready to 

 lay my theory aside for a while. 



After that the only thing that troubled 

 me about the dequeening treatment was the 

 occasional failures. While I was still work- 

 ing on the problem ]\Ir. Alexander's articles 

 appeared in Gleanings, and the whole mat- 

 ter became clear. As I had complete records 

 of all my colonies for several years back I 

 was able to verify Mr. Alexander's state- 

 ment that young queens were necessary to 

 success; and if the disease was severe, that 

 Italian blood was much the best. 



For a while I practiced dequeening 21 

 days to allow the brood to hatch out, then 

 shaking on foundation without starAang. 



