162 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Mar. 16, 1899. 



ony with other colonies. Practicall)', too, the prevention of 

 robbing- means the destruction of the identity- of the combs 

 and hone_y of the diseased colony by burning- or boiling. 



As comb-building is necessary for the cure, the best 

 time for effecting it is during a honey-flow ; and for the 

 benefit of the novice in apiculture, I may say, also, and in 

 conclusion, that the only time allowable (generally late or 

 early in the day) for putting the bees under the conditions 

 spoken of so as surely to preclude robbing, is when no bees 

 are on the wing in the open air at all. R. L. Taylor. 



Dr. Miller — How many have had experience with foul 

 brood? [Two had.] Would you be willing to state what 

 j'our experience has been ? 



H. S. Jones — The experience I have had is not practi- 

 callv with my own bees, but with those of a neighbor. I 

 was called upon a year ago to come and look at his bees ; he 

 told me he couldn't get them to work or do anj-thing with 

 them ; they were in bad shape. I found several colonies had 

 foul brood. I went to work to clean the hives for him the 

 best I could with what he had there ; he had 40 colonies 

 about a mile and a half from my place. He had never got any 

 comb honey, and didn't know anything about it : the bees 

 were let go winter and summer ; I cleaned the hives up as 

 best I could, and as far as I know they are in the same con- 

 dition to-day that thej' were then ; that was a j-ear ago last 

 summer. 



Pres. Beers — He still holds the bees there ? 

 Mr. Jones — Yes, and takes no care of them. 

 Dr. Miller — What did you accomplish by cleaning- them 

 up ? 



Mr. Jones — He saved several colonies. 

 Dr. Miller — How did you clean it ? 



Mr. Jones — I durapt out the hives and started the bees 

 on fresh foundation. 



John Eenigenberg — I found some foul brood this fall 

 in one of my colonies ; I think there are some more pretty 

 bad, too. I weighed the colonies before I put them in win- 

 ter quarters, and they weighed 35 pounds each ; and when I 

 examined them they were just full of foul brood. 



Pres. Beers — Have you done anything with them ? 

 Mr. Eenigenburg — I burned them, bees and all. 

 Dr. Peiro — From my information, the gentleman's 

 treatment is very heroic, but I want to know if there is any 

 other way it can be done. If you attempt to save the bees, 

 they may contaminate the others and this foul brood infec- 

 tion may be imparted to the other colonies. 



Dr. Miller — One of the first questions that I would prob- 

 ably answer is. Is it worth while to take up time discussing 

 foul brood where nineteen-twentieths have had nothing to 

 do with it, and don't care two straws whether it is foul or 

 clean brood ? Perhaps under ordinary circumstances I 

 should say it is waste of time, but I don't believe it is in 

 this case. It is time you did know about foul brood ; it is 

 the severe scourge — the one danger j-ou have to face that 

 will make you wish you never had anything to do with bees 

 at all, and you would better know something about it : we 

 should understand something about what the thing is: the 

 paper that has been read on foul brood here this morning is 

 a good paper ; I don't believe that there was ever written a 

 paper that covered as small a space, and contained as much 

 information about foul brood, as this one. Suppose you 

 think of a lot of thistle-seed scattered over your field — what 

 are you going to do about getting- rid of it ? You can take 

 up the root, but in spite of that the seeds are scattered over 

 the ground, and, do what j-ou will, it will come up again. 

 Please understand this : IJacilli are simply little plants, 

 and the spores are the seeds of those plants. Don't think 

 as I thought a good while ago, that they are little animals, 

 or somethings of that kind ; they are little plants, and if you 

 can kill all the plants and all the seeds then you are rid of 

 the disease. Dr. Peiro asks very pertinently the question. 

 If you save your bees will they not still have those seeds 

 and distribute them around ? Those seeds must come into 

 the proper place to grow. You can have thistle-seeds and 

 carry them around in your pocket and they will do no harm, 

 but put them in the ground and they are a most mischievous 

 thing. The foul brood seeds must come into the larva? ; the 

 bacilli may be more or less in bodies of bees possibly, but if 

 you stop their being in the larva;, you stop the whole busi- 

 ness. The treatment is to throw your bees upon foundation 

 and take away all the honey from them. That honey is 

 contaminated, and it must not be u.sed. Take a single drop 

 of honey that comes from a foul-broodj' colony and it may 

 cost you a hundred dollars, because you get the seed there. 

 When you put your bees on foundation you understand they 

 are not at that time having larvK ; they have perhaps in 



their honey-sacs some contaminated honey that is used in 

 comb-building or for their own use. If you are going to 

 keep bees I advise every one of you to get Dr. Howard's lit- 

 tle book on foul brood (price 25 cents), and be ready for it ; 

 that 25 cents may do you a great deal more good than SlOO 

 after your bees have the disease. As part of the treatment 

 is to throw them on empty frames, or nearly empty frames 

 for the second time, everj-thing they build has to be built 

 fresh, and bj' that time all spores and plants have gone, 

 and thej- are clean and pure, and you are rid of the disease, 

 so far as that colony is concerned. 



Mr. Eenigeiiburg — What would be the best season of 

 the year to do it ? The busy time of the year when they are 

 working they use up the honey, but it won't make much 

 difference this time of year, as things are quiet ; if you 

 attempt to go throug-h with the treatment in the busy sea- 

 son you will lose the use of your colony. Don't you think 

 the spring would be best ? 



Dr. Miller — The spring would be better than the follow- 

 ing fall : suppose however it was August or September, it 

 would be a better time than the following spring, because 

 you get rid of it that much sooner. 



Mr. Moore — Do vou have foul brood in your apiary. Dr. 

 Miller? 



Dr. Miller — I am sorry to say I was fool enough at one 

 time to say that I had never seen foul brood, and I was not 

 going to see it, and would not look at it when I had an op- 

 portunity to do so. I am older now and have more sense, 

 and would examine it carefully. I have never seen a case 

 of foul brood. I am trying to tell you what you ought to- 

 do ; I have informed myself about it, and don't believe that 

 foul brood could come in my apiar>- and make very great 

 inroads without mj' being able to spot it. 



Dr. Peiro — I am interested in this thing ; mj- bees may 

 never have foul brood, and I may never see it, but I want to 

 know the very best information I can get. I consider the 

 cost, danger of it, and all that sort of thing, and I am quite 

 of the conviction that our friend has done the very best he 

 can, to destroy the whole business ; but why do it in the fall 

 when the combs are full of honey ; why not do it before, 

 and save the bees trouble and j-ourself expense ? I think 

 now if my bees had foul brood I would burn them up. 



Mrs. Stow — Do I understand that the full-grown bees 

 do not have this bacillus ? It is in the honey and brood, is 

 it not ? 



Dr. Miller — In the brood, but not in the organism of 

 full-grown bee. A microscopic examination shows it some- 

 times in the grown bees, but it will not perpetuate itself in 

 that way ; it must be through the larva-. Dr. Peiro says he 

 would go through the same process our friend here did, 

 burn it. If I had a colony attackt with foul brood I would 

 destroy the whole business, root and branch, because it 

 would be running too great a risk ; but if I had a whole api- 

 ary infected before I knew about it, then I would try the 

 other measure. 



Dr. Peiro — Why not destroy it before the combs are full 

 of honey ? 



Dr. Miller — You will not notice it, probably, until they 

 are fairly started in the spring. 



Mr. Eenigenburg — I examined my colonies in the 

 spring, then they were all right, and lately I examined them 

 and found some foul brood. 



Dr. Miller — The Irishman's rule in a fight is, when you 

 see a head hit it. When you see a colony affected with foul 

 brood it is time to get after it. 



A. P. Raymond — In the paper read by Mr. Taj'lor, he 

 has told us the symptoms of foul brood. I am inclined to 

 think many people believe their bees have foul brood when 

 they have not any. I had a long talk about this with Mr. 

 France. State inspector of apiaries of Wisconsin. He told 

 me in his travels over the State he didn't find many cases 

 of foul brood among extensive bee-keepers, but among- 

 those who had a few and did not take care of the bees. He 

 stated one instance. One day he called upon a man who 

 was about to drive out of his place as he (Mr. France) was 

 driving in. The man told him he had some foul brood ; 

 that he had half a dozen or more colonies : he said, "I don't 

 think it is necessary for j'ou to look at them ; I am going to 

 burn the whole business to-morrow morning ; it is my in- 

 tention to burn up the whole shooting-match." Mr. France 

 told him that as long as he was there he would like to go in 

 and examine the bees. So Mr. France went in and ex- 

 amined them, and the man drove away. This I think was 

 quite late in the spring or latter part of the summer. He 

 found one colony — a new swarm that had its hive full of 

 comb ; the entire contents had broken down and laid upon 

 the bottom-board, bees and everything. Of course, they 



