American Bee Journal. 



EDITED AND PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL WAGNER, WASHINGTON, D. C. 



AT TWO DOLLARS PER ANNUM, PAYABLE IN ADVANCE. 



Vol. IV. 



DECEMBER, 1868. 



No. 6. 



[From the German.] 



Poulbrood. 



Its Cause, Source, and Cure. 



Among the various diseases of bees mentioned 

 in the history of bee-culture, so far back as that 

 history can be traced, there is none so danger- 

 ous and destructive as the justly dreaded foul- 

 brood. Entire apiaries have been swept away 

 by this pestilential evil; and many a bee-keeper 

 has been literally ruined thereby and constrain- 

 ed to abandon bee-culture, heavy losses having 

 deprived him of the means of procuring a stock 

 of healthy bees to replenish his hives. Others, 

 less seriously injured, were yet so disappointed 

 and discouraged by the damage sustained, as to 

 contract an utter distaste for a pursuit liable to 

 be thus disastrously affected ; and if the matter 

 be regarded solely from their point of view, 

 their case is entitled to commisseration and 

 sympathy, and their determination need not 

 create surprise. The evil befals its victim sud- 

 denly and unexpectedly, ofttimes attacking his 

 stocks like a thief in the night, and spreading 

 rapidly from colony to colony. It is conse- 

 quently by no means strange that the dismayed 

 bee-keeper is filled with sad forebodings when, 

 on opening one of his hives, he perceives exhal- 

 ing from it an offensive noisome steuch, instead 

 of the pleasant odor of honey. With no person- 

 al experience to direct him, and fruitlessly em- 

 ploying the remedies suggested by others, he is 

 forced to look on the progress of the malady in 

 hopeless helplessness ; and when the last of his 

 colonies has perished, he abandons in disgust 

 what he had expected would prove to him a 

 lucrative pursuit, or at least an agreeable relaxa- 

 tion from exacting duties. Such is but too fre- 

 quently the melancholy issue ; and this fact is 

 of itself a sufficient reason for an endeavor to de- 

 vise, from careful observation and a resort to 

 the aids of science, means of infallibly and in- 

 variably curing this disease whenever and 

 wherever it occurs. Whether the following 

 dissertation will show that we have been suc- 

 cessful in this endeavor, must be submitted to 

 the ultimate judgment of intelligent apiarians ; 

 though we shall not, in the meantime, refrain 



from saying that we will guarantee success in 

 every case where the proposed remedy is ap- 

 plied, and the requisite operations are properly 

 and punctually performed. 



When the observant bee-keeper finds on the 

 bottom-board of any of his hives small dark- 

 brown particles or granules, which if crushed 

 between the fingers become plastic and emit an 

 offensive odor ; and when, further, he sees that 

 the caps of the brood cells are sunken and that 

 the cells themselves contain dead and putrefy- 

 ing larvae, either still soft though decomposing, 

 or already shrunken to a dry, black and fetid 

 mass ; or, even when immature, dead, and de- 

 composing larva?, are torn out of the cells by the 

 workers and found lying on the bottom-board ; 

 he may feel assured that he has before him con- 

 clusive evidence of the existence of foulbrood in 

 that hive. To the experienced bee-keeper the 

 pestilential smell issuing from the hive, at once 

 proclaims the diseased condition of the colony, 

 and renders closer inspection superfluous. 

 Cases occur, indeed, when from protracted 

 want of forage or prolonged bad weather, the 

 stores of a colony becoming exhausted and there 

 being no immediate prospect of new supplies, 

 the workers tear the brood from the cells in de- 

 spair, and cast it out. But here the larva? are 

 still fresh and untainted, showing not the slight- 

 est symptom of disease or even of incipient de- 

 composition, and from the hive no offensive 

 smell is diffused. This, though an evil, has 

 still no connection with the malignant malady 

 of which we are treating. There is, besides, a 

 mild and non-contageous form of foulbrood, 

 specially distinguishable from the other by the 

 circumstance that where it exists it affects only 

 the uncapped larva?, which are found dead in the 

 cells. This results merely from exposure to se- 

 vere cold consequent to a sudden change of 

 weatlier when the lower portion ot the combs 

 are already occupied by brood ; and not from 

 any injurious property of the chyme with which 

 they were fed. Nevertheless care is important 

 even here, and it is always prudent to treat the 

 case promptly, when such appearances present 

 themselves, in the manner described further on. 



To the external accompaniments of foulbrood 

 perta n indisputably the peculiar gaseous and 

 putrescent miasms with which the atmosphere 



