American Itee Journal 



Aug. 23, 1906 



Cheyne, in 1885, in the JourDal of the Royal 

 Microscopical Society. The disease which is 

 commonly known as foul brood in this coun- 

 try would appear to be something different, 

 and since the Chicago convention we have 

 succeeded in finding a germ in foul brood 

 which has not been yet described, and which 

 has been called Bacterium ' X ' by Dr. G. F. 

 White, of Cornell University. Our work has 

 not gone far enough to enable us to say defi- 

 nitely that this is the true cause of the dis- 

 ease, but it has every appearance of being. 

 As soon as the season opens, the work will be 

 taken up again and pushed as hard as pos- 

 sible." 



In a subsequent letter, dated July 25, 

 and in reply to some questions from 

 me in regard to the diagnosis of the 

 disease, Dr. Phillips replies : 



" Black brood, or ' New York Bee-Disease,' 

 is not ropy, or at least very slightly. It does 

 not have the ' glue-pot smell,' but an odor is 

 sometimes noticeable. It attacks larvae earlier 

 than old-fashioned foul brood, and while 

 still uncapped they become yellow, chocolate- 

 colored, and finally black. The scale of the 

 dead larva is not so adhesive. There can be 

 no doubt but the two diseases are distinct." 



Upon receipt of this letter I began 

 investigations of authorities on the 

 subject, and at the same time wrote a 

 letter of enquiry to Mr. Edouard Ber- 

 trand, the former editor of the Revue 

 Internationale D'Apiculture. Mr. Ber- 

 trand has much authority on the sub- 

 ject, having had foul brood in his api- 

 ary which he eradicated, and having 

 cured, by the Hilbert treatment, 37 

 colonies in one apiary. Very few per- 

 sons can secure such a result without 

 at least destroying a part of their colo- 

 nies. Mr. Bertrand and Mr. Cowan 

 together have seen, through the micro- 

 scope, the Bacillus alvei produced by 

 these colonies (Conduite du Rucher, 

 page 58). In addition to his personal 

 experience, Mr. Bertrand has made a 

 special study of foul brood, and has 

 translated into the French the work of 

 F. C. Harrison, of Ontario, on foul' 

 brood. He, therefore, has both the 

 theoretical and practical knowledge. 



Mr. Bertrand makes the following 

 reply, which I translate for the benefit 

 of the reader : 



"Dr. Phillips is undoubtedly mistaken. Our 

 foul brood has the ' ropiness,' the viscidity, as 

 a characteristic sign. I wrote in my ' Con- 

 duite du Rucher:' ' The rotten matter is vis- 

 cous; it strings when you draw it out with a 

 needle.' It is this stringing disposition which 

 enables us to determine whether it is foul 

 brood. Cowan, in his treatise, says, ' The 

 cells contain a coffee-colored, putrid, viscous, 

 ropy mass.' F. C. Harrison, in a pamphlet 

 which I have translated, describes on page 11, 

 the ropy, stringing character of the decom- 

 posing larvffi. He has studied foul brood in 

 Canada and in Switzerland, at Berne." 



Referring to Cheshire, the man who 

 gave foul brood its name of " Bacillus 

 alvei "(owing to the particular bacillus 

 that he found in it), we find the follow- 

 ing-description ; we must accept Che- 

 shire as authority on the matter, if we 

 accept his name and description of the 

 bacillus : 



'The larvae so change in appearance soon 

 after infection that a practical eye at once 

 detects the presence of tbe pest. Whilst 

 healthy, their bodies are of a beautiful pearly 

 whiteness, and their skins are tense with ful- 

 ness; but where the disease strikes a larva it 

 moves uneasily in its cell, often presenting its 



dorsal surface The color now changes to 



yellow or the fainte6t buff, distinguishable 

 immediately in a healthy brood-patch, which 

 is, normally, perfectly even in tone. The 



color strengthens to a pale brown, whilst the 

 skin becomes flaccid and opaque, death soon 

 occurs, when the body, shrunken by evapora- 

 tion, lies on the lower side of the cell, becom- 

 ing progressively darker, until it almost as- 

 sumes the color of coffee ; dessication continu- 

 ing, in a few days nothing more than a fiat- 

 tish black scale remains. In an injected col- 

 ony, these can be seen in number by looking 

 over the comb, having its upper edge towards 

 the face of the observer. Should the larva 

 escape contamination until near the period of 

 pupahood, it is sealed over in the normal way. 

 The cover furnishes a screen, on which part 

 of the cocoon is soon after spread; but the 

 inhabitant of the cell is marked out for 

 death, and before very long the capping or 

 sealing sinks, becoming concave, and in it 

 punctures of an irregular character appear, 

 which is nearly a conclusive sign of the dis- 

 eased condition of the colony. The sense of 

 smell is also appealed to as a peculiar, foul 

 and extemely characteristic odor now escapes 

 from the diseased combs. This is difficult to 

 describe, but it reminds me of offensive glue ; 

 while it is not unlike that from guano. The 

 odor is not always present in equal intensity 

 Should any attempt be made at remov- 

 ing a dead larva which has assumed the cof- 

 fee-colored stage, the remains, tenaciously 

 adhering to the cell-wall, will stretch out into 

 long ami thin strings, somewhat like half-dried 

 glue." (Bees and Bee-Keeping, pages 53S and 

 539, F. R. Cheshire, 1S88.) 



I am not in the habit of making long 

 quotations, and the reader will pardon 

 this, owing to the importance of the 

 subject, since Cheshire was the dis- 

 coverer and first describer of Bacillus 

 alvei as the cause of foul brood. The 

 italics in the quotation are mine. I 

 underlined these passages solely be- 

 cause they give the three most indubi- 

 table proofs of the existence of the dis- 

 ease, other symptoms being also no- 

 ticeable in minor diseases. For in- 

 stance, the sunken cappings and yel- 

 lowish larva? are also found in pickled 

 brood. But the ropiness, the coffee- 

 color and the glue-pot smell combined 

 are, from all authorities, clear evi- 

 dences of foul brood. 



I do not doubt the assertion made by 

 the bacteriologists of the United States 

 through Dr. Phillips, that Bacillus 

 alvei is found in black brood, but I 



question whether they are correct in 

 stating that it does not exist in the 

 ordinary United States foul brood. 

 Neither do I make this statement just 

 for the purpose of fault-finding. All I 

 desire to do is to gather together the 

 facts concerning the disease on both 

 continents, in order that our scientists 

 may have their attention called to what 

 can not be denied, i. e., that the dis- 

 ease ordinarily called foul brood an- 

 swers exactly the description given of 

 it by the leading scientists of Europe. 

 A few months of careful and protracted 

 investigation will undoubtedly bring 

 light from this chaos, and I know it 

 will be welcomed by all those who take 

 an interest in the matter. Further dis- 

 coveries may explain to us why it is 

 that some apiarists declare that the 

 disease can only be eradicated by de- 

 priving the bees of all their honey and 

 brood, while others are equally strenu- 

 ous in asserting that the removal of 

 the queen until after all the brood is 

 hatched, and the inserting of a new 

 queen at that time, effectually stops 

 the disease. According to Cheshire, 

 the disease is not in the honey, while 

 according to our most successful foul 

 brood inspectors, the disease is carried 

 mainly through the honey. Let us 

 have more light. 



Allow me to add a few words to this 

 already too long article, to say that 

 another evidence of the ropy, stringy 

 condition of foul brood is very appar- 

 ent in its French name, "la loque." I 

 have already made mention of this 

 somewhere. The French word " loque " 

 has two distinct meanings, the princi- 

 pal meaning being "rags, tatters." 

 A Frenchman will say, Ses vetements 

 tombent en loques — His clothes fall in 

 tatters. It seems very apparent to me 

 that this name " loque " was given to 

 foul brood by the very fact that they 

 noticed the stringy condition of the 

 dead brood, which can never be re- 

 moved whole, but comes out in " tat- 

 ters " whenever you attempt to draw it 

 out of a cell. Hamilton, 111. 



, „. ,......-. 



Canadian 



Beedom 



Conducted by Morlet Pkttit, Villa Nova, Ont. 



Bee-Paralysis Again 



In reference to bee-paralysis, men- 

 tioned on page 598, we have this further 

 letter from Mr. Smith ! 



Mb. Morlet Pettit : — I delayed answering 

 your letter regarding bee-paralysis, as I 

 wished to see the results of treatment. The 

 colony which was sick when I wrote you, and 

 that I had treated with sulphur, has entirely 

 recovered. In fact, I have noticed no dead 

 bees since that time. The trouble, however, 

 have 6ince developed in about 20 more colo- 



nies to a greater or less degree, some colonies 

 appearing to be very much worse than others. 

 I treated them with 6alt, but can report no 

 improvement. 



A peculiar point in the disease is, the sick 

 bees all try to get together after crawling 

 from their hives. There is a small ditch run- 

 ning across the ends of two rows of hives, and 

 for a space of about 2 feet in the ditch is a 

 seething mass of dying and dead bees. 



Another peculiar feature is, the drones are 

 affected much worse than the workers. After 

 dropping off the alighting-board they roll on 

 their backs and die very quickly, while the 

 workers crawl around a great deal. 



