Oct. 25, 1906 



American Ttee Journal 



The Cheshire Theory of Foul 

 Brood 



BY J. A. GREEN 



For a number of years bee-keepers 

 have accepted the theory of Cheshire 

 as to the cause of foul brood, and have 

 assumed that there was only one form 

 of foul brood, alike in all countries 

 where bees were kept. There were 

 some inconsistencies. Cheshire's the- 

 ory, or, perhaps, I should rather say 

 the conclusions he drew therefrom, did 

 not always fit the facts. Several, I be- 

 lieve, have called attention to this. I, 

 myself, in an article published about 

 15 years ago, expressed my doubts that 

 the true cause of foul brood had been 

 discovered. But in the main there 

 was no opposition to the acceptance of 

 the Cheshire theory. The disease was 

 evidently of bacterial origin, and 

 Bacillus alvei was as convenient a one 

 to lay it to as any other bacterium. 

 Very few had the facilities to make 

 microsccpical investigations on their 

 own account, so, for lack of anything 

 better, Cheshire's theory as to the 

 cause of the disease had full credence, 

 though practical men, in this country 

 at least, had been compelled to discard 

 his conclusions in regard to the trans- 

 mission of the disease, its character 

 and its cure. 



Let us review briefly some of these. 

 First, that foul brood is not simply a 

 disease of the brood, but a chronic dis- 

 ease of the blood, affecting queens, 

 workers and drones. He found Bacil- 

 lus alvei in the ovaries of the queen as 

 well as in eggs not yet laid. If a queen 

 were infected to this extent, it would 

 hardly seem that she could ever again 

 lay healthy eggs. Yet the queen may 

 be removed from an infected colony, 

 placed in a healthy colony, and the 

 brood that hatches from the eggs she 

 lays therein will be healthy. I have 

 done this a number of times myself, as 

 have many other bee-keepers — prob- 

 ably hundreds of times in all — and if 

 any one has ever brought forward any 

 proof that the disease was ever trans- 

 mitted thereby, it has escaped my no- 

 tice. Moreover, by the McEvoy method 

 of cure, which has been successful in 

 thousands of cases, the queen of the 

 diseased colony is, only 3 or 4 days 

 later, laying eggs in a colony that is 

 thereafter healthy, all trace of the 

 " chronic blood disease " having van- 

 ished in the meantime. 



If the mature workers of an infected 

 colony are diseased, it is certainly very 

 remarkable that all of the many thou- 

 sands comprising a colony are cured, 

 or, at least, made incapable of trans- 

 mitting the disease by the simple pro- 



cess of building a few square inches of 

 comb. 



It is well known that drones are 

 " free commoners," going freely from 

 one hive to another. If it were true 

 that they were diseased in themselves, 

 would not this frequent interchange of 

 visits result in spreading the disease 

 to a far greater extent than is known 

 to be the case ? No proof has ever 

 been brought forward that the disease 

 has ever been transmitted from drone 

 to queen by the act of mating, as 

 claimed by Cheshire, and all experience 

 is distinctly against the supposition 

 that such is ever the case. 



Perhaps the strongest proof that the 

 workers are not diseased, or are in- 

 capable in themselves of transmitting 

 the disease, is furnished by the Bald- 

 ridge method of cure, which was de- 

 scribed on page 469 of the American 

 Bee Journal for 1905. The principle 

 involved in this plan, which is one of 

 the most practical and valuable meth- 

 ods of cure, is that foul brood is con- 

 veyed only by means of the honey, and 

 that an undisturbed bee leaving its 

 hive does not carry any honey with it, 

 and may therefore enter any hive with- 

 out any danger of transmitting the 

 disease. The bees leave the infected 

 hive through a bee-escape, and, being 

 unable to return, go into a hive along- 

 side. Bees are thus leaving a diseased 

 colony and entering a healthy colony 

 to become members thereof, daily, for 

 a period of several weeks. Is it con- 

 ceivable that they could do this with- 

 out infecting the colony they enter, if 

 they were themselves diseased ? Yet I 

 can testify, as can many others, that 

 this is a practical method of cure. I 

 have tried it in a number of cases 

 without a single failure. 



The same principle is involved in 

 the plan of R. C. Aikin, whereby the 

 diseased colony is moved several times, 

 at each move losing its flying bees, 

 which enter the hives nearest its old 

 stand. Care being taken not to dis- 

 turb the bees at the time of moving 

 them, which is best done in the even- 

 ing, the returning bees will enter 

 healthy colonies without conveying 

 the disease. These facts show that the 

 contagion is not conveyed by the bees, 

 queen or drones. 



When curing bees by the McEvoy 

 plan, shaking them from their old 

 combs and compelling them to build 

 a new set, the old hive may be used, 

 disinfection being entirely unneces- 

 sary. I have Mr. McEvoy as authority 

 for this, and numerous trials in my 

 own practise have shown that he is 

 correct. 



Finally, it is claimed by some that 

 there is no danger of the operator car- 

 rying the disease from one hive to 



another, if he is careful not to carry 

 any honey on his hands or tools. At 

 any rate, his disinfectants are not 

 necessary. I personally know of large 

 apiaries where many cases of foul 

 brood have been successfully handled, 

 the only precaution against conveying 

 the disease being to wash the hands 

 and tools with soap and water after 

 handling a diseased colony. 



If you will consider the foregoing 

 facts, which may be supported by any 

 necessary amount of evidence, you will 

 see that the only remaining sources of 

 contagion are the diseased brood itself, 

 or the honey infected therefrom. Al- 

 though Cheshire concluded, because he 

 could not find Bacillus alvei in honey, 

 that the disease could not be conveyed 

 thereby, and even went so far as to de- 

 clare that bacilli could not multiply 

 in honey, all practical experience with 

 the disease as we know it in this coun- 

 try, shows that ordinarily honey is the 

 sole medium of contagion. All suc- 

 cessful methods of cure are based on 

 this theory, and the various methods 

 of cure by medication, which have 

 been imported from Europe from time 

 to time, have proven utterly useless, 

 or, at the best, only palliatives of the 

 disease they can not cure. 



We have come to the point where a 

 re-organization and re adjustment of 

 our ideas in regard to foul brood seem 

 inevitable. There has been for a long 

 time a curious difference between the 

 experiences of bee-keepers in this 

 country and those of Europe. This 

 led to the belief in the minds of many 

 here that foul brood in Europe was of 

 a milder form than what we had here. 

 Some explained this by saying that 

 bees there had been subject to foul 

 brood for so much longer a time that 

 they had become more immune to it. 

 Just how time can operate to render 

 anything immune to a disease that 

 once well-established is invariably 

 fatal unless cured by man, does not 

 appear to me. No evidence has ever 

 been presented to show that a colony 

 that has been cured of foul brood is 

 any less likely to contract it again. 



Then came the investigations of the 

 bacteriologists of our Department of 

 Agriculture, in which they were un- 

 able to find Bacillus alvei in any sam- 

 ple of foul brood as we know it in this 

 country, while every sample of what 

 we know as black brood contained 

 Bacillus alvei. This would indicate 

 strongly that what has been known as 

 foul brood in Europe is identical with 

 what we know as black brood here. At 

 least it would go to show that it was 

 black brood, and not foul brood, that 

 Cheshire experimented with. 



Evidence going to show that black 

 brood exists in Europe is given by the 

 fact that the treatment found by Alex- 

 ander, of New York, effective in cur- 

 ing black brood has been recommended 

 by Simmins, of England, for curing 

 foul brood, but which I think no one 

 who has ever had experience with the 

 genuine foul brood of this country 

 would consider in the least likely to be 

 effective against that disease. 



Of course, even if it be true that 

 much of the European experience has 

 been with something other than what 

 we know as foul brood, it does not 

 necessarily follow that the genuine 



