534 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



Aug. 24, 1899. 



shown by Mr. Cheshire, are in effect the true cause of foul 

 brood. They are the active agents of contagion and of the 

 propagation of the disease. Numerous laboratory experi- 

 ments, too long to be described here, prove this beyond the 

 shadow of a doubt. 



" 2. Seeing that the foul-brood bacteria must necessarily 

 kill all brood the digestive canal of which is inoculated by 

 the act of feeding, it appears to be absolutely useless to en- 

 deavor to cure these larva;, as all their tissues are rapidly 

 invaded by the virulent granulations into which these bac- 

 teria resolve themselves. (I employ the word granulations 

 purposely in preference to the term spores, which is used by 

 several writers. I cannot bring myself to believe that true 

 sporulation, similar to that observed under certain condi- 

 tions in bacteria of anthrax, and in that of blood from 

 spleen, really takes place in foul brood.) 



"3. Adult bees, whose digestive canal is infected by 

 the foul-brood bacteria, may frequently survive for a con- 

 siderable period. Some even, owing to special circum- 

 stances, seem to resist the virulent stage of the malady. 

 We must, therefore, direct our efforts to the digestive canal 

 of the worker-bees, the feeders of the queen, if we desire to 

 attack at its source the evil which maj- spread with light- 

 ning rapidity among the rising generation of larvK, which 

 is the sole hope of the colon)'. 



"IV. — The treatment, then, ought to be internal and as 

 energetic as our little patients are willing to allow. Exter- 

 nal treatment, by means of fumigations or sprayings of 

 any kind, are (I do not for one moment deny) also helpful, 

 since these methods contribute largely to the disinfection 

 of the hives, combs, and tissues of the bees, etc. It is even 

 possible, under certain circumstacues, to succeed in dimin- 

 ishing the virulence possest by the bodies of the larva? after 

 death during the process of desiccation. But I must repeat 

 that such external treatment can only be useful as an aux- 

 iliary, and I greatly question whether it has ever been suc- 

 cessful in curing of itself a colony attackt by a well-au- 

 thenticated case of foul brood. 



"The foul brood bacterium seems to be very fastidious 

 ■with regard to the conditions of its existence. The media 

 in which it can be developt are rendered sterile bj' the in- 

 troduction of infinitesimal quantities of well known anti- 

 septic substances. We are, therefore, justified in suppos- 

 ing that these same substances, if the bees can be made to 

 absorb them, will prevent the invasion of the digestive 

 canal and the surrounding parts by the bacillar bacteria, 

 ■will destroy those that maj' have already lodged there, and 

 -will thus prevent the infection from spreading to the brood 

 in the act of feeding. 



" The space at my disposal is too limited to permit of a 

 detailed description of the numerous experiments which led 

 jne to fix on an antiseptic of the first rank, introduced some 

 years back as a valuable antiseptic remedy in the case of 

 intestinal derangements in man. This substance is napli- 

 thol beta, which owes its introduction into general practice 

 to the valuable researches of M. Bouchard, Professor to the 

 Faculty of Medicine of Paris. This excellent antiseptic 

 cannot injure the bees, and they take to it the more readily 

 as it is not very soluble, and therefore is not easily ab- 

 sorbed by the intestinal walls. Notwithstanding this, even 

 .when administered in minute quantities — c i'., in doses of 

 0.33 grammes to 1,000 of liquid, it effectually prevents all 

 fermentation, decomposition, or other changes caused by 

 the micro-organisms. The media most favorable for the 

 development of foul-brood bacteria are rendered perfectly 

 sterile when treated with a proportional quantitv of naph- 

 thol. 



■' Lastlj', thanks to experiments made with some full 

 colonies partly attackt by the malady, which have been 

 feindly forwarded to me bj' some of my correspondents, I 

 have ascertained that a syrup medicated by a dose of naph- 

 thol in the proportions mentioned above is amply sufficient 

 to rid foul-broody bees from the parasites contained in the 

 digestive canal. In cases where the infection has not laid 

 too strong a hold of the parts surrounding the intestine, the 

 cure seems to be speedy and complete. Even in captivity 

 and under very adverse .sanitarj' conditions, the in.sects soon 

 regain all their old activity and liveliness. The treatment 

 ■which I venture to recommend to the serious attention of 

 apiculturists is as simple and rational as possible : 



'•In the early spring, before eggs are laid, administer 

 to the diseased colonies as large quantities as possible of 

 sugar syrup containing 0.33 of a gramme of naphthol beta. 

 The naphthol should be first dissolved in one litre of pure 

 water, with one gramme of alcohol added to facilitate its 

 solution. The liquid thus obtained is employed in making 

 the syrup in the usual manner. I am quite certain that 



with this dose the bees will readilj' take to the sj-rup, which 

 is in itself a powerful antiseptic. I need scared)- add that 

 first-rate hygienic conditions are also necessary if we desire 

 to give the bees the vitality and recuperative power which 

 play so important a part in enabling living' organisms to 

 resist the inroads of virulent microbes." — Dk. LorTET, in 

 the Bee-Keepers' Record. 



CONDUCTED BY 



UR. C. C. MILLER, Alarengo, III. 



[The Questions may be mailed to the Bee Journal office, or lo Dr. Miller 



direct, when he -will answer them here. Please do not ask the 



Doctor to send answers by mail.— Editor.] 



Cleaning Drone-Brood Out of Comfts. 



A postal card from M. D.. Andes, of Tennessee, gives a 

 better way of cleaning out drone-brood than to have the 

 bees do it. I wonder I did not think of it when replying, 

 for I had tried it years ago and found it successful. Mr. 

 Andes says : 



Dear Doctor : — I have just read the question of Ne- 

 braska and your answer, on page 455. I had a colony this 

 summer in the same fix as his. After shaking the bees off 

 in front of another hive, I set the frames up by the side of 

 the fence where I had about 100 young chickens, and in less 

 time than it takes to tell it the drones and larv;e were gone, 

 and combs clean. Just try it, some time. M. D. Andes. 

 .♦-"•-^^ 



Purity of Stoclt. 



If an Italian or albino queen gives you from 3 to 5 

 banded workers and black drones, would you consider such 

 queens pure and all right ? And in case you had young 

 queens mated with such drones, wouldn't your bees be hy- 

 brids? Wouldn't such drones give you bees that were not 

 pure ? I am a queen-breeder myself, and claim that if the 

 drones are black the queens are not pure. This is what I 

 do : I sell all queens tested, and if the drones are black 

 then I replace the queens. But you see, if my queens' 

 mother is all right then I know I am right. I don't like 

 Italian queens that give me black drones, or albinos, either. 



Al.BINO. 



AnswivK. — If the drones are black. I should not consider 

 pure the mother from which they came. Not only that, but 

 I should not consider that the mother of such queen was 

 pure and purely mated. 



Queen Superseded by a Virgin. 



Will a virgin queen introduced in a hive containing a 

 laying queen ever supersede the laying queen ? Last spring, 

 while looking over my hives, I found one containing queen- 

 cells. As it was too early for them to swarm, I decided that 

 they were superseding their queen. I closed the hive and in 

 due time I examined them again and found no brood or 

 eggs, so I gave them a frame of eggs and larva?. A few 

 days later I examined the frame I had given them, and 

 found queen-cells. 



About the time the young queen should have been lay- 

 ing I introduced a queen that had just emerged from a cell 

 to supply them with a queen in case theirs had been lo.st on 

 her wedding-flight. The next time I lookt into the hive I 

 think was about a week later. I found unsealed larv;e but 

 no eggs ; also a young queen showing the marks of fertili- 

 zation the day before. I watcht her carefully, and in due 

 time she begati to lay. Wisconsin. 



Answer.— Yes, bees will do almost all sorts of things 

 about accepting or rejecting queens. I do not know that I 

 ever heard of a committee of five workers entering an ad- 

 joining colony and taking home its queen, but almost any- 

 thing short of that I should be willing to believe. Answer- 



