AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



215 



C.J.H.Gravenhorst,Wilsnack, Prussia. 



Samuel Simmins, Newhaven, England. 



Cav. Andrea de Rauschenfels, Collec- 

 chio (near Parma), Italy. 



Harald Hovind, Tredestrand, Norway. 



George de Layens, Louye (Eure), 

 France. 



Hjalmar Stalhammar, Gothenburg, 

 Sweden. 



Karl Gatter, Vienna, Austria. 



A. de Zoubareflf, St. Petersburg, Eus- 

 sia. 



G. P. Kandratieff, Russia. 



Charles Dadant, Hamilton, Ills. 



*Alfred Neighbour, London, England. 



*Edward Cori, Bruex, Bohemia. 



Prof. H. W. Wiley, Washington, D. C. 



Chicago, Ills., was selected as the 

 place for holding the next meeting ; the 

 time of meeting to be left to the Execu- 

 tive Board, but the society recommended 

 the forepart of October as a desir 

 time to meet. 



The convention then adjourned. 

 W. Z. Hutchinson, S 



Review of a Report of Foul 

 Brood Experiments. 



Written Jor the American Bee Journal 

 BY J. H. LARRABEE. 



The Canadian Bee Journal of Jan. 

 1st contains a report by J. J. Macken- 

 zie, the bacteriologist of the Provincial 

 Board of Health, upon the subject of 

 Foul Brood. The experiments were in- 

 stituted at the suggestion of an Experi- 

 mental Union, organized in Ontario, 

 Canada, for advancing such work. This 

 report contains some new ideas, and 

 new light is added to many old ones. 

 This is one of the many lines of work 

 where a trained scientist is of more 

 value as an investigator than any bee- 

 keeper could be. 



The scientist first isolated and ex- 

 amined microscopically the bacillus of 

 foul brood, and then having determined 



its character, he reviewed the methods 

 of cure, and tested the values of anti- 

 septics and heat as destroying agents. 



He says : " I certainly would not be 

 prepared to spot foul brood in an apiary, 

 though I certainly think I can under the 

 microscope ;" thus directly contradict- 

 ing Mr. C. J. Robinson, who, on page 56 

 of the American Bee Journal for Jan. 

 12th, states that " a glass cannot aid the 

 eye to distinguish foul brood virus from 

 other germs." Such statements as the 

 latter cannot be weighed against the 

 former, when we consider the sources 

 from which they come. 



Mr. Robinson has also promulgated 

 the old theory that foul brood generates 

 spontaneously under certain peculiar (?) 

 conditions. Mr. Mackenzie says, refer- 

 ring to the above theory, " Unfortu- 

 nately it is a theory which is not sup- 

 ported by the results of investigation." 

 Of course, Mr. Robinson, Mr. McEvoy, 

 Mr. Jno. F. Gates, and our honey- 

 weather prophet — Mr. Sam'l Wilson — 

 and others will not accept such evidence, 

 but I prefer to accept the statements of 

 those who have investigated the subject 

 rather than the dictum of those who 

 state it can be done, but who have 

 never, and never will originate foul 

 brood without infection from the disease 

 itself. 



There are two common methods by 

 which foul brood is cured or eradicated 

 from an apiary, viz. : 1st, by starvation; 

 2nd, by the use of disinfectants. The 

 effect of antiseptics, and of hot water 

 upon foul brood germs was quite fully 

 investigated. Prof. Mackenzie suc- 

 ceeded in rearing the foul brood bacillus 

 from a cake of wax into which when 

 melted he had introduced the germ, thus 

 proving that simply melting wax will 

 not destroy the germs in it. 



By the use of silk threads saturated 

 with jelly filled a with growth of the bac- 

 illusa Ivei (which threads were then sus- 

 pended in wax at the boiling tempera- 

 ture of water), he concluded that "to 

 destroy the foul brood in wax it is neces- 

 sary to heat to a temperature of at least 

 194°, F., for at least three hours." If 

 these preliminary conclusions are cor- 

 rect, why is it that the disease is seldom 

 if ever spread by the use of comb foun- 

 dation ? Even Mr. Mackenzie states 

 that he has yet to discover a well-au- 

 thenticated case where this has oc- 

 curred. 



The methods of scores of lesser foun- 

 dation-makers are not as thorough as 

 those of Messrs. Dadant, Hunt and Root, 

 and all sorts of wax from unknown 

 localities is made into foundation with- 



