1886 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



IJ.O 



it should be proven that it is only' ihoncs 

 they take, we can well afford to encourage 

 fowls about the apiary. 



FOUL BROOD. 



SOME BOLD SUGOESTIONS IN RE(iAI!I) TO ITS 

 CAUSE AND CUKE. 



R. EDITOR:— You so frciiuciitly ix'ceivc 

 communications sug-gcoting such wild 

 ideas and new ideas— wliich are not new— 

 that it is very probable you will regard 

 what 1 have to say as simply an addition 

 to the wild ideas before mentioned. This subject, 

 I'oul brood, is, without a doubt, the greatest bug- 

 aboo to the bee-keeping fraternity; but Wiien bee- 

 keepers become thoroughly aware of its nature, 

 and the causes which bring it on, then will it 

 dwindle into insignificance, and will be of less 

 importance to the bee-keeper than the marketing 

 of his honey. 



Last year 1 had the disease among my bees in its 

 very worst form. I could smell the odor given off 

 by the hives, thirty yards from the apiary. I tried 

 both iihenol and the starvation method of cure; 

 but it secmetl the more 1 did for them, the worse 

 they got. 1 tried the phenol cure until I had used 

 'Z lbs. with a very discouraging result. I tried the 

 starvation plan on thirty, but did not cure any 

 —except two that I starved to death. 



While I was trying to cure some by the remedies 

 above mentioned, a period of about tea weeks, I 

 not onlj' kept a record of tho.sc which I tried to 

 cure, but of those that I did nothing for. An}' one 

 who has read a great deal on the subject can 

 judge of my perplexity when I discovered that the 

 colonies affected that 1 did nothing for Avere in a 

 better condition than those I doctored. Since 1 

 made the discovery above mentioned, 1 have had 

 a new idea as to the nature of the disease. This 

 idea has been so confirmed by what I have read, 

 and by later experience, that 1 am now confident 

 I can state some new and valuable facts on the 

 subject. 



Foul brood is caused, chiefly, by an inferior 

 quality of honey or honey-dew; but it is some- 

 times caused by physical defects in the queen, from 

 which the larva? inherit a constitutional weakness. 

 The former kind, or class, I should say, breaks 

 out in several colonies, and sometimes every col- 

 ony in an apiary at once (which accouiUs for IMr. 

 D. A. Jones's belief in spontaneous generation). 

 Of the latter class, you will find only one or two in 

 an apiary at one time. Jt is cured by simply re- 

 placing the queen. When the disease is caused 

 from bad honey, the best thing to do, in nineteen 

 cases out of twenty, is to let it alone. But if you 

 want to cure it, take the honey from them, boil it, 

 and give it back; or, better still, give them nice 

 honey from flowers, or sugar syrup. 



8ome might say that I ignore the fact that 

 learned scientists have traced the cause of the 

 disease to bacteria; but I do not. We all know, 

 who read the bee-inipers, that the disease is accom- 

 panied by bacteria; but who can say that bacteria 

 is the prime cause of the disease? No one. To 

 say that it would give a hardy frontiersman the 

 consumption if he were inoculated with the bac- 

 teria that accompanies that disease, would be 

 about as reasonable ns to say thivt one spore liom 



the foul -brood bacteria would affect a healthy 

 larva. 



Can any reader of Gi-eaninos think of any 

 hypothesis, outside of the facts I mention, with 

 which the different methods of cure can be rec- 

 onciled? D. A. Jones cures by after-feeding, and 

 not by starvation. Frank Cheshire effects a cure 

 by feeding and not by phenol. Those who think 

 they cure the disease by thyme, camphor, or salt, 

 sim|,ly let it get well itself. Then there is N. W. 

 McLain's method— a sure one; and C. F. Muth's 

 mcthoil, another sure one; either one of which 

 would be sutlicient without the medicine. 1 could 

 fill a book with i)r( of of the assertions I have 

 made; but I have said enough now to r.aise the ire 

 of a great many, who, once getting an idea in 

 their head, can never get it out. However, I am 

 going to hazard jut-t one more, and here it is: 

 When there is a good flow of honey from the 

 flowers, you can not hurt a i)opulous colony of 

 bees if you were to give them fen coinlis of the 

 most malignant type of foul brood, in addition, of 

 course, to the combs th<^y have already. 



Mobile, Ala., Sept. 4, 188(5. Geo. H. Hovle. 



Friend II., you almost startle me by yoiu* 

 reasoning ; and it' you are not exactly on the 

 right track, I feel sure you are pretty close 

 to it. For years back, the conviction has 

 again and again been forcing itself upon my 

 mind that tlie reinedies prescribed and used 

 for different diseases of the human family, 

 in a great majority of cases liave nothing to 

 do whatever with the recovery of the pa- 

 tient. (Sonu'times some trilling thing, in 

 some remote way connected with the treat- 

 ment, has been tlie cause of the cure, in a 

 way something like what you suggest in re- 

 gard to foul brood. Lei us go slowly, and 

 let us have much charity while we push our 

 investigations. I believe it is one of the 

 hopeful signs of the present age. that we are 

 more and more using reason and common 

 sense, and are discarding blind hits in the 

 dark, — guessing that a certain medicine v^k;// 

 hit the spot.— I know you are right in one 

 of your propositions ; namely, that some- 

 thing strikingly like foul brood may exist in 

 the hive because of a physical defect in the 

 queen ; and that changing the queen fur- 

 nishes the cure. We have htid such ca.ses in 

 our own apiary; but when shown to me I have 

 at once decided where the trouble was, and ef- 

 fected a complete cure l)y giving the colony 

 a good queen. — In regard to the second case, 

 that it is produced by some kind of lioney 

 that kills the brood at such a stiige, it seems 

 to me this may be partly true, but not al- 

 ways the trouble; for instance, how can it 

 spread from one apiary to another by a pur- 

 chase of stocks. ol(i hives, or tixtiu-es? (Scald- 

 ing the food, whatever it is, would probal)ly 

 prevent it from going fiu'ther. — l^ight here I 

 want to tell you some of the diiliculties we 

 met at this ])oint in our ai)iary in stopping 

 it after tlie ])lan we liave been working on. 

 We at lir.it coiKiliided it was unsafe to open 

 the liive in the day time, because the robbers 

 miglit slip in ami (;arry off some of the in- 

 fected honey : therefore we decided to use 

 a tent. JJut our apiarist soon declared the 

 tent was even worse than no tent, because 

 bees, retui'ning from the iields, on finding 

 the!;- Uiye covered with a tent, would, c\, 



