AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



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



AT TWO DOLLAKS PER ANNUM, PAYABLE IN ADVANCE. 



Vol. VI. 



rSOVE^lBKR, IST^O. 



No. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Cure of Foulbrood. 



Mr. Editor : — I iM-omisecl, (vol. V., page 187,) 

 to report how my refrigerator wintered its colony. 

 The frames were covered with a piece of old 

 carpeting, and the whole space outside the inner 

 hive packed with straw and shavings. This 

 spring it was in si^lendid condition, and it was 

 found necessary to remove brood and cut out 

 queen cells as early as the 20th of May ; and, for 

 this locality, the surplus would have been large, 

 if I had not been obliged to break up the colony 

 on account of foulbrood. 



You can imagine my disappointment when my 

 apiarian friend, Mr. Sweet of West Mansfield, 

 pointed out to me this loathsome disease in my 

 choicest Italian colony, early in June, when up 

 to that time I had su^^posed that everything was 

 prosperous with my twelve colonies. After a 

 thorough examination I found six hives more or 

 less afiected, and according to high authority, 

 should be condemned to death. The other six 

 appeared free from disease at this time, although 

 three more subsequently became diseased. 



This is my second summer of bee-keeping, and 

 all the duties pertaining to an ajnary were en- 

 tered into with the enthusiasm, and shall I con- 

 fess it, the ignorance and carelessness of a novice, 

 Yes, ignorance and culpable carelessness, for in 

 gathering empty combs from various quarters, 

 the disease was introduced and spread among my 

 pets. One hive, in particular, of empty comb 

 had the peculiar odor, perforated cells, and brown 

 viscid fluid, with which I have since become so 

 familiar this summer ; and it seems unaccounta- 

 ble to me, how any person with the Bee Journal 

 wide open and Quinby's instructions before him, 

 could be so careless as to give such combs to his 

 bees. 



But such was the fact, and foulbrood spreading 

 right and left. What shall be done to get rid of 

 it? Shall Quinby be followed, purify the hive 

 and honey by scalding, and treat the colony as a 

 new swarm ; or shall the heroic treatment of 

 Alley be adopted ; bury or burn bees and hive, 

 combs and all? The latter has sent me some 

 tine queens ; but the former has always given re- 

 liable advice, and I shall follow his instructions 

 with two colonies which are past all cure, and 

 reserve the others for treatment, hoping that I 



may find some cure, or at least palliative for the 

 disease, and add my mite of experience, and, 

 perhaps, useful knowledge to our Bee Journal. 



Accordingly, June 8tli, the combs of the two 

 condemned colonies were melted into wax, the 

 honey drained over and scalded, and the bees, 

 after a confinement of forty hours, were treated 

 like new swarms ; and now, September 18th, are 

 perfectly healthy and in fine condition for winter. 



I will not occupy your valuable space with all 

 the details of my experiments and fights (which 

 lasted through three months) with the trials of 

 doses of diftereiit strengths and kinds, with old 

 comb and new, with young queens and old ones, 

 and with no queen at all, and how, in doing this, 

 I was obliged to keep up the strength of the 

 colony for fear of robbeis and of spreading the 

 disease to my neighbors. Suffice it to say, that 

 after two months I had made no apparent head- 

 way, although still determined to "fight it out 

 on this line, if it took all summer" and my last 

 hive. In fact, I devoted my apiary to the study 

 of this disease, and, perhaps, death. 



Starting with, and holding to the theory that 

 foulbrood is contagious only by the diffusion of 

 living germs of feeble vitality, (and I was 

 strengthened in my conjecture in microscopical 

 examinations, by finding the dead larvae filled 

 with nucleated cells, ) I determined to try those 

 remedies which have the power of destroying the 

 vitality of these destructive germs, these living 

 organisms. And no remedies seemed to me more 

 potent than carbolic acid and hyposulphite of 

 soda. At first I used both, making one applica- 

 tion of each, with an interval of one day, and 

 with apparent benefit. But, attributing the 

 improvement to the more ]50werful of the two, I 

 abandoned the hyposulphite and used the ]car- 

 bolic acid alone, and I was so infatuated with the 

 idea of its superiority, that I did not give it up 

 until three of the four hives had become so hope- 

 lessly diseased, that the combs were destroyed 

 and the colonies treated to new combs (as it was 

 late in the season, ) and freely fed with sugar and 

 w^ter. These are now in good condition for 

 winter. 



The fourth hive was carried a mile away, the 

 queen caged, and the colony strengthened with 

 a medium sized second swarm. After all the 

 brood, which was advanced, had left the cells, I 

 transferred the colony to a clean hive ; thoroughly 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S70, by Samuel Wagner, in the of 



Washington. 



ce of the Librarian of Congress, at 



