AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



15 



How to Cure the Foul Brood 

 Disease Among^ Bees. 



Written Jor the Amer^ayi Bee Journal 

 BY WM. m'evoy. 



This disease has destroyed hundreds 

 of apiaries at all times, in almost every 

 land where bees have been kept, and it 

 is to-day making its deadly march un- 

 checked through the bee-yards of the 

 world. 



For 17 years I have warned the bee- 

 keepers to keep all dead and putrid mat- 

 ter out of their colonies, so as not to 

 cause foul brood, and while I have been 

 warning and holding up Death's head 

 and the cross-bones, the professional 

 guessers, who were not practical bee- 

 keepers, have been encouraging the 

 wholesale spread of the disease by say- 

 ing that rotten brood in hives of bees 

 would not cause foul brood. Such teach- 

 ing as that has caused thousands of bee- 

 keepers to be very careless, and when 

 the disease has broken out in their bee- 

 yards, it was left to run its course to the 

 ruin of their apiaries, and all others in 

 the same localities. It is only the very 

 few among many thousands of bee- 

 keepers that have succeeded in curing 

 their apiaries of foul brood after it got 

 a good start in their bee-yards, and the 

 owners left to themselves to manage the 

 curing. 



I will now give my methods of curing 

 foul brood, which cannot fail when fol- 

 lowed exactly as I order. 



In the honey season, when the bees 

 are gathering honey freely, remove the 

 combs, and shake the bees back into 

 their own hives in the evening ; give 

 comb foundation starters, and let them 

 build combs for four days. In the even- 

 ing of the fourth day, remove the comb, 

 and give foundation to work out, and 

 then the cure will be complete. Fill an 

 empty two-story hive with the combs of 

 foul brood that have been removed from 

 two or more diseased colonies, close them 

 up for two days, and shade them from 



the sun ; after that open the entrance, 

 and when most of the brood is hatched, 

 remove those combs, and give the bees 

 starters of foundation in a single hive, 

 and let them build combs for four days. 

 Then in the evening of the fourth day, 

 take out those new combs, and give 

 them foundation to work out. 



Let it be remembered that all of these 

 operations should be done in the even- 

 ing, so that the bees will become settled 

 down nicely before morning. 



Before extracting from the diseased 

 combs, all the combs that were not 

 sealed must be cut out of tke frame, or 

 some of the decayed brood will be thrown 

 out with the honey. Then after cutting 

 out the unsealed comb, uncap the sealed 

 honey, extract it, and bring it to a boil. 



All the foul combs, and the new combs 

 that were built in the four days, must be 

 made into wax, and the dross from the 

 wax extractor must be buried, because 

 what runs with the wax would not be 

 heated enough to kill the spores, and if 

 it was thrown out where the bees could 

 get at it, it would start the disease 

 again. 



When the diseased brood that was 

 placed in the two-story hive is hatched, 

 and the bees are given full sheets of 

 foundation, then they should at once be 

 given a queen-cell ready to hatch out, or 

 a young queen ; then every thing will be 

 all right. 



The empty hives need no boiling, 

 scalding, or disinfecting in any way, 

 and are perfectly safe to use, no matter 

 how bad the disease may have been in 

 them ; and I have always got the curing 

 done in the same hives. But as the 

 frames get more or less daubed with the 

 diseased honey when the combs are cut 

 out of them, I always order the frames 

 burned as soon as the combs are cut out, 

 because it doesn't pay to waste valuable 

 time fussing and cleaning old frames, 

 when nice new ones are so cheap. 



Where an apiary is diseased so badly 

 that the colonies have become weak, 

 then all the combs, both in and out of 

 the hives, should be made into wax at 

 once, and all the colonies doubled up at 

 the same time, as it won't pay any per- 

 son to waste time with weak colonies. 



In some bee-yards I have put three 

 and four colonies in one, to get fair-sized 

 colonies to start on. 



When the curing is to be done before 

 or after the honey season, the greatest 

 caution is to be used so as not to start 

 robbing. The curing can be done just 

 as well before and after the honey sea- 

 son by feeding plenty of sugar syrup in 

 the evenings, so the bees will work out 



