AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



819 



claimed that they do, and only a novice 

 would expect to be able to administer a 

 drug strong enough to kill the germs, 

 without killing the bees also. Hundreds 

 of cures effected in this way are on 

 record, although I find that Mr. Mc- 

 Evoy says "the drug system is always a 

 failure." He should be more careful. 

 Scores who have read his articles know 

 that the drug treatment has been effect- 

 ive, and knowing this, they are likely to 

 discredit or discount this, as wellas his 

 other statements. 



Before it was known that the foul 

 brood disease affects mature bees, as 

 well as the brood, and when it was be- 

 lieved that the infection was some mys- 

 terious thing, which permeated every 

 particle of the honey, in some such way 

 as a perfume pervades every portion of 

 our clothing, the belief, that the con- 

 sumption of the least particle of honey, 

 carried by the bees from the diseased 

 hive, is sure to infect the brood, was not 

 unreasonable; but since it became known 

 that the infection in the honey is simply 

 the germs it may contain, and that germs 

 remain in the stomachs of diseased 

 nurse-bees, no matter how free from 

 germs the honey they consume may be, 

 the theory must undergo modification 

 to accord with these more recently as- 

 certained facts. Besides, it is only a 

 guess that the diseased honey carried by 

 bees shaken on starters is consumed in 

 four days. It is on record that a swarm, 

 in summer, lived ten days without food, 

 and made a good colony afterwards. 

 Schonfeld ascertained that a bee lives 

 36 hours after the honey in its honey- 

 sac is all consumed. 



It is not because the infected honey 

 the bees carry with them is all consumed 

 in four days that Mr. McEvoy's method 

 cures, but because during the interval 

 between shaking the bees on starters 

 and the first appearance of young larvte 

 requiring to be fed — an interval of about 

 ten days under Mr. McEvoy's treatment 

 — the diseased nurses either die off, or 

 become too old, or too sickly to continue 

 to act as nurses. The authorities say 

 that a healthy bee quits nursing, and 

 goes out as a forager at from 10 to 19 

 days after it emerges from the cell. 

 There is reason to believe that a dis- 

 eased nurse-bee gives up nursing much 

 sooner; owing to the growth and multip- 

 lication of the germs in the bee, the 

 blood is used for the sustenance of the 

 parasites faster than it is produced, so 

 that diseased bees are found to be al- 

 most bloodless. The brood food is found 

 to be composed at least partly of the 

 secretions of glands, situated probably 



in both the head and the stomach, and 

 glandular secretions are always drawn 

 from the blood. Consequently, little or 

 no blood, little or no secretions, and 

 without secretions, nursing is at an end. 



As I have said elsewhere, Mr. McEvoy 

 has a method which cures, and he has 

 the aptitude to induce others to give his 

 method a trial — two very important 

 qualificaiions in a foul brood inspector, 

 although neither the one nor the other 

 comes within the line of his official duty. 

 On the other hand, his theory includes 

 only two ways of propagating the dis- 

 ease — originating it through dead brood, 

 and spreading it by robbing. Foul 

 brood has started up again after treat- 

 ment by the McEvoy plan, but the theory 

 must be saved at any expense, therefore 

 robbing from a diseased hive is supposed 

 to have taken place, without any one 

 knowing for certain whether it did or 

 not. 



If Mr. McEvoy continues to advise 

 bee-keepers not to disinfect their hives, 

 and if they take his advice, foul brood 

 will not be " a thing of the past in On- 

 tario" just yet awhile, and it will be 

 some time before the foul-brood inspec- 

 tor will find "his occupation gone" for 

 want of hives requiring to be inspected. 



Lindsay, Ont. 



A Protest About Honey being 

 Adulterated in California. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY .J. H. MARTIN. 



I wish to protest vehemently against 

 one very important clause in Mr. New- 

 man's remarks on page 699, upon Mr. 

 F. H. Hunt and the adulteration of 

 honey; the clause referred to is as fol- 

 lows : " But in California he seems to be 

 making it ' alm.ost pure glucose.'" 



For the last two years I have been 

 working an apiary owned in part by Mr. 

 Hunt, and if ''in California he seems to 

 be making it almost pure glucose," of 

 course your humble servant must be 

 cognizant of the fact, and the general 

 reader would be led to believe that I had 

 done more or less of the criminating 

 business. Now let me say that besides 

 working this apiary, I have helped some 

 in the others, and have been in at all 

 hours of the day and night, and have 

 seen no glucose used ; had it been nearly 

 all glucosed in California, I would have 

 seen carloads of the stuff around, for it 

 could hot have been hid. 



A greater portion of Messrs. Wheeler 



