1-14 



TRE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



ever was it curable in Thuringia, when it had 

 once broken out. Even the expelled bees, long- 

 kept on "starvation diet," and then placed in a 

 new clean hive, soon became as badly diseased as 

 before. In the summers of 1865 and 18G6, being 

 requested'to aid bee-keeping friends, Tmade four 

 attempts to save their bees, experimenting with 

 due circumspection and care, yet without any suc- 

 cessful results whatever. And my unhesitating 

 advice now is to subject every colony so diseased 

 to the brimstone process when all the bees have 

 returned at eve, and thus arrest the spread of the 

 evil, which may otherwise soon extend to every 

 colony in the apiary. In 1864, I communicated 

 to the Bienemeitung an account-of the utter ruin 

 ' of an apiary of seventy-seven splendid colonies, 

 caused by the introduction of foulbrood. Dzier- 

 zon too seems to have lost all regard for cura- 

 tive processes, for in Ins latest work, page 276, 

 he says: "The better course is to make short 

 work of it; turn the contents of the hives into 

 money as best we may, and therewith purchase 

 healthy stocks." 



2. In like manner, I would advise resorting 

 to the brimstone pit whenever putrid cells are 

 observed in a hive, for we cannot say wliether 

 this be not the beginning of a rapidly spreading, 

 devastating, and incurable disease. "But if when 

 first discovered a considerable number of hives 

 are already infected, though none extensively 

 damaged, it will be proper 'to watch matters pa- 

 tiently awhile, for in such case we may regard 

 it as most likely to be curable foulbrood or of the 

 second grade. 



3. Foulbrood of the second grade can be more 

 easily arrested and removed, "though not with- 

 out considerable damage. If the queen be re- 

 moved the workers will have cleansed the cells 

 of all infectious matter long before the young 

 queen begins to lay. The cure will be the more 

 effectual if the combs be removed as soon tisthe 

 brood has emerged from the cells, and a new 

 hive finally given to the colony. As queen cells 

 are among the first to become putrid, all that 

 have been built in the queenless hive should be 

 destroyed in about a week and a sealei^ one in- 

 serted from a healthy stock. 



4. Examine all the hives thoroughly in au- 

 tumn, at latest in October, when all the brood 

 has matured, andremo\eany comb that con- 

 tained or still contains foulbrood in any of the 

 cells. 



5. Foulbrood of the second grade not unfre- 

 quently disappears spoutaneousTy. But I would 

 advise no one to rely on that. Rather proceed 

 as suggested under the two preceding heads. I 

 have known two instances where the bee keepers 

 remained unconcerned, doing nothing; and in 

 the following summer nearly all their colonies 

 were ruined by foulbrood in its most malignant 

 form. * 



6._ The hives should be well scalded and then 

 fumigated Avith brimstone. It is also advisable 

 to burn up any propolis they may contain, by 

 means of a blazing wisp of straw, before scald- 

 ing the hives. After scalding and before fumi- 

 gating them, they should be washed with a strong 

 solution of chloride of lime. If the disease was 



the foulbrood was of the malignant type, it will 

 be safest to set them aside for two or three years. 

 The stands on which foulbroody hives have stood 

 should also be washed with the solution of chlo- 

 ride of lime, and had better be left unoccupied 

 at least one year. 



7. As I have no knowledge whatever of the 

 third grade of foulbrood, I can only advise treat- 

 ing it like that of the second grade, where it is 

 supposed to exist. 



8. It has been suggested that colonies infected 

 with foulbrood should not be forthwith con- 

 demned to the brimstone pit, but be removed to 

 a distance from the apiary for further observa- 

 tion and treatment. I should not reconmiend 

 this unless some isolated spot were available, 

 within a radius of three or four miles of which 

 no other bees were kept. For it would be moral- 

 ly wrong, though perhaps not legal felony, thus 

 to carry death and destruction within the range 

 of your neighbor's bees. 



[Conclusion in next number.] 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



The Varronian Theory of Procreation in 

 Bees. 



Mr. Editor: — Having in my last communi- 

 cation placed the queen into the desirable condi- 

 tion to lay drone and worker eggs at will, I shall 

 in this endeavor to explain to what use the good 

 people of the hive put some of the worker eggs, 

 and leave the reader to judge whether or not, by 

 this theory, he is enabled to explain all the dif- 

 ferent degrees of abnormality to which more or 

 less of the members of any swarm of bees may, 

 at times, be subjected. 



Abnormalities in the animal kingdom origi- 

 nate in a forced compliance with the normal de- 

 cree of i:)rovidence. 



Api3ro]3riate food maladministered and inap- 

 projiriate food well administered to the young of 

 any animal constitutes a forced comijliance with 

 the normal decree of providence. 



In the hive all individualit}?^ not reared direct- 

 ly from the egg, ub initio as such, implies forced 

 or unnatural compliance. 



Fertile queens reared out of season, drone-lay- 

 ing queens, and fertile workers, are abnormali- 

 ties. 



Albumen, according to modern science, is the 

 acknowledged universal starting point of all 

 animal life. Vegetable albumen and animal al- 

 bumen are chemically considered one and the 

 same thing, atom for atom, subserving one and 

 the same end, to wit: the building up of the ani- 

 mal frame. In the egg albumen exists in its 

 l)urest and most concentrated form, and in com- 

 bination with fibrine which is convertible into 

 albumen, constitutes about nine-t.nths of the 

 substance found in normal- royal cells, where it 

 contains about one-third of nitrogen, and this is 

 the appropriate food of the queen after her ex- 

 closure from the egg. This semi-fluid or creamy 

 substance is neither simple salivary solution, 



coagulum, or jelly, for these substances dry up 

 into an opaque gummy mass when they come 



foulbrood of the second grade onl}^, hives thus I in contact with the air, while this royal food does 



treated maybe imme'diately used again; but if I not. 



