28 MONTANA EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 408 



duced better records though they are not reflected in statistics 

 because the proportion of commercially operated bees is much 

 smaller in those states. 



DISEASE CONTROL 



Paramount among the problems of all classes of beekeepers 

 in the State is the disease, American foulbrood. Montana had no 

 State-supported disease control program during the period 1933 to 

 1941. This relaxing of control permitted a marked rise in the inci- 

 dence and spread of the disease. Many amateur and several profes- 

 sional beekeeping operations died out with the bees. Some apiaries 

 of 40 to 50 colonies were simply abandoned with the hives left on 

 the stands, bees dead and honey robbed out. Commercial beekeep- 

 ers strove to keep territory free of disease by buying out small api- 

 aries to burn them and salvage what was profitable. To render some 

 inspection service of value to the State as a whole with extremely 

 limited funds it was necessary to form an inspection policy around 

 certain facts. The commercial beekeeper in infected territory knows 

 American foulbrood and how to fight it in his own apiaries. He 

 has to fight the disease to stay in business, whereas the amateur 

 and avocational beekeeper knows little about the disease, is often 

 indifferent, and it is not essential to his livelihood to practice 

 disease control. Hence, the most urgent inspection appeared to 

 be among the beekeepers of the amateur and avocational classes. 

 Conditions further indicated the necessity of carrying out the 

 control measures by the inspector. If control is left to individual 

 owners only about 50 per cent of them will carry out the control, 

 and the entire purpose of inspection is defeated. Hence, diseased 

 bees are usually burned on the spot as promptly as possible. 



It must be kept in mind that the inspection record includes 

 mostly amateur and non-professional beekeepers, and represents 

 conditions only among those classes. Since there is no prospect in 

 the immediate future for the inspection of all commercial bees, the 

 State Apiarist is impelled to exercise a policy of depending on com- 

 mercial beekeepers to control disease in their own apiaries. In 

 exceptional cases the inspection of commercial apiaries has been 

 definitely warranted. However, in general, the profit motive is an 

 incentive for the commercial man to clean up and salvage diseased 

 bees as efficiently as possible. 



Montana has about 500 box hives without modern movable 

 combs (generally regarded as impossible to inspect) . The State 

 Apiarist has found it not only possible, but in numerous cases 

 effective to inspect these hives. The procedure is simple in most 

 cases. The hive is tipped over and the bottom pried off with a 

 large hive tool made from an automobile spring. The combs can 

 then be folded back and forth like leaves of a book to inspect the 

 brood for sunken and perforated cappings. If that is not satis- 



