18M 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



789 



Revue proves that he is a bee-keeper ; and 

 when he says that he has cured foul brood he 

 Jias done it. 



On pages US and 1H» Mr. Charles Vielle-Schilt 

 reports two cases of foul brood wliich he cured 

 by the antiseptic treatment. I remark, how- 

 ever, that, in both of them, the disease was in 

 just its incipient stages. In the first case, he 

 commenced with cutting out every particle of 

 sick brood, leaving of the cells whatever could 

 be saved, and cleaning them well. Then, after 

 brushing off the bees, he put these cleaned 

 frames, as well as those which contained only 

 honey, into an empty hive, where he exposed 

 them to the vapors of sulphur for several days; 

 this hive was to receive the colony afterward. 

 As to the other, in the affected hive he killed 

 the queen and confined the bees to the frames 

 which contained healthy brood. Then he fed 

 them an antiseptic food, a treatment that has 

 to be continued for a long time— at least, till 

 the bees hatch from a new queen. The food 

 consisted of two kinds of syrup, which were 

 given alternately, every other day each. 

 The first mixture consisted of a litre of sugar 

 or honey syrup, to which a gramme of naphtol 

 dissolved in rectified spirits of wine had been 

 added. For the second mixture, instead of the 

 naphtol a little stronger dose of camphorated 

 alcohol was used. The second mixture has to 

 be administered because the bees, "on account 

 of the remedy, have pains" to take the first. 

 At the same time, pieces of camphor, enveloped 

 in cloth, were placed under the frames. The 

 same precaution was also taken with the hives 

 near the diseased one. For twelve days the 

 colony was left undisturbed, when an open 

 queen-cell was found, and all the others were 

 destroyed. On the 21st day the colony was 

 transferred into that hive which contained 

 those sulphured frames, and which had previ- 

 ously been exposed to the air to remove the 

 odor of the sulphur. Having a better queen 

 than the one reared by the colony, the latter 

 queen was killed and the other one introduced 

 in a cage. How long 1>he colony-was fed with 

 those mixtures is not stated; but Mr. Vielle- 

 Schilt asserts that the colony, as well as its 

 stores, increased fast; that the bees, when put 

 into winter-quarters, did not show any signs of 

 the disease, and that in spring they prospered 

 and were in fine condition. 



The other case, found in a straw hive in fall, 

 at the end of September, was treated different- 

 ly. All the brood that could possibly have 

 been diseased was cut out and destroyed, and 

 pieces of camphor, enveloped in cloth, were 

 placed in that part of the hive where no combs 

 were. The colony rect'ived no other care. In 

 April the smell of the camphor was still per- 

 ceptible ; some fine brood was to be seen in 

 newly constructed cells, and the disease had en- 

 tirely vanished. 



On pages 70 and 71 a correspondent reports 



that, on the 18th or 19th of July, when opening 

 a hive he noticed that the colony had foul 

 brood. He directly administered a dozen pieces 

 of naphthaline. Four days later the disease 

 h:td increased, for all the four combs that con- 

 tained brood were attacked and all cells burst. 

 He then removed the naphthaline and gave a 

 mixture of syrup and eucalyptus tincture, the 

 latter consisting of one part of essence of euca- 

 lyptus and nine parts of pure alcohol. At the 

 commencement he used one teaspoonful of 

 tincture to a litre of syrup: then he gave 

 two teaspoonfuls, then three. After eight 

 days of this treatment the middle of the diseas- 

 ed frames was clear, and filled with eggs; and, 

 besides the original four frames of brood and 

 eggs, two more frames of eggs were seen. A 

 fortnight later, the colony had ten frames of 

 perfectly healthy brood, and eggs (the frames 

 were small, only six decimeters square*); on 

 only one of those four originally diseased combs 

 a few larvifi were doubtful. A week later the 

 foul brood had entirely disappeared, the hive 

 contained considerable honey, the colony was 

 active, and wintered splendidly. Some cam- 

 phor was placed in all the other hives, and a 

 teaspoonful of eucalyptus tincture added to the 

 winter food of each. A neighbor of the corres- 

 pondent also used eucalyptus tincture with the 

 same good result. In April the same corres- 

 pondent reports that said colony wintered best 

 of all his colonies, and that it was one of his 

 very strongest. He adds that he had forgotten 

 to mention that, before treating the colony, he 

 removed it from its hive and washed the latter 

 in boiling chlor.. after which he returned the 

 colony to the hive. His neighbor had washed 

 his hive with sublimate. Mr. Bertrand re- 

 marks in a footnote, that said treatment is the 

 one introduced by Messrs. Bauverd, Delay, 

 and Auberson, and recommended in his (Mr. 

 Bertrand's) book, " Conduite " (Management), 

 and that, on account of its " pronounced " 

 savor, the dose of eucalyptus tincture (like 

 phenyl, naphtol, etc.) has to be augmented 

 gradually. 



On pages 35—27, Mr. Ulv. Gubler writes about 

 formic acid. "It is," he says, " perhaps the 

 most powerful antiseptic known. Thanks to it, 

 the honey preserves itself indefinitely. There 

 has been found at Dresden, in the eaves of an 

 old house, some well-preserved honey, dating 

 bacl\ to the fifteenth century!" Thanks to the 

 formic acid, with which the air of the hives is 

 always saturated, the frames, the pollen, and 

 the nourishment of the larvie, keep without fer- 

 menting. Mr. de Planta relates an experience 

 of Prof. Erlenmeyer. at Munich, who put a 

 little formic acid, which had been well diluted 

 in water, into a certain quantity of beer in full 

 fermentation. It immediately arrested the fer- 

 mentation. It is quite natural that the apicul- 

 turists said to themselves, " If the formic acid 



*That is not very small— 23'/8x:J3.'8.— Ed. 



