Nov. 29, 1900. 



AMERICAN BEE JOUPNA)- 



757 



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Convention Proceedings. 



Report of the Proceeding's of the 31st Annual 



Convention of the National Bee-Keepers' 



Association, held at Chicago, 111., 



Aug. 28, 29 and 30, 1900. 



BY DR. A. B. MASON, SEC. 



(Contiuued from pag'e 742.) 

 DISCUSSION OF DISEASES OF BEES AND THEIR CURES. 



Prof. C. P. Gillette~I have with me two small micro- 

 scopes and lenses. I will be glad to place them on the 

 table and let any of you examine these larv;f. Dr. Howard 

 says they can be examined with small lenses. I will put 

 them on the table during- the intermission, and you may ex- 

 amine them. 



Pres. Root — This question is open for discussion. I 

 would like to hear from Prof. Gillette in reg-ard to pickled 

 brood in Colorado. 



Prof. Gillette — I have made no special study of the 

 pickled brood in Colorado. We have in the northern part 

 of the State, I think at least quite generally over the State, 

 what is considered there as pickled brood. The larv;e will 

 lie in the cells, and usually surrounded by a considerable 

 amount of food. The larva itself is in a wet, soggy condi- 

 tion, usually somewhat discolored, of a brownish color, and 

 can be removed with a toothpick or a pin, and you can still 

 detect the shape of the larva and the pupa, and in some 

 cases I have noticed the adult bee, or the bee apparently 

 ready to emerge from the cell, but still dead in the cell, and 

 apparently from the same cause — wet, soggy, and dead — 

 evidently not foul brood. 



Mr. Green — To what extent is pickled brood contagious ? 

 Prof. Gillette — I don't think any one knows; in fact, I 

 am not sure it is known that it is positively contagious, 

 tho it probably is. I believe the cause of pickled brood is 

 not known at present any farther than what Dr. Howard 

 has told us. It is probably due to bacteria of some sort. 



Mr. Green — Have you known it to damage colonies to 

 any great extent as hone3'-producers? 



Prof. Gillette — I think so in some cases, but not in very 

 many ; I have heard of two reports of the disease where it 

 was large enough to decrease the number of colonies quite 

 badly, so that the colonies would not amount to much. At 

 Ft. Collins I have noticed the disease for four or five years, 

 but only a small number of colonies were affected ; I never 

 had a case bad enough to injure the colonies perceptibly. 

 Usually only a few cells in a colony were affected — I could 

 find ten or a dozen, perhaps IS or 20 of these dead larvae 

 when the disease was the worst, but this occurred within a 

 short period of time. Mr. Aikin is present, and could give 

 some information in regard to that. 



Mr. Aikin — I can't give Sny information further than 

 has already been given. There is some disease existing 

 among our bees, and has been for a number of years — I 

 think six or eight years ; what it is I never knew, and. as to 

 the extent of it, I never had it to appear sufficiently in any 

 one colony to make any perceptible difference in the 

 strength of the colony, or affect it any way, further than 

 that there was scattering dead brood. It comes and goes ; 

 as to the cause of it any further, in a scientific way, I can't 

 give you any information whatever. 



Mr. Hatch — Perhaps I can offer something in a practi- 

 cal way. I don't know anything about it scientifically, but 

 I found this pickled brood in California, and so bad in some 

 instances that the colonies were entirely worthless the 

 whole season. 



Dr. Mason — When was that ? 



Mr. Hatch — That was three years ago. Then I came to 

 Colorado and bought out two apiaries. I found it there, 

 and I found the colonies were completely worthless the 

 whole season. When I came to Wisconsin I bought out 

 four apiaries. In three of those I found the same pickled 

 brood, and I have had this season colonies that were com- 

 pletely worthless — good for nothing on account of it. I 

 think it is almost worthless where you find bees with pic- 

 kled brood. I never found any kind of disease in Arizona 

 bees, and I think for lack of observation isj one reason, 



when they think they haven't got it. I think there are very 

 few apiaries in Wisconsin but what have it more or less. 



S. W. Snyder I would like to ask if a prevailing notion 

 does not exist among bee-keepers that this pickled brood 

 will finally develop, thru a series of developments, into foul 

 brood ? 



Pres. Root — If you are asking the chairman that ques- 

 tion, I would say that it is somewhat of a prevailing notion 

 that pickled brood continuing to develop would develop into 

 foul brood. The most I can say is that it would only be a 

 favorable medium for foul brood ; pickled brood would not 

 very well turn into foul brood. Am I correct. Prof. Gil- 

 lette 7 This gentleman here wants to know whether one 

 disease would turn into another. The question was askt 

 whether pickled brood, after a series of developments, 

 would finally develop into foul brood. Prof. Gillette does not 

 know what I have said, so I will see what he says without 

 any prejudice. 



Prof. Gillette— We might have to know a little more 

 about pickled brood before we could positively answer that, 

 but it is practically certain that the pickled brood can not 

 be any stage of foul brood. Any disease that is caused by 

 disease-germs produces a peculiar disease ; you can't get 

 from that disease-germ some other disease any more than 

 you can plant one kind of seed and get another kind of 

 crop. Certain diseases work in a certain way upon plants 

 and animals, and produce certain results, always the same. 

 The cause of pickled brood not being certainly known, 

 might be noticed in a certain locality, might take a certain 

 form which we call " pickled brood ;" in that case we would 

 occasionally find foul brood developing from it; it is prac- 

 tically certain that one isn't related in any way to the other. 

 Mr. France— I agree with the professor in my experi- 

 ments in that respect; my observation now is for four 

 years in our State, that pickled brood need not develop into 

 foul brood. It may form the proper medium, but so far as 

 my observation goes pickled brood would be a way to de- 

 velop foul brood. I think they are independent. 



Pres. Root — Dr. Mason has askt me how I am to tell if 

 they agreed with me ; all right enough. 



Dr. Mason — That doesn't agree with what you said 

 awhile ago. 



Pres. Root — I said it might be a favorable medium for 

 it; but it would not develop into foul brood, as I under- 

 stand it. 



Mr. Snyder— I would like to ask another question. In 

 case a colony has been slightly affected this year with pic- 

 kled brood is it likely to follow up next year in a more seri- 

 ous form, having disappeared this year? 



Pres. Root — I would like to pass that on to some one 

 who has had more experience — Mr. France or Mr. Lathrop. 

 H. Lathrop — Several years ago I had several colonies 

 in northern Wisconsin that were so badly affected with pic- 

 kled brood when I first saw it that I was scared, because I 

 was afraid of foul brood. I markt those colonies, and went 

 so far as to burn up one frame of brood and honey ; but the 

 disease disappeared towards fall, and did not appear the 

 next year in those colonies that I had markt on account of 

 being the worst affected with pickled brood ; but I can 

 always find, every year, a few cells somewhere in the api- 

 ary of what I understand now to be pickled brood. 



Dr. Mason — What is the cause of pickled brood ? 

 Pres. Root — Lack of pollen is one thing, I think Dr. 

 Howard says. I don't know what the other causes are; 

 perhaps Prof. Gillette will tell us. 



Prof. Gillette — I don't know the cause. I think Dr. 

 Howard has been working on a certain cause of pickled 

 brood, and I believe he stated in the paper he did not 3'et 

 know certainly the cause. It seems to work like a bacterial 

 disease, and still he has not been able to isolate the par- 

 ticular germ that will cause the disease ; so as yet we are 

 in the dark, as I understand it, as to what the real cause is. 

 It has been thought to be caused by chilling of the brood, 

 but I think that has been disproved, from the fact that it 

 will disappear when there has been no opportunity for chill- 

 ing of the brood. It seems like a disease caused by a dis- 

 ease-germ, and that that germ has not been found. 



David Coggshall — I don't know anything about it. I 

 have never seen a case. 



Dr. Mason — Of pickled brood ? 



David Coggshall — Not that I ever thought was such a 

 thing, in my apiaries. 



Mr. Aikin — You were speaking of the lack of pollen be- 

 ing probably the cause, or having something to do with the 

 disease. I will make this statement in regard to the mat- 

 ter, that I have been reading in the papers in regard to the 

 famine districts in the East, that the famine itself was not 



