Read before the Ventura, Cal., Convention. 



Remedy for Foul Brood. 



JOHN G. COKEY. 



This scourge occupies the same relation 

 to the honey bee that the plague or cholera 

 does to the human species, and has been 

 fought against with variable success by the 

 most eminent apiarists of both the Old and 

 New Worlds. 



This climate offers rare opportunities to 

 the bee-keeper to rid his apiary of this dis- 

 ease, the atmosphere being dry and the 

 temperature equable during the months 

 most suitable for treatment, May, June and 

 July, as I have found from experience dur- 

 ing the past year. 



This is not a disease of the bees but of the 

 sealed brood, and the symptoms are dwind- 

 ling of the colony caused by the brood or a 

 portion of it not hatching ; the capping of 

 the brood becomes sunken instead of con- 

 vex, and later on, in a more advanced stage 

 of the disease, small holes the size of a pin 

 will be found in the capping of the diseased 

 cells. 



A lengthy description of the different 

 symptoms of the disease in the different 

 stages is not strictly necessary, as the ob- 

 serving bee-keeper can readily detect bad 

 cases by the sickening smell when a comb 

 is taken from a diseased colony, and with a 

 little practice will be able to detect the 

 slightest trace of it so long as it remains in 

 his apiary. It is strictly necessary for him 

 to know that the disease remains with the 

 colony so long as there is a particle of the 

 diseased honey carried out with the bees, 

 and allowed to remain with them in their 

 sacks and not entirely consumed. 



The disease was brought into my apiary 

 during the dry season of 1877, by feeding 

 honey sent to me from San Francisco, which 

 came from a district where foul brood pre- 

 vailed, and from the healthy strong colonies 

 in May and June, built up by moving my 

 bees into the valley when hundreds of acres 

 of mustard was in full bloom ; for 30 days 

 my whole apiary was transformed into a 

 pest hospital. My bees had made brood 

 rapidly on the mustard, and my hives were 

 crowded with bees. Hot winds from the 

 desert came on, flowers dried up, and all 

 that bloomed after that time, about the 10th 

 of June, appeared to secrete no honey, and 

 the buckwheat that we sowed on irrigated 

 land made a fair crop of seed, but produced 

 no honey. 



I fed my bees from 10 to 15 lbs, of honey, 

 only one-fifth of which was diseased, but 

 by using the same feeders the virus was thor- 

 oughly spread into nearly every hive of the 

 150 colonies fed, and before January 50 of 

 them had died out, and by spring 15 or 20 

 more were so weak that they were virtually 

 used up. 1 added 50 new colonies to my 

 apiary of healthy bees, 30 of which were 

 transferred and made new combs and brood 

 rapidly ; these and the 15 other healthy col- 

 onies were used to strengthen my weak and 

 foul colonies until warm settled weather 

 came. I lost some time in trying the sali- 

 cylic acid remedy so much recommended 

 by our German apiarists and also by Mr. C. 



F. Math, of Cincinnati. 1 found that un- 

 capping the brood and spraying with the 

 acid, carefully prepared by a good chemist, 

 and adding the borax, which Mr. Muth 

 claimed to be an important addition were of 

 no benefit whatever. 



The sticky mass of dead brood would ad- 

 here to the feet of the bees, and effectually 

 bird-lime them, so that it was impossible 

 for them to carry out the foul matter, and 

 one, two and three different applications of 

 the acid were tried, hoping to disinfect the 

 matter so as to enable the bees to carry it 

 out, and after trying until the bees dwindled 

 to a mere nucleus, 1 abandoned drugs. 



The treatment used by Mr. Quinby, with 

 the additional recommendation of Mr. A. I, 

 Eoot to confine the bees until all the dis- 

 eased honey was consumed, appeared to me 

 to be the most reasonable remedy left for 

 me to try. By this time I had searched bee 

 literature thoroughly, and found what to me 

 appeared a rational conclusion, which was 

 that the honey that remained in the hive 

 contained the virus, as 1 found after remov- 

 ing all diseased brood from the hive andi 

 giving healthy empty combs to it, that the 

 brood afterward died and became foul and 

 rotten by being fed with the diseased honey 

 left in the hive. I furthermore decided that 

 there was a type of the disease that our 

 German friends and Mr. Muth had not met 

 with, or they would not have been able to 

 report the success they did with simple dis- 

 infectants. 



To come to the manner of treatment, no 

 part of which is entirely new, 1 will give 

 only such as was finally tested and found 

 effective, leaving all my experiments and 

 failures out. In the first place, have ready 

 either new hives or thoroughly cleaned ones 

 for the number you wish to treat, say from 

 5 to 10 at a time, depending, of course, upon 

 the size of the apiary and the help you have 

 to do the work. 



Remove the infected hive to one side and 

 place the new one on the stand ; raise the 

 combs one at a time and with a brush or 

 feather brush all the bees into and in front 

 of the new hive, carefully covering up the 

 foul broody combs and carrying them into 

 the house; proceed with others till you have 

 treated the number above mentioned. The 

 operation should be performed after all the 

 bees have come in from the field, say be- 

 tween sunset and dark in the evening, so as. 

 to entirely prevent robbery, and not a drop 

 of honey nor piece of comb left around for 

 the bees to rob out the next morning. As- 

 soon as all the bees have gone into the new 

 hive, fasten up the entrance and arrange for 

 ventilation upward, if possible, but no par- 

 ticular way of arranging for this is needed, 

 as all bee-keepers know that bees require 

 more air when confined than when at lib- 

 erty. 



The combs taken from the diseased col- 

 ony is the next job. If they are not well 

 filled with honey, a good bright fire to burn 

 up everything in the frames containing 

 foul brood is the very best remedy ; if they 

 are well filled with honey, the brood can be 

 cut out and burned and the honey extracted, 

 but I do not recommend trying to save it, 

 for I treated some of my colonies over and 

 over, and forced them to make three entire 



