JANUARY 15, 1916 



EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN FOUL BROOD 



Their Differences, History, and Methods of Treatment 



BY OREL L. HERSHISER 



Continued from 



A few historical facts may be of interest 

 as a means of comparing the description 

 and treatment of foul-brood diseases, given 

 and practiced by investigators and experi- 

 menters of 35 to 50 years ago, with that of 

 recent times. 



Dr. Dzierzon records in the English edi- 

 tion of his work, " Rational Beekeeping," 

 this prefatory statement in reference to 

 foul brood : " Since the appearance of the 

 first edition ..... we have further been 

 successful in discovering the nature and the 

 cause of foul brood . . . and almost simul- 

 taneously have discovered an infallible cure 

 for it in salicylic acid." Salicylic acid as 

 a remedy for foul brood was first brought 

 to public notice in the papers communicat- 

 ed to the meetings of German beekeepers at 

 Strasburg and Breslau, and published in 

 the last numbers of the Eichstadt Bienen- 

 zeitung, the organ of the German beekeep- 

 ers for 1875 and 1876. 



As the salicylic-acid treatment seems to 

 liave been recommended subsequent to the 

 time when the treatments by dequeening, 

 decombing, and driving of the bees into a 

 new hive were known ; and as Dr. Dzierzon 

 states that, since the appearance of his first 

 edition of Rational Beekeeping, they had 

 discovered the nature, cause, and treatment, 

 with salicylic acid, of foul brood, we may 

 reasonably place the discovery of such 

 treatments by dequeening, decombing, and 

 driving the bees into new hives at a period 

 subsequent to 1861, the date of the appear- 

 ance of Rational Beekeeping, and prior to 

 1875, when the salicylic-acid treatment was 

 first brought to public notice. 



DR. dzierzon's description and treatment 



OF FOUL BROOD. 



" An infallible symptom of the presence 

 of foul brood is the discovery of dead, 

 dried-up, shriveled larvae or nymphs in 

 separate cells among healthy brood. These 

 dead larvas have passed into a pap-like or 

 tough mass, and later on into a grayish- 

 brown or quite black crust on the floor of 

 the lower surface of the cells. If the ma- 

 jority of the cells are in that condition the 

 infection took place some time ago, and the 

 evil has already become vei'y great. Because 

 a stock with foul bx'ood generally ventilates 

 considerabh', the evil may be recognized in 

 hives with immovable combs by an unpleas- 

 ant smell proceeding from the entrance. 

 The smell is similar to that of putrid glue 



page 12 last issue. 



or meat. As the bees take the trouble to 

 bring out separate larvae that have not yet 

 entirely rotted, such will be found some- 

 times on the floor of the hives affected. The 

 bees take the trouble partially to remove 

 to the outside the blackish-brown crust 

 forming finally from the rotten matter. 

 There are, therefore, found on the floor a 

 dark-colored dust and entire skins torn off, 

 which, when rubbed down between the fin- 

 gers, give off the same unpleasant smell. 

 In spring, when other stocks are already 

 diligently building, the foul-broody do not 

 generally make any preparation for it; at 

 most they will do so only when they are 

 fairly strong, and unusually good pasture 

 sets in. If the combs are examined, the 

 sealed brood is never found en masse, but 

 standing in isolated, iiTegular patches. To 

 be thoroly satisfied, a piece of brood-comb 

 must be cut or torn out; and if it shows 

 cells with the matter described above, foul 

 brood is certainly present. 



FOUL BROOD IS OF TWO KINDS. 



" There is one kii]d that is mild and 

 curable, and another kind malignant and 

 incurable. Both kinds are, however, con- 

 tagious. 



" The curable occurs in this way : More 

 of the larvae die still unsealed, while they 

 are still curled up at the bottom of the cell, 

 rotting and drying up to a gray crust that 

 may be removed with tolerable ease. The 

 brood which does not die before sealing 

 mostly attains to perfection, and it is only 

 exceptionally that individual foul-brood 

 cells are met with sealed.* 



" This is exactly reversed in the malig- 

 nant kind of foul brood. In this the larya9 

 do not generally die before they have raised 

 themselves from the bottom of the cell, have 

 been sealed, and begun to change into 

 nymphs. The rotten matter is, therefore, 

 not found on the cell floor, but on the lower 

 cell wall. It is brownish and tough, and 

 dries up to a firm black crust, both in con- 

 sequence of the heat prevailing in the hive, 

 and of a small opening bitten in the de- 

 pressed cover. Tins matter the bees are not 

 able to remove; and when they are in some 

 strength they can at most get rid of it by 

 entirely biting down the tainted cells and 

 making fresh ones."t 



* Here will be noticed what has in recent years 

 been designated as European foul brood. — O. L. H. 



t This describes what we now designate as Amer- 

 ican foul brood. — O. L. H. 



