JANUARY 1, 1916 



GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE 



EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN FOUL BROOD 



Their Differences, History, and Methods of Treatment 



BY OREL L. HERSHISER 



There is no subject pertaining to apicul- 

 ture that absorbs more attention of the 

 apiarist than that of foul brood. In view 

 of the rapid spread of the two types of the 

 disease, especially the European variety, 

 every provident beekeeper is eager to learn 

 all there is to know of them. It has been 

 said that the European type will eventually 

 sweep the whole country; and no one who 

 has had a season or two of experience with 

 it will doubt the statement. To this may 

 be added that the spread will continue with 

 ever increasing ratio. The time is now at 

 hand in many of the states and Canadian 

 provinces when few beekeepers can feel se- 

 cure from its appearance at almost any 

 time in the breeding season. It is api3i'o- 

 priate, therefore, that Ave diligently seek 

 and digest all the information possible on 

 this subject, to the end that we may coun- 

 teract its baneful influence on our apicul- 

 tural endeavors and emerge from its attacks 

 victorious, with better bees and apiaries, 

 with greater proficiency, and with increased 

 i:)roduction and i^rofits. That all this may 

 1)6 accomplished has been proven by some 

 of the apicultural savants who have blazed 

 the way for us. 



Of the two foul-brood diseases the Euro- 

 pean variety is perhaps the more to be 

 dreaded because of its inexplicably rapid 

 spread in the colony, through the apiary, to 

 neighboring apiaries, and to new centers of 

 infection ; but American foul brood is said 

 to be the more difficult to treat. 



There are various means by which these 

 diseases are disseminated. The observation 

 by many bee-inspectors, that they are more 

 prevalent in and about cities emphasizes the 

 claim that they are conveyed in the honey 

 shipped to the markets, the bees carrying 

 to their hives the disease in the honey they 

 gather from containers Avhen the same are 

 relegated to the scrap-heajD or garbage-can. 

 Honey-containers thrown from car-windows 

 have undoubtedly carried the diseases into 

 new centers. It has been carried by ship- 

 ments of bees in full colonies and nuclei. 

 It has been said that the disease has been 

 conveyed by means of diseased honey used 

 in the manufacture of food for queen-mail- 

 ing cages. 



Undoubtedly swarms often cari-y the dis- 



ease ; and as they have been known to travel 

 several miles before arriving at the selected 

 place of abode, the disease may be carried 

 into a new center in this way. If a swarm 

 issues from a diseased colony and occupies 

 a hive where a colony had perished, the 

 disease contained in the honey the swarn? 

 takes with it is immediately stored in the 

 old comb, and serves as a starting-point for 

 the disease. When a diseased colony be- 

 comes reduced in bees to the extent that it 

 will succumb to robbers, all colonies that 

 participate in the robbing will become in- 

 fected, thus siareading the disease far and 

 wide. 



The above several means by which these 

 diseases may be disseminated api^lies equal- 

 ly to both varieties; but the very rapid and 

 almost simultaneous a^Dpearance of the Eu- 

 ropean variety thru the colony, in so many 

 colonies in the apiai'y. and likewise in many 

 neighboring apiaries, in contradistinction to 

 American foul brood, is a peculiarity of the 

 European variety which investigators have 

 thus far been unable to explain satisfacto- 

 rily. It is thought by some careful observ- 

 ers, notably Mr*. R. F. Holtermann, that the 

 disease is carried on the feet and body of 

 the bee to the flowers, and that when bees 

 from other hives visit such flowers they in 

 turn will carry the infection to their hives, 

 thus spreading the disease to other apiaries 

 parhaps miles away. This seems probable; 

 but the theory would be more readily ac- 

 cepted were it not the fact that bees are 

 more successfully treated, and that the dis- 

 ease, in resistant colonies, rapidly abates 

 during a good honey-flow, just when, ac- 

 cording to the theory, it would be spreading 

 most rapidly. Still this would not be posi- 

 tive i^roof that the disease is not spread in 

 this way. It is conceivable that, during a 

 honey-flow, the small amount of contamina- 

 tion that would be so introduced into 

 healthy colonies would be insufficient to 

 make the disease noticeable immediately. 

 It might make slow progress for a season 

 or two ; but in a colony that is susceptible, 

 it would gain headway in an ever increas- 

 ing ratio, and finally, when dead, if over- 

 looked by the apiarist or beyond his con- 

 trol, there would occur one of those myste- 

 rious outbreaks that reach so many colonies 



