AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



497 



Foul Brood— Reply to CritiGisffls. 



Written Jor the American Bee Journal 

 BY WM. m'evoy. 



In the American Bee Journal for 

 March 1, 1894, page 271, I read an 

 article from Mr. Samuel Siramins, of 

 Seaford, England, on his experience with 

 foul brood. Mr. Simmins doesn't agree 

 with me on some points in curing foul 

 brood, and gives his reasons so fairly 

 and so nicely that I am in duty bound to 

 thank him for his very honest and can- 

 did article from start to finish. 



Come, now, Mr. Simmins, let you and 

 me reason together, as I do believe we 

 can agree when I explain all the points. 

 First, you say : 



•' During the course of my experience I 

 hived several renovated colonies upon 

 frames that had been thoroughly scraped 

 and scalded after destroying the diseased 

 combs, but in each case the trouble ap- 

 peared again. The same occurred with 

 hives so used again, and thereafter each 

 colony (after two days' confinement) was 

 started in a new or disinfected hive, and 

 the disease did not appear again. It may 

 be that in my earlier operations with the dis- 

 ease it reappeared through some oversight 

 of my own, for in the face of the mass of 

 evidence brought forward by Mr. McEvoy, 

 I am not prepared to say that the same 

 hives cannot be used again without dis- 

 infection. The whole matter may re- 

 solve itself into a question of how long the 

 microbes can exist after being deprived of 

 their natural element, and I must await 

 further personal experience along this line 

 before deciding for or against the plan." 



When you were removing the foul 

 brood combs from your bees, they took 

 a good deal of the diseased honey from 

 them, and when you put the bees on the 

 scalded frames they stored part of the 

 foul honey just as soon as they built 

 some combs. Then as soon as there was 

 larva m the neiv eombs it was fed some of 

 the diseased honey. 



Second, you say : " I have never 

 found the partial starvation plan the 

 least detriment to the bees, and it must 

 cause less wear and tear to vital energy 

 than the original process of Mr. McEvoy, 

 which means rather more labor, in twice 

 shaking the colony from the combs. I 

 should want a job of this kind cleared 

 right away at one operation, without 

 going over the ground the second time." 



Now, Friend Simmins, I can agree 

 with you that the two days' confinement 

 (what you call a "partial starvation 

 plan ") could not be any detriment to 

 the bees, because bees filled with honey 



could not really starve in such a short 

 time as that. You confine your bees 

 two days, and then put them to work ; I 

 put the bees to work for four days draw- 

 ing out comb foundation starters, and 

 get them to store the deadly honey in 

 them. In the fourth evening I remove 

 the new combs (that the bees made out 

 of the starters), so as to get away the 

 diseased honey that the bees stored in 

 them, and give full sheets of comb foun- 

 dation. I can't see as there is much 

 difference between us, as far as the 

 labor is concerned, seeing that you have 

 to attend to your bees after you had 

 them confined for two days. 



You say, Mr. Simmins, that you would 

 want a job of this kind cleared right 

 away at one operation. So would I, and 

 in many cases it can be done, while in 

 others it cannot ; everything depends 

 upon how badly the colonies are dis- 

 eased, and the nature of the honey -flow 

 at the time of curing. I have, during 

 honey-flows, found several whole api- 

 aries with a lot of unsealed honey stored 

 in diseased, cells where foul hrood had 

 dried doitni, when the combs were re- 

 moving from colonies in such a horrid 

 state as that the bees would rush into 

 the unsealed honey in the foul cells and 

 gorge themselves that full of the deadly 

 stores that they would be fairly padded 

 out with the amount they would so 

 readily get without any uncapping. To 

 put bees so full of deadly honey, in con- 

 finement for two days, and then start 

 them to work, would end in a failure, 

 because the bees would have enough 

 honey left in them at the end of the two 

 days to store a little of it as soon as they 

 had some comb made, which they would 

 soon make if the honey-flow was good at 

 the time. 



My experience is, that by removing 

 the diseased combs in the honey season, 

 and giving the bees comb foundation 

 starters for four days to work out and 

 store the diseased honey in, and then re- 

 move them the fourth evening for full 

 sheets of foundation, which cures every 

 time in the same old hives without dis- 

 infecting the hives in any way. 



This method of giving the bees starters 

 for four days, and then removing them 

 for foundation, originated with me. I 

 studied out this plan for getting away 

 the diseased honey, and I claim that it 

 is by far the best method in the world 

 for curing foul brood. 



Mr. D. A. Jones, of Bee ton, Ont., had 

 a very bitter experience with foul brood 

 in his apiaries. Mr. Jones and his men 

 gave the drugs a very thorough trial, 

 and found them a complete failure. His 



