808 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



kept open toe long one morning. After 

 that I did all my work in the evenings, 

 so as to run no risk, and give the bees 

 plenty of time to settle down nicely be- 

 fore morning. 



As there was no honey coming in then, 

 I took out the foul-broody combs and 

 put about five empty combs in their 

 place, and fed sugar syrup in the even- 

 ings, which the bees took down well. I 

 extracted the sugar syrup the second 

 and third evenings, before I fed the bees, 

 and then took the combs out the fourth 

 evening, and gave another set of combs, 

 which I extracted from the second even- 

 ing after I put this second set of combs 

 in. I then left in this second set of 

 combs for good, and fed up on them 

 with sugar syrup^ That also made a 

 complete cure in every case. 



In the fall of that year, when prepar- 

 ing my bees for winter, I found some 

 foul-broody colonies among those that I 

 never did anything with, as they seemed 

 all right in the summer. I felt very 

 much discouraged then, as I had done a 

 lot of work, and thought all was right. 

 I had then to do a good deal of thinking 

 again to knock foul brood out of my bee- 

 yard so late in the year, with the nights 

 so cold. I then thought if I could get 

 sealed combs from the sound colonies, 

 and remove the combs out of the brood- 

 chambers of the foul-broody colonies, 

 and give them the sealed combs, that I 

 could cure them late in the fall, as the 

 bees could not put the foul honey they 

 took from the diseased combs, into the 

 sealed combs that I would give them. 



I could not find any sealed combs like 

 I wanted, and the weather was too cold 

 for the bees to carry down the feed from 

 the top of the hives ; I then fixed up 

 bottom feeders the exact size of the 

 hives ; they were shallow, bottomless 

 boxes, with sticks across near the bot- 

 tom to set milk pans on. The tops of 

 the tin pans were level with the tops of 

 the shallow boxes when placed in them. 

 In the evenings I filled the pans with 

 warm sugar syrup, then put plenty of 

 straw in the«, and then put them under 

 the hives. The feed being warm, and 

 only % of an inch from the bottom of 

 the frames, the bees rushed into the 

 pans, and soon sealed many combs. 



1 then took the combs out of the 

 brood-chambers of the foul-broody colo- 

 nies, and gave the sealed combs from the 

 sound colonies that I fed for the pur- 

 pose. I did that about the last of Octo- 

 ber, and where the combs were all sealed 

 it made a complete cure. 



I did not get all the combs sealed, on 

 account of the weather setting in too 



cold. I put in the foul colonies some 

 combs that were not all sealed, and 

 some of the combs were empty near the 

 bottom of the frames. In the most of 

 the colonies fixed this way, it was a fail- 

 ure, as they had a chance to start brood. 

 They did it too soon, and it went foul. I 

 expected that, and watched for it. 



After that we had some fine fall 

 weather. I then got a good comb here 

 and there from the sound colonies, cut 

 the empty comb off the bottom of these 

 combs, and moved the bottom of the 

 frames up to the sealed honey from 

 where I had cut the empty comb off ; by 

 doing that, I had sealed stores without 

 any empty combs. 



I then made a few cheap hives to suit 

 these shortened frames of sealed stores, 

 and then put the bees in these from the 

 colonies I failed on ; that made a perfect 

 cure, as it tvas all sealed honey. The 

 bees having no place to put the diseased 

 honey which they took from the foul 

 combs, they had to keep it until they 

 consumed it, and that ended foul brood 

 in my apiary. 



After that, when comb foundation 

 came into use, and I was curing other 

 bee-yards of foul brood, I made some 

 " hits " and " misses " with it, in curing 

 foul-broody colonies. Sometimes I made 

 perfect cures by taking all the combs 

 out of the foul-broody colonies in the 

 honey season, and putting in fall sheets 

 of comb foundation. While that worked 

 all right in several cases, it was a com- 

 plete failure in others, where I did just 

 the same. I found that everything de- 

 pended upon circumstances, to make 

 cures that way. If the foundation had 

 a thick base, with very little cell marks 

 on it, and the honey coming slowly, and 

 the colonies not too bad with foul brood, 

 it was a cure in most cases. But where 

 the foundation was well made, with 

 good, high-walled cells, and a good 

 honey-flow on, and the colonies badly 

 affected with foul brood, it was a com- 

 plete failure; because the foundation 

 was worked out soon enough for the 

 bees to store part of the deadly stores in. 



I then gave comb foundation starters 

 for four days, so that the bees could 

 have time to work them out and store 

 the diseased honey in them. Then in 

 the evening of the fourth day I took 

 them out and gave full sheets of comb 

 foundation ; this made a perfect cure In 

 every case. 



SEVERAL FOUL BROOD CHALLENGES. 



In the American Bee Journal of 

 July 18th, page 54, Mr. Randolph 

 Graden says that my method of curing 



