1897. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAto 



419 



on swarming. Possibly location may have something to do 

 with it. I envy Mr. Paylor his immunity from swarming, but 

 assure him that I have not brod up a strain of swarming bees 

 by continued encouragement of natural swarming. 



McHenry Co. III. 



Foul Brood— Pickled Brood, or New Disease. 



BY E. S. LOVESV. 



While in some portions of Utah the season of 189() a few 

 or more colonies of bees were affected with that dread disease 

 known as foul brood, a far greater percentage of the bees in 

 some portions of the State were troubled with a disease which 

 in some respects was somewhat similar to foul brood, but it 

 was by no means as dangerous. Where proper care was ob- 

 served I have not heard of any bees dying with the disease. 

 But in some instances the bees were more or less weakened, 

 which may have more or less affected the chances of safely 

 bringing them through the winter. 



This disease first made its appearance here last spring 

 (189()) ; at least that was the i3rst time I saw or heard of it. 

 Many theories have been advanced as to the origin or cause of 

 this disease. Many are of the opinion that one of the princi- 

 pal causes was the extreme wet, cold, backward spring that 

 prevailed through the central part of the State last year, 

 cansing more or less loss by spring dwindling, and this in 

 turn caused chilled brood, and many of our bee-keepers think 

 this was one of the causes of this new bee-disease. Be that as 

 It may, I find that after it once starts it often spreads very 

 rapidly from one colony to another, and from one locality to 

 another, without any apparent cause. It made its appear- 

 ance early in the spring in some localities, and along in mid- 

 summer it would suddenly make its appearance ten or more 

 miles distant in localities which had hitherto been free from 

 the disease ; and as we found it in scores of strong and hither- 

 to healthy colonies, which were never troubled with chilled 

 brood, is proof that there must be other causes. 



It seems plausible that it floats in the atmosphere like 

 malaria and other diseases ; and while we see its effects, who 

 can describe to us the cause ? 



In my experience with the disease the past season, I 

 noticed that it ebbed and flowed. Sometimes when the bees 

 were vigorous they would become comparatively free from the 

 disease, and in some instances when strong colonies swarmed, 

 the old queen in her new home when she again began to lay, 

 the bees would be free from the disease ; and afterward, if 

 they were attackt with the disease, if the bees built up vigor- 

 ously, they would not be visibly affected ; but when the bees 

 failed to build up sufficiently, the disease would sometimes use 

 them up. 



This disease is certainly contagious, and it spreads faster 

 even than foul brood. While in some respects It is somewhat 

 similar to foul brood, and some of our bee-keepers at first 

 sight think it is foul brood, but it does not have that offensive 

 smell, and It never assumes that stringy or coffee-colored 

 appearance peculiar to foul brood. It is strictly a disease of 

 the brood — the larvae dies in the cell, usually after they are 

 nearly full-grown, then the dead larvie gradually shrivels and 

 dries up ; and when about the size of a common house-fly the 

 bees pick them out of the hive. 



Another difference between this disease and foul brood, 

 the diseased larvx can with care be drawn out of the cells 

 whole at any stage of the disease, which, of course, we all 

 know cannot be done with foul brood. 



Question. — Is this disease, as I have described It, the dis- 

 ease known as pickled brood ? If so, why is it called " pickled 

 brood ?" 



The disease like foul brood can be cured by transferring 

 the bees into a clean hive on foundation. After many experi- 



ments I have discovered that a simple sprinkling of dry salt 

 Is one of the very best remedies for this and other bee-dis- 

 eases. In the treatment of this disease, especially, I obtained 

 some very gratifying results the past season with this salt 

 remedy. Sprinkle fine, dry salt over the combs, bees and 

 brood, and If the first dressing does not cure them, repeat it 

 about every two weeks, until they are all right. Sometimes 

 one dressing is sufficient. There is no need for alarm that 

 the salt will injure the bees — it will freshen them up, and tend 

 to keep them clean. Scatter from one to two handfuls over a 

 colony at each dressing. 



I have also found this salt remedy of material benefit for 

 holding In check, and in preventing, the spread of foul brood. 

 It will also assist in preventing much of the ravages of bee- 

 enemies, which I may write up later. 



While all beekeepers are aware that foul brood is more 

 fatal, and much more to be dreaded, than this new disease, 

 still it does not fly around and spread to the extent that this 

 disease does. Foul brood, like diphtheria and other diseases, 

 is only introduced by contact with the disease, but this new 

 disease, like typhoid and other diseases, when or where it is 

 prevalent it floats in space, and is liable to drop and com- 

 mence its destructive operations at any time without (to us) 

 any explainable cause. Utah Co., Utah. 



^ 



'« lutelllgeuce in Bees " — A Criticism. 



BY I. W. BECKWITH. 



At first when I read the article with the above heading 

 which appeared In the March number of the Progressive Bee- 

 Keeper, I was inclined to doubt that an intelligent, logical 

 man like G. M. Doolittle could be the author ; but as he does 

 not deny the authorship, I am compelled to admit that he 

 wrote It. The article is composed entirely of seven positive 

 assertions, each of which needs proof. 



He says : "Bees have the same habits that they had at 

 their creation, as permanent and unvarying as the attraction 

 of gravitation, or any law of nature." 



In that statement Mr. Doolittle denies the whole doctrine 

 of evolution which scientists, with scarcely an exception, have 

 endorst. When a man denies a theory which has been ac- 

 cepted by the learned men of the world generally, and then 

 uses that denial to prove a point in controversy, he should 

 give some reason for believing that he is right and all the 

 world beside wrong. 



There are a few points on which I wish to say a few 

 words. He says : " Bees are incapable of education ; they 

 learn nothing;" but I find that whenever I move my bees to a 

 new location they have to icarn " where they are at ;" and wild 

 bee-hunters find that the bees learn where the bait is. I once 

 put a very long, conical bee-escape over a hole in my honey- 

 house, and after the bees had escaped through it for a consid- 

 erable time they learned to return through It. I closed the 

 escape for a few days, and on opening it again I found that 

 they remembered as well as learned. Cases al-aost innumer- 

 able might be given to show that bees learn and remember. 

 The fact that they cannot " learn tricks like dogs and horses " 

 does not prove that they can learn nothing. 



Mr. Doolittle says : "If bees possest the intelligence of 



the higher order of animals they would become a curse 



instead of a blessing." The more intelligence dogs and horses 

 possess the more serviceable they are, and he does not know 

 but the same may be true of bees. 



The subject of reason and instinct seems to have created 

 a considerable interest of late in the minds of the reading 

 public, and a writer in a late number of Natural Science at- 

 tempts to show, and not entirely in vain, I think, that very 

 many of the actions of the lower animals which have generally 



