The American Apiculturist 



% lournal tjebot^ti to Sneittific anb |practual beekeeping. 



ENTERED AT THE POST-OFFICE, SALEM, AS SECOXD-CLASS MATTER. 



Published Monthly. S. M. Locke, Publisher & Prop'r 



SALEM, MASS., OCTOBER i, 1884. 



VOL. IL 



No. 10. 



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FOUL BROOD 

 AND A NEW CURE. 



By Chas. F. Muth. 



The number of letters I receive 

 on foul brood from almost every 

 part of the country convinces nie 

 that this subject is of more impor- 

 tance than man}' of us think. It 

 shows that this virulent disease 

 does not only exist but that it has 

 spread rapidly. I have some ex- 

 perience in the matter, and foul 

 brood may not yet be a thing of 

 the past with me, as a friend told 

 me only a few days ago that his 

 five hives on his roof in our city were 

 foul with the disease. I have seen 

 them since, and expect to brimstone 

 them for him on some evening and 

 have combs and hives burnt up be- 

 fore morning, so that no visiting 

 bees next day will have a chance 

 of taking spores home with them. 

 His stand will be disinfected with 

 the atomizer before I shall quit. 

 23 



There is no use for any one to be- 

 come alarmed upon finding dead 

 brood in his hives, which is very 

 often caused during cold nights in 

 fall and spring when bees contract 

 their cluster and leave larvee ex- 

 posed. The color of the laiwae is 

 white with a dark shade occasion- 

 ally, until it is removed by the 

 bees ; while from foul brood, they 

 look brownish almost as soon as 

 dead and the color deepens until a 

 dark brown mass lodges on the 

 lower side of the cells. When the 

 attempt is made to remove it with 

 a pin or a stick, it feels ropy, sticky, 

 and cannot entirely be removed. 

 The stench, of which so much has 

 been said by different parties, 

 does not differ any from that of any 

 other decaying brood. But it be- 

 comes stronger as the bulk of dead 

 animal matter accumulates. Invis- 

 ible pores are thrown out from this 

 brown larvae and carried along on 

 the bodies of the bees, drones and 

 queens, running over them. A queen 

 from a foul-brood colony is just 

 as liable to spread the disease as 

 any other member of that family. 

 It would be bad logic to consider 

 it otherwise and I had ample proofs 

 of it in several instances when I 

 did not wish to give up a fine queen 

 from a diseased colony, introduced 

 her into a healthy one and created 

 (217) 



