average temperature may be described as chilly and damp with occasional 

 warm spells that lasted for a few days. It was a rather anxious time 

 for the Inspector. He came across hundreds of hives containing much 

 dead brood, while again and again closely observing bee-keepers reported 

 sudden outbreaks of Foul Brood and wanted their colonies destroyed. 

 With his previous season's experience behind him, the Inspector could 

 not agree with the beekeepers, much as he admired the fine public spirit 

 that influenced them to get rid of a supposed menace to the community. 

 To make assurance doubly sure, again and again he submitted samples 

 of suspected brood from different districts to the Department of Agricul- 

 ture at Washington, D. C., and in every instance the report was that the 

 d'iseased condition was not of a contagious nature. 



The work of the Inspectors during 1912, therefore, indicates that the 

 Province of British Columbia is still free from the disease known as 

 Foul Brood. 



The Inspector in whose territory was found the diseased brood con- 

 ditions naturally devoted considerable effort to the study of the literature 

 of beekeeping in the hopes of finding a reference to similar conditions and 

 effects, and was rewarded by discovering the following by Wm. McEvoy, 

 a very noted Beekeeper and Foul Brood Inspector in Ontario: 



"When the weather conditions are favorable bees gather a good deal 

 of honey all through fruit-bloom, and while they are bringing in honey 

 daily the brood-chambers will be kept well supplied with 'unsealed' honey, 

 and as long as the 'unsealed' honey (which is the first used) lasts, all 

 the brood will be extra-well fed. But in some springs, when the bees 

 are workng well in fruit-bloom, and going into brood-rearing on a large 

 scale, wet weather sets in, and shuts off honey-gathering for days. Just 

 as soon as this occurs the bees quickly feed the 'unsealed' honey to ihe 

 brood, and when this is gone they do not uncap the sealed stores fast 

 enough to keep pace with all the brood that requires feeding, and the 

 result is more or less starved brood. Some of the brood that dies of 

 starvation, while in the coil form, 'turns a little yellow at first, and later 

 to a dark brown, and dries down in its nkin.' 



"All brood that dies of starvation when the bees have it about ready 

 for capping, will be found on the lower side-wall of the cell, with the 

 end turned up a little, and will have a dark and tough skin on, and like 

 all starved brood it 'dries down in its skin,' and turns to a dark, dry crust 

 ton the bottom and lower side-wall of the cells; and after that it can be 

 easily cleaned out by the bees. 



"Bees always feed the brood much better when they have plenty of 

 unsealed stores, but when the colonies run out of 'unsealed' honey for 

 days at a time between fruit-bloom and clover, it is then that the bees 

 fail to get all the brood fed, and the result is starved brood. When a, 

 bee-keeper examines Ms colonies then and finds starved brood, he, like 

 others, will say that his colonies have 'pickled brood.' 



"On the night of May 28, 1889, we had a killing frost all over the 

 Province of Ontario, followed by several days of wet weather, shutting 

 off all honey-gathering for some time. This awfully sudden check coming 

 after one of the most favorable springs for bees that I ever saw, and so 

 near the honey season, caught all colonies very full of brood. I knew 

 that the 'unsealed' honey would soon be fed, and to help the bees to keep 

 feeding the brood just as much as if nothing had happened, I fed warm 



