736 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 1 



forced-swarm method, with inspection of 

 each brood-nest every six days during the 

 swarming season, is a great step in advance 

 over older methods; but I may say, quite 

 positively, that we shall yet control swarm- 

 ing with as good or probably better res\|lts, 

 without inspecting the brood-nests during 

 the flow, and, quite possibly, without com- 

 pelling any of the colonies to build a new 

 brood-nest if we so desire. Nor do I think 

 that we must adopt a non- swarming hive, 

 but that a satisfactory method, adapted to 

 any hive, will soon be developed. Perhaps 

 ten years or even five will see the problem 

 mastered. But if any one develops such a 

 method only to keep it to himself, and to 

 gloat over his less fortunate fellow bee-keep- 

 ers, I should prefer that his "gloat" be re- 

 fused admission to the columns of our jour- 

 nals as of interest to none. 

 Meridian, Idaho. 



THE ALEXANDER CURE FOR BLACK BROOD 

 NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FOUL BROOD. 



Foul Brood Sometimes Disappears Without 

 Treatment. 



BY WM. W. CASE. 



Please go a little slow on the Alexander 

 treatment for foul brood, or I terribly fear 

 you will sow seed that will give you a very 

 unsatisfactory crop at harvest time. I will 

 not say that, under certain conditions, the 

 treatment will not be effectual; but I do say, 

 and say emphatically, that, under such a 

 reign of foul brood as we have and have had 

 here, the treatment will fail in nearly all 

 cases. The treatment will sometimes effect 

 a cure at certain seasons of flow, and will 

 be entirely ineffectual at others 



The treatment is not new. I do not claim 

 nor wish to claim it as originating with my- 

 self, although I used it some ten or twelve 

 years ago— in some cases successfully— in 

 others (and by far the most of them) not, 

 and have not and will not attempt any fur- 

 ther experiments in that line. 



Taken m anticipation of a heavy flow of 

 buckwheat, or any other honey that contains 

 a large per cent of acid, it will sometimes 

 effect a cure; but Jrequently, under such 

 conditions, foul brood will disappear of it- 

 self and never reappear, especially if there 

 is little or no honey in the brood-nest; but 

 you may set it down as an absolutely sure thing 

 that if, at the beginning of such flow, there 

 is any appreciable amount of clover or bass- 

 wood honey, which will for ever hold mf ec- 

 tion, in the brood-combs, colonies treated 

 a la Alexander will show reinfection, fre- 

 quently in a very short time after such 

 treatment. , , . j 



Only a few years ago, when foul brood 

 was at its height here (it is now on the wane, 

 and losing much of its former virulence m 

 obedience to the laws governing nature's 

 balance) , in conversation with a fellow bee- 

 keeper concerning foul brood he said, " Pooh! 

 foul brood is nothing. When I see bad 



brood I just requeen;" but in less than six 

 weeks afterward he came to me in despair 

 as to what to do with his "rotten apiary." 



Until that time he had never known what 

 real foul brood was; and when he came face 

 to face with the genuine article his theories 

 fell flat. 



The whole trouble is, there are too many 

 experts and theorists who have never seen 

 real foul brood in their lives, although I do 

 not say that this is true of Mr. Alexander. 



Both the microscope and experience show 

 that foul brood is caused by a virulent germ 

 —an active, living principle, destructive to 

 life in the larval form of Apis mellifica at 

 least, and that this virulent germ, this active 

 principle, has got to be eliminated from all 

 honey fed to the larvae, otherwise the dis- 

 ease is bound, sooner or later, to reappear, 

 and there is nothing whatever in the Alex- 

 ander treatment to destroy this germ life in 

 the honey stored in infected combs unless it 

 may chance that the larvae are fed on hon- 

 ey freshly gathered, that in itself is de- 

 structive to Bacillus alvei, as seems to be 

 the case with buckwheat. (Any one doubt- 

 ing the effect of buckwheat honey on the 

 economy of the bee has but to visit an apiary 

 in a buckwheat flow and witness the ferocity 

 in general of the bees, and endure the ago- 

 nizing stings then. offered in good faith and 

 "heaps a plenty.") 



From observation and experience I do not 

 believe that any form of treatment will or 

 can ever be trustworthy that will allow any 

 honey from an infected brood-nest to be in 

 possession of the bees when yoimg larvae 

 are being fed by the nurses. Such a theory 

 is not scientific, neither is it borne out by 

 common sense nor the results of practice; 

 and if local conditions render it efficacious 

 at Alexander's apiary it is exceedingly 

 doubtful whether such conditions exist else- 

 where. 

 Frenchtown, N. J. 



[Mr. Alexander never recommended his 

 special treatment for any thing but black 

 brood— the disease which, during the last 

 few years, has manifested itself in New 

 York. The bacteriologist of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, Washington. D. C. , as 

 well as those at Cornell University, have 

 shown there is a marked difference between 

 the foul brood of Ohio and Wisconsin, and 

 the black brood of New York— or. rather, 

 that there are two brood diseases. Strange- 

 ly enough, the black brood of New York, 

 according to the bacteriologists, is the Ba- 

 cillus alvei of Europe. The regular foul 

 brood which we have had in this country 

 they find to be something else. What Mr. 

 Alexander was talking about was the same 

 foul brood that probably exists in Europe; 

 and it will be remembered that Mr. Samuel 

 Simmins, in his book, gives a description for 

 the treatment of this same disease, that is 

 not unlike the treatment recommended by 

 Mr. Alexander. 



It must be remembered that Mr. Alexan- 

 der never claimed that his treatment would 



