434 AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL^ 



colony thus prepared. I have successfully wintered 2-frame nuclei on the summer 

 stands with the same preparation, excepting that I filled the vacant room below 

 with the same kind of absorbents as was used above. 



I have used ground cork, oats and wheat chaff, cut wheat and oats straw, flax 

 straw, Cottonwood and box-elder leaves, and clover hullings— all with good results. 

 I prefer the different packing mentioned in the order named above, ground cork 

 being the first choice, as at no time is there any signs of moisture about the upper 

 story, while with chaff or leaves, during a cold spell with the thermometer anywhere 

 between 15° and 30° below zero, if the cover is lifted a light frost would be stand- 

 ing on the top of the burlap cushion, but the absorbents would be dry just below the 

 top of the cushion, and the frost would melt and pass away when the weather 

 warmed up. They needed attention during winter at no time only after a blizzard 

 or hard driving snow-storm, when I examined all hives and brushed out what snow 

 drifted in above the cushion, before it had time to melt. At such times it would 

 drift in through the joint between the cover and extension, and the auger-holes in 

 the cover, if I failed to close them before the storm, as I sometimes did. 



If the cover fits perfectly tight, I think these' auger-holes play an important 

 part in allowing a circulation of air above the cushion. 



One fall I packed six hives with the covers fitting down to the cushions 

 with no vacant space above. When unpacked, the following spring, the cushions 

 were rotted so they would not hold together, and the chaff in them was wet and 

 starting to rot ; but the bees were in good condition, and no signs of moisture below, 

 excepting a little dry, bluish-colored mildew on the outside combs. In these cases 

 the moisture was the greatest on the top of the cushion next to the cover, which 

 was also wet. Virgil City, Mo. 



GREAT LOSSES FROM EOUI. BROOD. 



BY WM. M'EVOY. 



Enclosed please find a copy of a letter received from a bee-keeper in New Zea- 

 land, who is, and has been, sorely troubled with foul brood. By publishing Mr. 

 Stevenson's letter, and my explanations why he failed to cure his apiary of foul 

 brood, it may be the means of helping many of the unfortunates to cure their api- 

 aries of that disease. „ . , T -.or>^ 

 Waerengaahika, Gisborne, New Zealand, June, 1894. 



Mr. Wm. McEvoy.— Dear Sir :—I am exceedingly obliged to you for taking the 

 trouble to write me so long and valuable a letter. About a year ago I read a pre- 

 liminary article of yours in the American Bee Journal on foul brood, and after 

 some delay a further article was to appear giving your method of curing the dis- 

 ease. Why, I do not know, but that number of the Journal, which I had been 

 getting regularly from A. I. Root with Oleanings, miscarried. 



When I started keeping bees in 188:}, there was no such thing as foul brood 

 known in this district, and a great number of colonies were kept all in box-hives. I 

 was the first to use frame hives and an extractor. In 1884 foul brood appeared in 

 a large apiary of 500 colonies, and in two years not a colony was left. Gradually 

 it crept up the country, and the next year I noticed it in one of my hives, which I 

 destroyed, but in the following spring the early brood was all diseased. By remov- 

 ing these frames, however, all the summer brood seemed healthy. 



Meantime another box-hive apiary of 400 colonies, two miles off, was struck, 

 and the owner let it run riot, throwing out rotten combs in heaps for the bees to 

 feast on, and spread destruction to every hive. Soon silence reigned in that apiary 

 also, and 1 was left in possession of the field. At this time the Cheshire cure was 

 all the talk, and I worked away, spraying and medicating combs, but with. no (effect. 

 It only got worse. I was now reduced to 50 colonies, and when these swarmed I 



