FEBRUARY 15, 1916 



EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN FOUL BROOD 



161 



Their Differences, History, and Methods of Treatment 



BY OREL L. HERSHISER 



Continued from 



Some of tlie conditions under which 

 European foul brood will abate or disap- 

 pear of itself are now known to be, 1, a 

 vigorous, prolific queen ; 2, a strong colony 

 of resistant bees; 3, a good and prolonged 

 honey-flow like that from white clover or 

 buckwheat. In a gord honey-flow the larvpe 

 are fed on nectar and pollen fresh from the 

 flowers, and uncontaminated with infection, 

 and a constantly and rapidly increasing 

 number of them will reach maturity in 

 health. 



When these conditions obtain. European 

 foul brood may be treated as follows with 

 even much less loss of time of our queens 

 than by any of the methods described in the 

 preceding articles. 



Given a colony of normal strength, mildly 

 diseased. Remove from the hive all brood- 

 combs exeejit the one having the most seal- 

 ed brood and the fewest diseased larvpe. 

 Place this comb next to one of the side 

 walls of the hive. Brush the bees into the 

 hive, being sure the queen is there also. 

 Next to the comb of brood place a frame of 

 foundation ; and if it is an exceptionally 

 strong colony, use two of them, and fill up 

 the remaining room in the hive with draAvn 

 comb, either old or new. In fact, all the 

 hive may be filled with foundation except 

 the single frame of brood, except that it is 

 often more economical to use the combs we 

 already have. 



The object is to discourage the queen 

 from laying for a day or two while the 

 foundation next to the frame of brood i? 

 being drawn out. There are but few cell- 

 in the comb of brood, where the queen will 

 naturally commence to lay, where in to de- 

 posit eggs. This colony has been made ab- 

 normally strong compared with the amount 

 of unsealed brood. It can easily clean out 

 the few diseased larva3, and all new larva? 

 being fed with uncontaminated nectar and 

 pollen will be able to keep the diseased 

 larvae cleaned out from this time on, and a 

 cure will usually result. If the queen skips 

 over and lays in the drawn comb before the 

 foundation is drawn out, a cure will also 

 usually result. This circumstance indicates 

 an unusually strong colony that is the bet- 

 ter able to resist the disease. 



In this treatment the queen is retarded — 

 not stopped — in laying for only a day or 

 two, and the loss in the production of bees 

 for the honey-flow that may follow is re- 



page 57, Jan. 15. 



duced to the minimum. Also there will be 

 no " swarming out " as so often occurs 

 where the shaking or brushing treatment is 

 employed unless troublesome pains are tak- 

 en to prevent it. We have cured tlie colony 

 by simply aiding the bees in doing that 

 which they could almost accomplish without 

 aid. 



If the colony is badly diseased, but 

 strong, remove all combs and substitute one 

 of mostly sealed brood containing little or 

 no disease and complete the treatm.ent as 

 above described. In a strong colony, not 

 badly diseased, this treatment may be va- 

 ried by placing the bees and queen on clean 

 combs, or part combs and part foundation, 

 in the lower story and the brood above, and 

 separated from the queen by an excluder. 



To produce the maximum crop of honey 

 we need to keep the queen depositing eggs 

 as rapidly as possible in anticipation of the 

 harvest. The great value of this method of 

 treatment, therefore, clearly appears. 



WHAT TO DO WITH THE DISEASED BROOD. 



Some have stacked it up over another 

 diseased colony for the healthy brood to 

 mature, keeping the queen confined to her 

 brood-chamber by an excluder. This, the 

 writer considers, is bad practice, for the 

 reason that, after the healthy brood has ma- 

 tured above the excluder, there usually 

 would still remain the diseased brood in the 

 chamber below to treat, thus carrying the 

 disease along. In exceptional cases this 

 Cfflony, during a good honey-flow, if of 

 resistant stock, might cure itself because of 

 its having been made abnormally strong, 

 A better way, however, is to take a nucleus 

 consisting of the queen and two or three 

 frames of brood and bees from a strong 

 healthy colony, and this because such a 

 colony is probably highly resistant. Shake 

 the bees from the remaining frames of 

 brood into their own hive and divide this 

 brood among the healthy colonies. Here 

 we have a goodly queenless colony to which 

 may be given the diseased brood, and which 

 may be stacked up four or five stories high 

 if we are careful to leave sufficient bees on 

 each comb to care for it. Make as many 

 such hospital colonies, if we may so call 

 them, as may be necessary to use up all the 

 diseased brood that may be found in the 

 apiary. On the ninth day after so collecting 

 the brood, uo thru these colonics and de- 



