468 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



July 27. 1899. 



syrup or honey is g-iven without first being- medicated, and 

 the antiseptic used kills any bacillus that may be growing-, 

 or prevents the spore from g-erminating, altho it does not 

 kill it. 



Then we know that there are certain chemical sub- 

 stances which evaporate at the ordinary temperature of the 

 hive, and whose vapors prevent the growth of bacilli, altho 

 they do not destroy them. Among these are eucalyptus, 

 carbolic acid, phenyle (orcreolin), Ij-sol, camphor, naphtha- 

 lene, and others. For convenience and economy we use 

 naphthalene, and have some of this always present in the 

 hive. Our treatment is this : 



If we detect the disease in its earliest stage, before any 

 of the affected larva; are capt over, we simply feed the bees 

 with syrup medicated with naphthol beta, because at this 

 stage there are no spores present. The medicated sj'rup is 

 used by the nurse-bees in preparing food for the larvae, and 

 in this waj' the bacilli are destroyed. It is, however, sel- 

 dom that the bee-keeper is sufficiently expert or alert to de- 

 tect the disease at this stage, but more generally notices it 

 onlj- when the combs have irregular patches of brood, with 

 sunken and perforated cappings to the cells containing the 

 coffee-colored mass inside. In this condition the cells are 

 crowded with innumerable spores, and the treatment just 

 mentioned would not have the slightest effect upon them. 

 If the colony be weak we destroy the bees, combs, and quilts, 

 and disinfect the hives. We thus destroy the spores, and 

 so remove the source of infection. 



Should the colonj- be strong- in bees we make an arti- 

 ficial swarm of them, confine them in an empty hive, and 

 feed on syrup medicated with naphthol beta. We use this 

 drug because it is non-poisonous or corrosive, and has no 

 odor repugnant to the bees, is a powerful antiseptic, and 

 can be used in great dilution, thus rendering it economical. 

 The frames, combs and quilts are then burned, and the 

 hives disinfected by being either steamed or scrubbed with 

 boiling water and soap, and then painted over with a strong 

 carbolic-acid solution. The bees are confined in the empty 

 hive for 48 hours, by which time all the honey they may 

 have taken with them will be consumed, and such of the 

 bees as are diseased will have died off. Those remaining 

 are then put into a clean hive furnisht with full sheets of 

 comb foundation, and are fed with medicated syrup for a 

 few days longer. 



With this treatment, when faithfully carried out, we 

 have had considerable and very gratifying success. The 

 whole secret of this success lies in having the drug ever 

 present to act on the micro-organism, and either kill it or 

 prevent its development and growth. I do not see why 

 formalin, if used in the same way, should not be as effica- 

 cious. 



[Editor Root then follows with this foot-note: — Editor.] 



I am sure we bee-keepers of the United States are ex- 

 ceedingly obliged to Mr. Cowan for the valuable informa- 

 tion he has given us. and for the clear way in which he has 

 discriminated between spores and bacilli. 



As I understand him, the purpose of medicating sj'rup 

 fed to bees is to kill the spores immediately on their en- 

 trance to the bacillus form, as well as the bacilli themselves. 

 Drugs can in no sense kill spores ; but if the syrup is medi- 

 cated with the proper antiseptics, when the spores do hatch 

 (if I may adopt an unscientific term) the microscopic life is 

 killed at once. 



This naphthol beta is something- that I believe Ameri- 

 can bee-keepers can use with profit, especially those who 

 have had foul brood in their vicinity, or at least who have 

 had it in years gone by, and are troubled with its reappear- 

 ance occasionally. If every year all the syrup fed to the 

 bees in such apiaries is medicated with naphthol beta, the 

 time will come when the last traces of the disease, even in 

 spore form, will be wiped out. — Gleanings in Bee-Culture. 



The Need of Taking- Bee-Papers- 

 Sermon. 



-An Apiarian 



BY REV. I,. J. TKMPLIN. 



WE are living in an age and a country of intense physi- 

 cal and mental activity. Discoveries and inventions 

 crowd on each other with a rapidity that is bewilder- 

 ing. A few centuries ago a man might possess all kinds of 

 knowledge, but to-day to be fairly informed in one or two 

 branches is about as much as a man can successfully aspire 

 to, and to be an expert in any one field of knowledge will 

 tax any man's faculties and energies to their utmost. The 



discoveries and advances made in any one branch of human 

 knowledge follo%y each other with such rapidity, the old 

 giving- way to the new at such frequent intervals, that even 

 the expert has to hustle to keep up with the advancement of 

 his own specialty. The need of fresh information along all 

 the different lines of knowledge and activity has led to the 

 publication of journals devoted to each of those fields of 

 activity. The man who fails to take and read one or more 

 of these publications devoted to his branch of business, will 

 soon find himself like a chunk of driftwood lodged on the 

 bank of the stream after the flood has gone by. 



While this is true of all branches of knowledge and in- 

 dustry, it is eminently so of bee-keeping. Scientific bee- 

 culture is less than SO j-ears old, and it would be sheer ego- 

 tism for us to claim that we have attained to anywhere near 

 perfection in the pursuit. We do well to revere the mem- 

 ories and honor the names of Langstroth, Ouinby. Grimm, 

 and other fathers in bee-keeping; and we will profit by a 

 thoro study of their excellent works on the subject ; but we 

 do not want to sit down on their graves and dream that all 

 has been accomplisht that is attainable. For in that case 

 the world will soon move on and leave us behind : for as 

 Galileo declared, after recanting his teachings in regard to 

 the motion of the earth around the sun, as he rose from his 

 knees before the dignitaries of the church he remarkt in 

 their hearing- : " It does move, tho." And so the man who 

 sits down and waits will find, Bro. Jasper to the contrary 

 notwithstanding. Such a man has made a mistake ; he 

 ought to have been born two or three centuries earlier. 



By the way, what an ag-e and a country we are living 

 in. Standing on the verge of the closingcentury, and look- 

 ing backwards across the years we see, with the exception 

 of the one all important event in human history, the incar- 

 nation of the Son o^ God for the redemption of men, the 

 most important of all the sixty centuries covered by human 

 historj-. A list of the mechanical inventions and the dis- 

 coveries in science that have been made during the present 

 century would more than fill a full number of the American 

 Bee Journal. Going back to near the beginning of the cen- 

 tury we find in 1807 Robert Fulton launching his first 

 steamboat on the Hudson River. This drove the many 

 boats propelled bj' oars to the shore to rot. 



Next came the railroad, superseding the freig-ht-wagon 

 and the prairie-schooner wherever it went. Then came the 

 telegraph annihilating time and distance ; and now the 

 telephone threatens to annihilate the telegraph. Near the 

 middle of the century the steamship put in an appearance 

 in spite of the assertions of scientific men that it could not 

 succeed. These great floating palaces, which are almost 

 like floating cities, have replaced the old sailing-vessels, 

 reducing the time of passage from several months to less 

 than a week. A very learned man in England wrote a very 

 learned pamphlet to prove that in the very nature of the 

 case it was impossible for a steamship to cross the Atlantic 

 Ocean. The first copy of that pamphlet that was ever 

 brought to America was brought over in a steamship. 



The old wooden war-vessels have given place to the 

 great steel-built and steel-armored war-ships with guns that 

 will hurl shot and shell a dozen miles, and with such accu- 

 racy that a ball can be planted inside of a square yard at 

 the distance of two or three miles. In small arms the re- 

 peating rifle and the Maxim rapid-fire guns have displaced 

 the old smooth-bore and muzzle-loading arms of past years. 



The mowing and reaping machines have superseded 

 the old sickle, cradle and scythe. The separator has done 

 away with threshing with the flail, and the tramping of 

 horse and oxen. The sewing-machine, with its tick, tick, 

 tick, has rendered obsolete the "Stitch, stitch, stitch, band 

 and gusset and seam," of Hood's needle-woman. The old 

 hand printing-press, workt with so much back-breaking 

 energy, has given away to the great Hoe power press that 

 will print and fold thousands of the great daily sheets in an- 

 hour, to be scattered over all the country, like leaves of the 

 forest, carrying more lig-ht and knowledge, more slander 

 and degradation, than any other agency ever employed by 

 the race. 



The electric light has caused the candle, the kerosene 

 lamp, and even the gas jet, to largely pale into dimness ; 

 and as a motive force electricity threatens the dominion of 

 steam itself. Sir William Thompson, probably the highest 

 authority in the world, recently said : "The steam-engine 

 is passing away." And in liquified air may be concealed 

 latent forces that will render even gunpowder and elec- 

 tricity back numbers. 



All these, and a thousand other wonders, have been 

 achieved within the life-term of people yet living. The 

 writer, tho a good many years short of three score and ten. 



