28 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



a rapid dimiiuition. The cap to the 

 cells containing the diseased brood 

 will be concave, instead of convex, as 

 it is in healthy brood. A minute hole 

 is often Ibunil thioiigh the centre of 

 the cap, as if the bees had attempted 

 to drag out the dead brood, and had 

 sickened of the undertaking at the first 

 whitfofthe foul gas. In this disease 

 the brood usually matures so far as to 

 rise from the bottom of the cell and be 

 capped over. The nymph or pupa 

 state is not attained, but tlie decaying 

 larva becomes a brown stringy mass, 

 which falls to the lower side of the cell, 

 becomes wrinkled and finally dries up 

 in the bottom of the cell. This dried 

 black mass is composed of the spores, 

 already referred to as the fatal germs, 

 which if spread to other colonies will 

 continue the fell work of destruction. 

 We need not then confound this with 

 a less harmful disease, where the larvaj 

 are not capped, but die earlier, and 

 where the dried mass at the bottom of 

 the cell is gray, not black. Again if the 

 brood is watery, and not thick and vis- 

 cid when drawn out with a pin, then it 

 is not this malignant kind of foul brood. 

 Surely if the above is carefully studied 

 no one need fail in correctly diagnos- 

 ing this terrible plague. The stench, 

 the sunken cap, the minute hole in the 

 cap not always present, the brown ropy 

 mass, the decaying brood, and the 

 black dried remains at the bottom of 

 the cell, — each and all will tell the 

 alarming news. 



HOW' THK CONTAGION IS SI'KEAD. 



The minute spores lodge in the honey, 

 form the black mass on the floors of 

 such cells as have contained the dis- 

 eased brood, and adhere to the combs 

 and sides of the hives. There is good 

 reason to believe thatthey do not adhere 

 to the bees ; but may and likely will be 

 in the honey that the bees may convey 

 from a diseased colony or a hive that 

 is now the tomb of bees which are the 

 victims of this fearful scourge. If then, 

 combs containing honey or brood or 

 bearing the spores, are taken from a dis- 

 eased colony and given to a healthy one 

 the latter will almost surely sufler an at- 

 tack. Kobber bees visiting a diseased 

 colony will bear to their own hive the 

 fatal germs. What adds importance to 

 this last fact is the greater danger 

 which always threatens weak colonies 

 from robber bees. In like maimer, if 

 bees from a healthy colony visit a tree 

 jov hive from which the bees have died 

 even a longtime ago and bear away to 



their own hives the noxious germs, 

 they have as surely innoculated their 

 own brood, to which they have fed 

 these seeds of disease. We see then 

 how dangerous a thing it is once to in- 

 troduce this fell malady into a locality 

 and how eager we should all be to 

 stamp it out at its first appearance. 

 For one knowingly to allow it to remain 

 in his apiary, and endanger the bees of 

 his neighbor is to assume a feariul re- 

 sponsibility, which it is to be hoped 

 would not permit such an one to rest 

 day or night, till he had performed 

 fruits meet for repentance. Some api- 

 arists think that malignant foul brood 

 may arise by allowing brood to die in 

 quantity in an inhabited hive. The 

 fact that foul brood gern)s will develop 

 in beef juice proves that it would likely 

 vegetate in cliilled brood. But it can 

 oidy grow in dead brood from the pres- 

 ence of the germs, and were they in 

 the atmosphere ever present, then we 

 should be constantly ha\ ing the dis- 

 ease. So the above theory of origin is 

 not probably correct. To arise, the 

 germs must come to the hive. I have 

 repeatedly left drone brood in large 

 masses in hives, — till decomposition 

 set in, but there was never any sign of 

 the production of this terrible disease. 



METHODS OF CUKE. 



Tliose who have tried to cure and 

 have failed and no less some that have 

 succeeded in curing the disease, are free 

 to say that the politic thing to do, in 

 the case disease makes its appearance, 

 is to burn all diseased colonies, hives, 

 combs, honey and all, iHs<«H«o'. This 

 they say is the safe way, and in the end 

 will generally prove the cheapest. This 

 should be done in such a way that no 

 bee could escape, and spread the mal- 

 ady. Some recommend burying instead 

 of burning. Ifthisisdone, care should 

 be taken to bury so deep that the germs 

 could never be disinterred. 



I think that Professor Kolbe of Leip- 

 sic, Germany, flist announced that the 

 great fungicide salicylic acid, while it 

 was death to the germs and the fungi, 

 was entirely harndess to the bees. 

 This acid while readily soluble in al- 

 cohol, is only partially so in water. A 

 solution of tliis acid, one part in ten of 

 alcohol is nnide, and corked up to be 

 used at pleasure. When we wish to 

 spray the bees, thirty parts of water to 

 one of the solution are used, and the 

 diseased brood thoroughly sprayed 

 once every week till the colony is cured. 

 To destroy the germs in a hive the mix- 



