XH® m^mmmicKU mm,m 3&wm.mRi^. 



551 



a soft-coal stove, whicli with the best 

 of draughts, emits gases. 



Foul air, improper ventilation, coal 

 gases, together veith the sudden change 

 and exposure of lungs and throat to 

 zero weather, or worse, in a moment, is 

 the source to no end of throat and 

 bronchial troubles. A free, regular 

 and constant use of honey is probabl}' 

 the best medicine for throat troubles 

 there is, and its regular use would be 

 largely corrective here. It is always 

 best to take our medicine and food to- 

 gether. 



Harlan, Iowa. 



FOUL BROOD. 



Why it Required Liegi§iative 

 Action in Canada. 



Read at the Oxford, Ont, Convention 



BY J. E. FKITH. 



My object is not to wi'ite a scientific 

 article on foul brood, but to give such 

 facts as every one may understand and 

 have clearer conceptions as to the 

 passage of the recent Bill by the On- 

 tario Legislature, dealing with the 

 contagious disease among bees, known 

 as foul brood, or perhaps, more prop- 

 erly " bacillus alveus." 



Foul brood is by no means a new 

 disease. It has existed in all ages. 

 We read of its attacks upon apiaries 

 long before America was known to 

 civilization, ages before old England 

 was thought of, or the Christian era 

 established. The facilities of convey- 

 ing knowledge at the present time in- 

 forms us that foul brood is doing its 

 deadly work in all countries where 

 bees are kept. Here and there, all 

 over the continent, whole apiaries are 

 being swept out of existence, even 

 whole districts succumb to its fearful 

 ravages, and yet 90 per cent.of the bee- 

 keepers throughout the countrj' do not 

 seem to realize the consequences to the 

 bee-industry. 



Lit a contagious disease appear 

 among cattle, sweep off 50 cows for 

 some farmer, pass on to the next and 

 kill 10, to another and a hundred are 

 worse than useless, and so on for a 

 radius of a dozen miles. How would 

 the disaster affect dairymen ? How 

 much greater would the calamity ap- 

 pear, be, were the disease raging in 

 50 localities throughout Ontario, and 

 this is exactly the bee-keepers' position 

 to-day. Foul brood is more or less 

 undermining the bee-industry of On- 

 tario. Whole apiaries have gone un- 

 der, and in some cases the bee-keeper 

 has been forced into bankruptcy. The 

 disease is far more prevalent than 

 most people are aware of. 



Young bee-keepers, and old ones 

 too, are slow "to own up," hence 



their neighbors become victims to its 

 deadly doings liefore they have even 

 dreamed of its existence in their 

 vicinity. This should not be, never- 

 theless it is a fact. Large bee-keepers 

 all over the land are " hauling in sail" 

 for fear of the subtle storm. Had open 

 frankness existed along this line, many 

 an ably equipped and successful api- 

 ary to-day would have been remunerat- 

 ing hard toil. Every bee-keeper ought 

 to throw out the danger light. Every 

 bee-keeper does not do it, and every 

 bee-man will not do it, until compelled 

 to by " a whip to keep a coward to his 

 track." I will illustrate by one fact, 

 for "facts be stubborn things." 



An honest man, for so he is called, 

 rushes into the bee-business, without 

 at all acquainting himself with its 

 " ups and downs," its " cloud and sun- 

 shine," much less with its scientific and 

 practical working. His grand-dad had 

 bees, and he heard a lot at a meeting, 

 didn't pay for it either, and read some 

 more in a paper, and saw some honey 

 at a store in cakes, and knows a 

 "heap o' things." This bee-keeper 

 boomed along by the old swarming 

 method until he had fifty or more col- 

 onies. He gets some more knowledge, 

 and must have a queen. "Cheapest 

 best" (?), antl despite every warning, 

 makes the contemplated improvement, 

 fi-om a foul-broody district, of course. 



Two yfears. or thereabouts. Neigh- 

 bor Caution, on making enquiries re- 

 garding his friend Know Much's api- 

 arian success, finds that the booming 

 apiar_y had collapsed with foul bi'ood, 

 and the proprietor was sorry to ad- 

 mit it. This actually took place with- 

 in two miles of a flourishing^piary of 

 over one hundred colonies. On close 

 examination it was found that 40 per 

 cent, of the apiary was affected, and 

 that all the bees for miles around were 

 dying from some cause. Three hun- 

 dred colonies went under. Why ? Just 

 because the "red light" was not 

 thrown out in time. 



This thing is being repeated in more 

 than one place in this province. This 

 illustration shows up but one class, the 

 most dangerous of all. We do not 

 wish to illustrate the every-man-for- 

 himself man, who, to close his accounts 

 in balance, dispo.sed of his bees at his 

 neighbor's cost ; or the misery-loves- 

 company man, who allows his neigh- 

 bor's bees to get the disease without 

 warning him of the danger, or the 

 absolutely selfish and jealous man, who 

 throws diseased combs into his neigh- 

 bor's bee-yard. 



We know a man who sat at the en- 

 trance of his worn-out colony of blacks 

 and vindicatively killed "them 'ere 

 Hitalians of Joneses what's bin a rob- 

 bin' on of his honey." The joke in this 

 turned on himself, for he destroyed 



his hybrid colony, mistaking them for 

 Italians. It is the spirit of the action. 

 He did not throw foul brood into your 

 bee-yard ! He'd do it everj-time. 

 Fortunately this class is few. Without 

 more, danger lurks around, and to 

 protect honest bee-masters, it was 

 necessary to hedge them around, and 

 to say by law, " hitherto shalt thou 

 come, but no further." 



Thougli it be not mj' province in this 

 article to discuss fully the many ex- 

 citing theories regarding foul brood or 

 its origin, yet it appears quite neces- 

 sary at this juncture to ask and an- 

 swer the question, "What is foul 

 brood ?" From scientific and practi- 

 cal observations and researches tlie 

 name bacilus alvetts has been applied 

 to the disease. The term means a 

 hollow stick or hair, or, in plural form, 

 sticks or hairs with or without a seed 

 or berry on the end, which appear to 

 be very rudimentary in foul brood. 



A good illustration of bacillus would 

 be thistle down, dandelion seed, bur- 

 dock seed, or beggar-lice. When ap- 

 plied to foul brood, there appears to 

 be but one stick or hair, but having 

 the power of adhering to any and 

 every thing. Hence the disease is very 

 contagious. Those "wee" (for they 

 are so exceedingly small that thousands 

 of them can adhere to the point of a 

 cambric needle) seeds may be, and are 

 conveyed in many ways. They adhere 

 to anj'thing, float in any congenial 

 liquid, and fly by means of the hollow 

 hair or hairs, upon the " wings of the 

 wind." 



These little seeds, when dormant or 

 ripe, are partially carried out by the 

 bees and distributed long distances by 

 the wind on flowers, or at the en- 

 trance of other hives, and thence car- 

 ried by unwary workers to their 

 homes, there to repeat its destruction. 

 Some of the seed adheres to the walls 

 of the cell, and young larvse born then 

 die, or rather are eaten up. Bees 

 manipulating this disease carry some 

 of the sticks to other cells. So the 

 contagion goes on. It can be and is 

 carried in a hundred waj's. The most 

 prolific source of contagion being by 

 honey, in which the sticks float with 

 amazing ease. 



The disease is highly malignant be- 

 cause it is " hostile to life," in fact, it 

 is fatal. It is now an undisputed fact, 

 that a larva attacked by this insect, 

 seed, germ, or whatever it may be, 

 cei'tainly dies, is eaten up, and eon- 

 verted into a thousand other animal- 

 cules, some say a billion, just as a 

 farmer converts corn into beef and 

 pork, grass into milk and butter, or 

 hay and feed into otlier animals. Let 

 us magnify. Turn a pair of wolves 

 into a sheep-fold. If left to " nature's 

 course," the5' will eat up the sheep. 



