June, 1914. 



201 



American l^ee Jonrnal 



Fig. 



-Two common bumblebees. 

 2. Bombus impatiens; 



Bombus americanorum; <;. female, ^, worker, 

 female, i. male. (See next page.) 



try made at any time referring in any 

 way to the disease was marked with 

 red. That made it easy to tell at a 

 glance whether any colony was affected, 

 and what pertained to the disease with- 

 out having to read over the whole 

 record. 



HOW EUROPEAN FOULBROOD WAS TREATED. 



June 2 and June 10 were the dates on 

 which nearly all the cases were treated. 

 The treatment was simple. As the 

 cases were mild and the queens good, 

 there was no need to destroy or re- 

 move any of the queens. (In very bad 

 cases it is better to destroy the queen. 

 Not that the queen herself has the dis- 

 ease, but she has become poor, perhaps 

 because oE having lived in such a bad 

 atmosphere. In mild cases she is not 

 affected.) In all but a few cases the 

 queen was caged in the hive for 8 or 10 

 days, and then fed. That's all there 

 was of the treatment ; just stopping the 

 queen from laying for 8 or 10 days. 

 Possibly a week would be long enough, 

 but I wanted to be on the safe side. 



In the remaining cases the queen 

 was allowed to remain without being 

 caged. In four cases, in the middle of 

 the day or alittle earlier, all the brood 

 and adhering bees were quietly re- 

 moved (and put elsewhere in an upper 

 story over an excluder), clean brood 

 from elsewhere was given to the queen, 

 allowing the returning field-bees to 

 care for the brood. That was all the 

 treatment they received. The nurse- 



bees had been quietly removed so tliey 

 would not be made to fly and return to 

 the hive, the field-bees had no foul 

 food for the babies, and could get 

 none from the clean brood, so there 

 was nothing to continue the disease. 

 This plan allowed the queen to con- 

 tinue laying, but taking away all the 

 younger bees stood over against that, 

 and caging the queen is less trouble. 



In two cases the treatment was simp- 

 ler than the last given. All the brood, 

 with adhering bees, was put in an up- 

 per story over an excluder, and the 

 queen was left downstairs to start a 

 new brood-nest. If this plan should 

 prove generally successful, as it did in 

 these two cases (one of them was, I 

 think, the worst case in the apiary), it 

 may be the best plan to use with ex- 

 tracting colonies. It has the advan- 

 tage that it is nothing more nor less 

 than the Demaree plan to prevent 

 swarming. For section work the cag- 

 ing plan is all right for mild cases. For 

 severe cases the queen should be killed 

 and replaced after 8 or 10 days by a 

 vigorous laying queen of best Italian 

 stock. Still better it may be to intro- 

 duce a ripe cell or just hatched virgin 

 at the time of removing the old queen. 



One thing that has not been men- 

 tioned should be strongly emphasized: 

 In all cases treated the colony luas 

 strong or else made strong before treat- 

 ment by the addition of brood and bees. 

 FOLLY OF DESTROYING CO.MBS. 



I know there are those for whom I 



have great respect who have bitterly 

 denounced the practice of trying to 

 save the combs in treating luiropean 

 foulbrood. In my first dealing with 

 the disease I destroyed hundreds of 

 brood-combs. If I am forgiven for it 

 I'll never do it again. Please be sure 

 to note that I'm talking about Euro- 

 pean, not American foulbrood. The 

 loss of the combs is not all there is of 

 it. Indeed, I think that's the smaller 

 part. The greater loss is from the set- 

 back in the work of brood-rearing. It 

 seems to knock things endways for 

 weeks if not for the season. Far less 

 is the interference when egg laying is 

 suspended for 8 or 10 days. 



I think I hear some one say, " But 

 your treatment doesn't seem effective, 

 for you keep on having the disease, while 

 with the orthodox treatment and the 

 combs destroyed there's an end of it." 

 Pardon me; that may be true with re- 

 gard to American, but not as to Euro- 

 pean. I treated the disease after the 

 most approved orthodox fashion, de- 

 stroying, as I have said, hundreds of 

 combs, and so far as I could see the 

 disease was just as willing to return as 

 with the less drastic treatment. I think 

 I'd rather keep brood and combs. 



EFFECT OF EUROPEAN FOULBROOD ON THE 

 HONEY CROP. 



Some curiosity has been expressed 

 to know what effect the disease had 

 upon the 1913 honey crop. Is not the 

 fact that the apiary holds the world's 

 record for the largest average of sec- 

 tions (2(J*i.47 per colony) from so large 

 a number as 72 colonies enough to 

 show that European foulbrood did 

 not greatly interfere with the crop? 

 But it may be more satisfactory to go 

 into particulars. 



Part of the diseased colonies worked 

 on extracting combs, and no account 

 was kept of their work; we can con- 

 sider only the 17 that worked on sec- 

 tions. These 17 averaged 2.32.2',t sec- 

 tions each. And now I'm just a little 

 at a loss to know how to figure. There 

 were 72 colonies, spring count, that 

 worked on sections, but another col- 

 ony was made out of these 72, making 

 73. I don't know whether to take 17 

 out of the 72, leaving .5.5, or out of 73, 

 leaving 56, or take some other number 

 as the number of entirely healthy colo- 

 nies to which credit should be given 

 for the rest of the sections. If we take 

 .')5, then the average for the healthy 

 colonies was 277. If we take .56, then 

 the average was 272.1. Even this 

 smaller number is 30.81 more than the 

 average of the diseased colonies. If 

 this difference be wholly due to the 

 disease, then the average of the 72 

 would have been at least 272.1 instead 

 of 2(i().-17. and a loss of t;7() out of the 

 total crop should be charged up against 

 European foulbrood. That may or 

 may not be right, but it certainly looks 

 as if something should be charged up 

 against the disease, even thougit it was 

 mild. And it is a consoling thought to 

 know that the disease can be so kept 

 down. 



/. - I \ / T ^ A /. 



Dr. Bkunnich's Queen Marking Tool ano Marks. 



