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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



June 17, 



call these lower head-glands the " pancreas " of the bees. In- 

 deed, we are learning more and more that there is a wonderful 

 similarity in the organic function of all animals. And also 

 that there is very much in common between animals and 

 plants. To me this seems to more than hint that there is a 

 great plan running through all life, and that there must be 

 one great Planner. Is it not more than rational, then, as we 

 study Nature, to have our faith firmly planted on the fact 

 that there is one great God over all, and that His hand is 

 plainly visible in alk His works? That is the w.ay I read 

 Nature. Los Angeles Co., Cal. 



How to Cure Foul Brood Among Bees. 



BY WM. M'EVOY. 

 Offlcial lipoid Brood Inspector for (Jntario, Canada. 



This disease has destroyed hundreds of apiaries at all 

 times, in almost every land where bees have been kept, and it 

 is to-day making its deadly march uncheckt through the bee- 

 yards of the world. 



For 17 years I have warned the bee-keepers to keep all 

 dead and putrid matter out of their colonies, so as not to cause 

 foul brood, and while I have been warning and holding up 

 Death's head and the cross-bones, the professional guessers, 

 who were not practical bee-keepers, have been encouraging 

 the wholesale spread of the disease by saying that rotten brood 

 in hives of bees would not cause foul brood. Such teaching as 

 that has caused thousands of bee-keepers to be very careless, 

 and when the disease has broken out in their bee-yards, it was 

 left to run its course to the ruin of their apiaries, and all 

 others in the same localities. It is only the very few among 

 many thousands of bee-keepers that have succeeded in curing 

 their apiaries of foul brood after it got a good start in their 

 bee-yards, and the owners left to themselves to manage the 

 curing. 



I will now give my methods of curing foul brood, which 

 cannot fail when followed exactly as I order. 



In the honey season, when the bees are gathering honey 

 freely, remove the combs, and shake the bees back into their 

 own hives in the evening; give comb foundation starters, and 

 let them build combs for four days. In the evening of the 

 fourth day, remove the comb, and give foundation to work out, 

 and then the cure will be complete. Fill an empty two-story 

 hive with the combs of foul brood that have been removed 

 from two or more diseased colonies, close them up for two days, 

 and shade them from the sun ; after that open the entrance, 

 and when most of the brood is hatcht, remove those combs, and 

 give the bees starters of foundation in a single hive, and let 

 them build combs for four days. Then in the evening of the 

 fourth day, take out those new combs, and give them founda- 

 tion to work out. 



Let it be remembered that all of these operations should 

 be done in the evening, so that the bees will become settled 

 down nicely before morning. 



Before extracting from the diseased combs, all the combs 

 that were not sealed must he cut out of the frame, or some of 

 the decayed brood will be thrown out with the honey. Then 

 after cutting out the unsealed comb, uncap the sealed honey, 

 extract it, and bring it to a boil. 



All the foul combs, and the new combs that were built in 

 the four days, must be made into wax, and the dross from the 

 wax extractor, ?)i.ust be buried, because what runs with the 

 wax would not be heated enough to kill the spores, and if it 

 was thrown out where the bees could get at it, it would start 

 the disease again. 



When the diseased brood that was placed in the two-story 

 hive is hatcht and the bees are give full sheets of foundation, 

 then they should at once be given a queen-cell ready to hatch 

 out, or a young queen ; then everything will be all right. 



The empty hives need no boiling, scalding, or disinfecting 

 in any way, and are perfectly safe to use, no matter how bad 

 the disease may have been in them ; and I have always got 

 the curing done in the same hives. But as the frames get 

 more or less daubed with the diseased honey when the combs 

 are cut out of them, I always order the frames burned as soon 

 as the combs are cut out, because it doesn't pay to waste valu- 

 able time fussing and cleaning old frames, when new, nice ones 

 are so cheap. 



Where an apiary Is diseased so badly that the colonies 

 have become weak, then all the combs, both In and out of the 

 hives, should be made Into wax at once, and all the colonies 

 doubled up at the same time, as it won't pay any person to 

 waste time with weak colonies. 



In some bee-yards I have put three and four colonies In 

 one, to get fair-sized colonies to start on. 



When the curing is to be done before or after the honey 

 season, the greatest caution is to be used so as not to start 

 robbing. The curing can be done just as well before as after 

 the honey season by feeding plenty of sugar syrup in the even- 

 ings, so the bees will work out the starters of foundation, and 

 store the diseased honey in them, that they took from the old, 

 diseased combs ; and when the new combs are removed the 

 fourth evening, and the foundation given, the feeding must be 

 continued to get foundation workt out and filled with plenty 

 of good stores for winter, 



When I find apiaries of foul brood at the close of the honey 

 season, I get the queens caged in all the weakest colonies for 

 about ten days, so that no brood can be started to become foul. 

 I then get the owners to take the brood out of the strong col- 

 onies, and tier it up on the weak colonies with the caged 

 queens. Then give the colonies starters as soon as the combs 

 are removed, and feed sugar syrup in the cvenbujn for four 

 days ; then remove the starters for foundation. Then at the 

 end of ten days get all the combs taken from the weak colo- 

 nies that have the caged queens, and shake the bees into a 

 single hive, give starters of foundation, let the queens out of 

 the cages, and feed sugar syrup in the evenings, and remove 

 the new combs the fourth evening for full sheets of founda- 

 tion, and continue the feeding until all is in good condition. 

 The colonies that were weak when the brood of other colonies 

 was tiered up on them, will be very strong from the quantity 

 of bees hatcht out during the ten days. 



I have to use considerable judgment in curing many foul- 

 broody apiaries, so as to make the cure as profitable as possi- 

 ble, and have every colony a good, strong one when the season 

 closes. 



It is a very easy thing for one to cure a foul-broody apia- 

 ry, and soon put it in good order, no matter how bad it was 

 when I started to fix it up in good shape to cure it. But I 

 have found it a very hard thing to handle all sorts of men so 

 that they would cure, and do as I ordered them. 



When a few colonies in an apiary are found with foul 

 brood at the close of the season, the owner can very easily fix 

 them up all right by removing the combs in an evenimj in Oc- 

 tober, when the queens have done laying, and giving scaled 

 combs from sound colonies. If the owner has no sealed combs, 

 he must feed until the bees in the sound colonies seal them for 

 that purpose, and then when given to the foul colony the bees 

 won't have any place to store the foul honey they took from 

 the diseased combs, and then they will have to keep it until 

 they consume it ; and with no place to start brood, the queen 

 stopt laying, and cold weather coming on, the bees will have 

 gotten rid of the diseased honey long Defore brood is started 

 again. Every bee-keeper should have, every fall, plenty of 

 combs sealed over like the best of section honey. I have hun- 

 dreds of them every fall. 



I know of many failures in Ontario where the drug system 

 has been tried, and I have many private letters from several 

 localities in the United States where it has been a complete 

 failure. I never knew one cure made by the drug system, and 

 why any man should speak of it as a cure when it is always a 

 failure, is something I can't understand. 



I will warn all men not to waste their time in tinkering 

 with any kind of drugs in a bee-yard ; the best place for such 

 drugs would be in the sea — only it might be a sorry time for 

 the fishes. 



The D. A. Jones' starvation plan will cure every time, but 

 it is too hard on the bees, and completely unfits them for 

 comb-building for a time, by making the bees very thin, lean 

 and poor ; and the starving sometimes almost ruins some of 

 the queens for life. Ontario, Canada. 



The Preventiou of Swarming. 



BV W. P. FAYLOK. 



There seems to be a good deal of dilTerence in the traits 

 and habits of bees of different apiaries, and in no respect is 

 this more true than in regard to swarming. I had 30 colonies 

 of bees last summer. Part of those were run for extracted 

 honey and part for comb honey. I did not have a single swarm 

 by Nature's method last year, while a neighbor's bees, but 

 four miles distant, swarmed themselves to death. 



In order to produce a non-swarming race of bees it is 

 necessary first of all to practice the artificial method of in- 

 crease. Where bees are not allowed to swarm for a few gen- 

 erations, they seem to lose the swarming fever, but where they 

 are pormitted to have their own way, year after year, each 

 colony will usually swarm three or four times in aslngle season. 

 Dr. C. C. Miller has allowed his bees to swarm for years, I 

 believe, while the Dadants have practiced the artificial method 



