1904 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1111 



veil, and bee-suit. Every stand of bees 

 within two miles had been examined and 

 found to be healthy, so there seemed no 

 chance for reinfection. 



T. Well, when the honey-flow was over they 

 took it again. Thirty out of the sixty-two 

 hives showed dead brood inside of three 

 months— not so much as before the shaking, 

 but enough to make them decidedly weak 

 before winter came on. The winter was 

 very severe, and the losses everywhere were 

 heavy. My own loss was just 50 per cent, 

 including the greater part of the diseased 

 ones. May 1, 1904, I had thirty stands of 

 bees left, mostly diseased nuclei. There 

 were five strong and healthy colonies in the 

 lot, all pure Italians, and all of the same 

 strain of bees. I had noticed the previous 

 season that the severity of the cases seemed 

 to be in direct proportion to the amo\mt of 

 black blood. 



I had never heard Italianizing mentioned 

 as a remedy; but as it seemed to be fhe last 

 chance I decided to buy pure queens for the 

 whole lot as soon as I could get them. Im- 

 mediately after the honey-flow they were all 

 requeened from the stock that seemed to be 

 immune. None of them were treated in any 

 way except that all were fed for a week 

 before the queens were given. Some of 

 them were a mere mass of disease. The in- 

 fected combs were left in the hives, but the 

 worst ones were unqueened ten days in ad- 

 vance, to give the bees a chance to clean out 

 the dead brood. 



The new stock was introduced mostly dur- 

 ing the months of July and August, at a 

 time when the disease would otherwise have 

 been nearly at its worst. There was in 

 every case a rapid decrease in the amount of 

 dead brood; and all except the worst cases 

 were perfectly healthy inside of two weeks. 

 Within four weeks I could not find a cell of 

 the disease in the yard. They have remain- 

 ed healthy up the present time, Nov. 1, and 

 I expect no further trouble so long as I keep 

 only pure Italians. 



Now a few words in regard to the causes 

 of this loss of brood. I am satisfied that it 

 is an infectious disease, as Dr. Howard 

 says, caused primarily by the use of moldy 

 pollen. But there are other factors which 

 must also be present to start the infection— 

 notably, cool weather, scarcity of stores, old 

 combs, and black blood in the bees. If the 

 other factors are eliminated the moldy pol- 

 len is perfectly harmless, or even the combs 

 filled with dead brood. In other words, if 

 the larvae are kept warm and well fed, the 

 mold has no efi^ect on them. The black bees 

 are easily discouraged, and neglect or starve 

 the brood when unfavorable weather and 

 lack of stores come on; and if the mold is 

 present the disease is started in that hive, 

 from which it is readily carried to others. 

 It does not seem to spread very far; indeed, 

 it hardly spreads at all except to neighbor- 

 ing hives. Of two apiaries within a fourth 

 of a mile of my own, one was healthy and 

 the other had one case, after I had had the 

 disease two years. I have bought the little 



apiary with the one diseased colony, and at 

 the present writing all the bees near here 

 are healthy. 

 Newman, 111. 



[I have read all you have to say on this 

 subject with much interest; and while I 

 know it has been reported by the foul-brood 

 inspectors of New York that Italians are 

 more immune to black brood than blacks, 

 yet, in the case of pickled brood, such im- 

 munity is not yet proven. I am of the opin- 

 ion that, if you had introduced ordinary hy- 

 brid or black bees of a heathy strain (of 

 course killing off the old queens), you would 

 have secured the same result. Mr. A. J. 

 Halter, whose article follows next, effected 

 a cure, but he does not say what stock he 

 had that was diseased. He is a very pro- 

 gressive bee-keeper— one who, like yourself, 

 has studied this subject very carefully. I 

 think his bees are mainly Italians, and yet 

 they were subject to the disease. He in- 

 troduced new blood, and, presto! the cure 

 was effected. It would he a very interest- 

 ing fact, to queen-breeders at least, if it 

 could be proven that Italians would resist 

 pickled brood more than other stock. I, 

 therefore, call on our subscribers who have 

 had experience with the disease to let us 

 know whether their Italians have been more 

 immune to it than their other stock. — Ed.] 



EXPERIMENTS WITH PICKLED BROOD. 



During the apple-bloom I bought a dozen 

 colonies from a neighbor about two miles 

 distant, the hives containing a good surplus 

 of honey after wintering. When locating 

 them among my bees I transferred them in 

 more convenient hives, setting a few of the 

 old combs in the open air for the bees to 

 clean out before rendering into wax. Later 

 I removed said colonies to an out-apiary. 



When clover had been in bloom for at least 

 ten days I noticed dead larvae in both api- 

 aries scattered here and there, beginning in 

 the strongest colonies. Thinking at first the 

 honey in the old combs which I had set out 

 started the disease, I examined the colonies 

 bought, but did not find any trace of it.-; ap- 

 pearance, although later several colonies had 

 a light attack while almost all the other 

 colonies were aft'ected. 



About two weeks after its discovery I 

 made shook swarms from a number of the dis- 

 eased colonies, starting bees on foundation, 

 placing frames with brood and honey from 

 various hives with a few adhering bees away 

 by themselves, letting them rear queens, all 

 brood hatching before young queens began 

 to lay. Mr. E. W. Alexander, Delanson, N. 

 Y., I believe, used this method to requeen 

 for cure of black brood. 



The latter proved a success— no indications 

 of reappearance. In the former it reap- 

 peared, almost more severely than at first, 

 being obliged to remove the queen in one or 

 two instances to avoid further destruction. 

 It also seemed more severe in colonies run 

 for extracted honey, as very nearly every 

 new frame in the upper story, where the 



