AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



49 



the Provincial Board of Health, recently 

 investigated this matter experimentally, 

 with reference to the cause of foul brood, 

 and he states his conclusions thus : 

 "There is a distinct difference between 

 foul brood and ordinary putrefaction." 

 He leaves it to be inferred that it is as 

 unreasonable to argue that " an ordi- 

 nary microbe, which produces putrefac- 

 tion, may be metamorphosed into the 

 specific cause of foul brood," as "to ex- 

 pect that a Carniolan queen might lay 

 an egg which would develop into a bum- 

 ble-bee." 



Cheshire says that " bacterium termo 

 is no more like bacillus alvei, than a 

 loaf of bread is like a shoulder of mut- 

 ton." If Prof. Shaw were to teach his 

 students in agriculture that, instead of 

 always " yielding seed after its kind," 

 the wheat plant sometimes becomes 

 transformed into a different plant, 

 known by the name of chess, he would 

 be laughed at by every intelligent farmer 

 in the country ; and yet such teaching 

 would not be more erroneous than the 

 contention that, in the organism of the 

 bee-larva, the microbe of putrefaction 

 not only lives, but becomes transformed 

 into the microbe of foul brood. 



The second part of the "great dis- 

 covery," relating to the cure of foul 

 brood, Mr. McEvoy describes as follows: 



" In the honey season, when bees are 

 gathering honey freely, remove the 

 combs and shake the bees into their own 

 hives in the evening ; give comb founda- 

 tion starters, and let them build comb 

 for four days. In the evening of the 

 fourth day, give them comb foundation 

 to work out, and then the cure will be 

 complete." Familiarity with the litera- 

 ture of bee-keeping would have saved 

 Prof. Shaw from the error of claiming 

 this cure as a discovery made for the 

 first time in 1875. With the exception 

 of one or two variations, a cure essen- 

 tially the same was practiced and pub- 

 lished by Seydell in 1767, by Voight in 

 1775, by Bonner in 1789, and by Delia 

 Eocca in 1790. 



In Quinby's "Mysteries of Bee-Keep- 

 ing," published in 1865, the method of 

 cure by transferring the bees to empty 

 hives is given, and, like Mr. McEvoy, 

 Mr. Quinby did not starve the bess, but 

 allowed them to fly, and gather honey, 

 thus keeping them in as vigorous health 

 as possible. 



There is one variation in Mr. McEvoy's 

 cure which, so far as I know, is his own, 

 and it is a good one. I refer to the re- 

 moval of the new comb at the end of 

 four days, and starting the bees to build 

 comb afresh. This gives the bees a 



longer rest from nursing, during which 

 the diseased nurses either die off, or be- 

 come too old to continue to secrete and 

 digest food for larviv, making the suc- 

 cess of the cure more certain. 



No one who knows Mr. McEvoy will 

 for a moment doubt that he worked out 

 the cure of foul brood without having 

 any knowledge whatever of what had 

 been previously done by others. Such 

 cases often happen. In the sketches of 

 his life, now running in Oleanings, Rev. 

 L. L. Langstroth tells us that after 

 reading a translation of Dzierzon's work, 

 he "soon perceived he had been antici- 

 pated in more than one important dis- 

 covery." Cheshire had similar experi- 

 ence in several instances ; so Mr. Mc- 

 Evoy is In good company. That he 

 should discover the method of cure inde- 

 pendently, is highly creditable to his 

 ability as an investigator. That he was 

 not aware of what had been previously 

 discovered by other investigators is his 

 misfortune. 



From the foregoing it is evident that 

 so far as it relates to the cause of the 

 disease. Prof. Shaw's " great discovery " 

 dwindles down to no discovery at all ; 

 and that as regards the cure of the dis- 

 ease, the discovery was made more than 

 a century before, and the method of cure 

 has been practiced by bee-keepers, from 

 time to time, ever since. 



Before closing, I wish to protest 

 against the imputation thrown by Prof. 

 Shaw upon "those best versed in bee- 

 lore," that they are unwilling to appre- 

 ciate a good thing on account of the 

 source from which it may emanate. Bee- 

 keepers are at least as willing as those 

 engaged in any other industry, to give 

 due credit to one of their number for 

 any valuable discovery he may make, no 

 matter how little he may be known to 

 fame. 



The editors of Oleanings and the Re- 

 vieto are capable of defending them- 

 selves. The readers of these papers 

 know that both Mr. Root and Mr. Hutch- 

 inson are well posted on the foul brood 

 question. It does not require much 

 effort of the imagination to believe that 

 these gentlemen may have had good rea- 

 sons for declining to publish Mr. Mc- 

 Evoy's articles, besides the one supposed 

 by Prof. Shaw that " no good thing 

 could come out of Woodburn." 



Before his appointment to the impor- 

 tant position which he at present so 

 worthily fills. Prof. Shaw rendered good 

 service to the agricultural interests of 

 this country, as editorial manager of the 

 Canadian Live Stoek Journal. " Even 

 Homer nods." Bee-keepers will be de- 



