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G Ti K A N T N O S IN R 1<: K ('. U I, 'P 11 H E 



THE BEE -TIGHT HONEY -HOUSE 



Its Relation to American Foul Brood 

 Control. Why Many Fail to Erad- 

 icate this ^Disease 



By S. B. Fracker 



State Kntomologist of Wisconsin 



ABETTER 

 wliich canio 

 to the office 

 the other day 

 told a story 

 something like 

 this: "Called on 

 Mr. S. yestei'day 

 and found he had 

 h a d American 

 foul brood in his yard of 55 colonies last 

 spring. When he had treated the bees he 

 carefully stored the houey in his 'bee-tight' 

 honey-house until he could finish the press- 

 ing spring farm work. Oue day his sister 

 looked out of the window, wondered what 

 the bees were doing and discovered the 

 whole beeyard had found the supply of in- 

 fected honey in the old supers. They were 

 busy going in through the keyhole and out 

 through the bee-escapes on the windows, 

 carrying the honey out and distributing it 

 through the apiary. That evening they 

 found the combs in the bee-house almost 

 empty of the diseased honey and soon every 

 one of his treated colonies was diseased." 



lu spite of knowing good control meas- 

 ures, experienced beekeepers are having 

 many troubles similar to the story told in 

 this letter. The persistence of disease in 

 large apiaries is so marked and its perma- 

 nent elimination so difficult that our chief 

 inspector remarked to the writer in Octo- 

 ber, "In all my work in Wisconsin I cannot 

 recall a single apiary which has eradicated 

 an American foul brood infection and be- 

 come entirely clean, by treating the infected 

 colonies. ' ' At the time, I could not remind 

 him of a successful case, but the statement 

 was so striking that I have since gone 

 through the inspection records to find out 

 whether the shaking treatment is resulting 

 in the eradication of disease. 



Treatment Less Effective Than Destruction. 



In four counties we have the foul brood 

 record, since 1918, of 163 infected apiaries 

 in which we know the control method em- 

 ployed by the beekeeper. Of these, 64 ap- 

 plied the shaking treatment while 99 de- 

 stroyed their infected colonies, repeating as 

 often as necessarJ^ Among those who treat- 

 ed the diseased colonies about one-half (27) 

 had yards free from foul brood at the 1921 

 inspection, showing that the others spread 

 disease during treatment or stored infected 

 material where the bees had access to it. 

 Among the beekeepers who destroyed the 

 infected colonies, only one-fourth still had 

 disease in their yards this year. It is clear 

 that some beekeepers are successfully eradi- 

 cating disease by treating, but that others 

 are not getting satisfactory results. In dif- 

 ferent areas there is a marked difference in 

 the results obtained. In only one county 

 could we say that the beekeepers have 

 failed in their attempts to control foul 

 brood. That is a county which insists on 

 treating infected colonies, and judging from 



.511 



the records the 

 beemen of that 

 county will still 

 be "shaking 

 b e e s " long 

 after their 

 neighVjors have 

 forgotten such 

 disagreeable top- 

 ics as bee dis- 

 eases. 



Why Many Fail to Eradicate Disease. 



The purpose of this paper is to discuss 

 some of the reasons that there are so many 

 beekeepers, 59 in the counties just referred 

 to, who treat or destroy their diseased bees 

 but have been unable to eradicate the dis- 

 ease. If we were to publish this list of 59, 

 the many familiar names would form a 

 "who's who" of beekeeping in this part of 

 tlie state. Of all those who have failed to 

 eliminate infection in three seasons, only 

 two own less than 10 colonies of bees and 

 most of the yards are from 30 to 100 colo- 

 nies in size. They are not careless "bee 

 owners," but are uniformly the progressive, 

 liard- working "commercial honey-producers of 

 whom beekeepers' associations are composed. 



We all remember the details of the various 

 treatments for American foul brood, and 

 any beekeeper can take printed directions 

 (if he does not know them already) and 

 treat a colony of bees successfully. But that 

 isn "t eliminating disease from an apiary — 

 not by many a weary season. At least the 

 unlucky 59 will tell you it isn 't. 



There are only three things Ave forget 

 when we fail to control foul brood and none 

 of them is given in the printed directions: 



First, the appetite of the bee. 



Second, the size of the bee. 



Third, the size of the germ which causes 

 American foul brood and which lives in- 

 definitely in honey from a diseased colony. 



All three are "first reader" facts in api- 

 culture; but several thousand commercial 

 beekeepers may well be uneasy about their 

 1922 profits, because they negle&ted these 

 three little facts in 1919 and 1920 and 1921. 

 Treating the infected colony is only the 

 first step toward eliminating disease. To 

 illustrate: 



Not long ago an inspector went to look 

 into a case in which repeated treating had 

 not succeeded in freeing the apiary from 

 disease. After talking things over with the 

 owner, they went into the honey-house where 

 it was admitted a large supply of honey and 

 comb from infected colonies was sometimes 

 stored. As usual the beekeeper was sure 

 his honey-house was tight, although he was 

 unable to explain the presence of so many 

 bees. A careful search revealed the fact 

 that the bees were making regular trips be- 

 tween the apiary and the honey-house, en- 

 tering through a crack in the cement floor 

 and leaving wiienever the door was opened. 



