January, 1909. 



(American Bee Jonrnal 



fcirtli tlic need of protecting the Iioney 

 indnslry. read yesterday, was: 



"The honey industry is one that ap- 

 peals to the man of small means. The 

 product is not perishahle and can be 

 stored until sufficient quantity is ob- 

 tained to enable the producer to take 

 advantage of the lower rates of freight 

 lliat prevail for large shipments. It is 

 an industry that can be carried on in- 

 dependently on a large scale, where the 

 territtiry will permit, or one that can 

 be taken up as a side-issue in conjunc- 

 tion with other pursuits, where the tet- 

 ritory is limited. Not more than 60 

 percent of the territory of these islands, 

 capable of offering pasturage for bees, 

 is now occupied by apiaries. This in- 

 dustry is being gradually developed and 



extended, but, as is the case with all 

 minor industries has met with many 

 diflictdties and much experimental work 

 has been necessary to determine the 

 best methods of apiculture for the 

 semi-tropical conditions met with in 

 these islands. The Hawaiian Bee- 

 Keepers' Association feels that it is of 

 paramount importance that no reduc- 

 tion in the honey tariff be made. The 

 industry is one along the line that Con- 

 gress has repeatedly urged those in au- 

 thority in Hawaii to undertake, and 

 every encouragement should be offered 

 to those engaged in apiculture in Ha- 

 waii, to bring the industry to a perma- 

 nent and profitable basis. Any reduc- 

 tion in the honey tariff would ruin the 

 bee-keeping industry in Hawaii." — Pa- 

 cific Commercial Advertiser. 



Conducted by J. L. BV'EI't, Mount Juy. (Jnt. 



Foul Brood -How to Cure 



( U'cad at the Ontario Convention) 

 BY WM. MCEVOV. 



During the past season I inspected 63 

 apiaries, and several of these I inspect- 

 ed the second time. I found dead brood 

 in every apiary, and in many apiaries 

 I found a great deal of dead brood in 

 every colony. I was astonished at the 

 mistakes that were made and the re- 

 ports that were sent to the papers. 

 When will bee-keepers learn to tell the 

 different kinds of dead brood in every 

 stage and form from each other? 



I did not find much of the real ser- 

 pent (foul brood), but I found large 

 quantities of. starved brood. This class 

 of dead brood was found in very many 

 localities in the Provinces of Ontario, 

 Quebec and Nova Scotia, and also in 

 very many parts of the United States. 



With so many apiaries in this condi- 

 tion, and the alarmists holding up 

 "death's head and the cross-bones," it 

 frightened the bee-keepers, and caused 

 many to worry a great deal over their 

 bees, and then many samples of dead 

 brood were mailed to me. I answered 

 all these letters of inquiry very prompt- 

 ly and saved the most of the bee-keep- 

 ers from any further worry. 



There never was a time wlien things 

 needed clearing up so much as now, but 

 before going into this I will give some 

 of my experiments and discoveries. 



In 1875, when foul brood broke out in 

 my apiary, I did not know what to do 

 to get rid of the disease. I wrote to the 

 best bee-keepers for advice, and all ad- 

 vised me to burn every hive of bees that 

 I found the disease in. I did not want 

 to destroy any colony if I could by any 



means save it, so I went in to do my 

 best to cure if possible. 



Everything I did at first ended in 

 failure. I then took all the combs out . 

 of several brood-chambers and filled 

 them with white combs that never had 

 brood in, thinking that this might re- 

 sult in cure. AH these would have end- 

 ed in failure if I had not made one 

 very iinportant discovery, and that was 

 the testing of the honey and finding it 

 to be diseased. One colony that I had 

 taken all the combs out of, and had 

 given it a full set of dry white combs, 

 became a little restless, and, thinking 

 that something might have happened to 

 the queen, I carefully spread the combs 

 without disturbing the bees very much, 

 so as to find the queen sooner. I found 

 her all right, and I also found that the 

 bees in the short space of time had 

 stored a little honey in these white 

 combs. I extracted what little honey I 

 could get and fed it to a sound colony, 

 and gave it foul brood at once. Tliis 

 test proved to me beyond every shadow 

 of doubt that the disease was in the 

 honey as well as in the old combs. After 

 that I went in for getting all the honey 

 taken away from the bees after they 

 were given the white cotnbs, and along 

 these lines I cured every case by the use 

 of two sets of combs and the frequent 

 use of the extractor. This was too 

 much work, but it was the best plan 

 that I had found then. It was plain to 

 be seen that all the honey in foul brood 

 colonies was not diseased, because if it 

 were no brood would ever Iiatch that it 

 was fed to. 



I found honey stored in a cell which 

 had a thin crust of foul brood left in it. 

 I took a wire, ran it from front to rear 

 across the comb and right over the dis- 

 eased cell. I then ran a wire up and 



down the comb, and also over the same 

 diseased cell. The wires being crossed 

 over the diseased cell gave me a good 

 mark on it. I then took a pin, and with 

 the head of it lifted the honey out of 

 the bad cell and dropped a little of it 

 on the brood in the cells along the lower 

 wire, and soon after the brood in all 

 these cells died of foul brood. I then 

 took a clean pin and lifted honey out of 

 several clean cells and fed brood under 

 the upright wire, and failed to start the 

 disease in any of these cells. 



This test proved to me that the honey 

 to become diseased must be first stored 

 in cells where foul brood matter had 

 dried down. When the bees began stor- 

 ing pretty fast I took the combs out of 

 a number of diseased colonies and shook 

 the bees back into the same hives, and 

 then put in empty frames and left the 

 bees to build their own combs. The 

 bees soon made a little comb and then 

 stored part of the honey they took with 

 them from the diseased combs, and after 

 that foul brood broke out again in the 

 colonies that had been the worst with 

 the disease. I took away the little combs 

 made during the first four days and left 

 the bees to build more combs. This 

 made a sure cure in every case. I saved 

 the brood that I took from the diseased 

 colonies and tiered it up on the weakest, 

 and when the most of it was hatched I 

 treated these colonies. 



When the honey season was drawing 

 to a close I found a few cells of foul 

 brood in several colonies that were full 

 of good brood. I worried a good deal 

 over this, because I saw that it was go- 

 ing to be prettv late to get curing done 

 by comb-building in the fall when the 

 brood was all hatched, even if I could 

 get suitable weather to feed sugar syrup 

 while the bees were building comb. And 

 on the other hand I also saw that if I 

 destroyed all this brood, that I would 

 have nothing left but the old bees to go 

 into the fall and winter with, and that 

 the most of these bees would "peter out" 

 with old age before spring. I saw that 

 I had to have all this brood hatched so 

 as to get plenty of young bees to go into 

 winter quarters with. I also saw that I 

 had to get all these colonies cured be- 

 fore winter. Now how was this to be 

 successfully done and have all colonies 

 brought into spring in grand condition? 



After some more study, I thought of 

 another plan, and that was to feed the 

 sound colonies abundance of sugar syr- 

 up, and by so do'ng get the bees to fill 

 and seal every cell in the outside combs 

 right down to the bottom — a thing they 

 did do. When this was done I took 

 these outside combs out which were full 

 of all-capped stores, and saved them 

 until an evening in October when the 

 brood was all hatched out of the combs 

 in the diseased colonies. I then took 

 the combs out of the diseased colonies, 

 shook the bees off them and put in the 

 sound combs of all-capped stores, and, 

 these not having any place in them for 

 the bees to store the diseased honey 

 which they took out of the old combs, 

 the bees had to consume it. This made 

 perfect cures in every case, and the colo- 

 nies that were given the all-capped 

 stores came into spring the best of any 

 in my apiary. 

 These methods of treatment bv which 



