56 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



For tlie American Bee Journal. 



The Foul Brood Disease— A Review. 



A. II. KOHNKE. 



For tlie last three years or so, I 

 liave been watching with great in- 

 terest the discussions as published in 

 tlie Bee Jouknal, witli reference to 

 foul brood. Most or all of our know- 

 ledge how to cure this disease has 

 come from Germany, based on unre- 

 futable testimony, experiment and 

 experience of bee-keepers in that 

 country who took a special interest in 

 this subject, not only as apiarists but 

 as scientists, until after a i)rotracted 

 trial of several years, salicylic acid 

 was pronounced the specilic. Through 

 the instrumentality of Mr. Muth, of 

 Cincinnati, this knowledge has partly 

 been disseminated in a general way, 

 but his success in eradicating the dis- 

 ease in his apiary has thu.s' far not 

 supported his faitli in the reliability 

 of the remedy. For in reviewing the 

 Bee Journal of the last three years, 

 we lind him having one or more cases 

 of foul brood on hand every year. 

 This he attributes to contagion from 

 outside sources. How far Mr. Muth 

 may be correct in his supposition I 

 have no means of knowing, but it is 

 evidently based on the reappearance 

 of the disease, after he had, as he 

 thought, cured the diseased colonies. 



I proceed rather reluctantly upon 

 what I have further to say on this 

 subject, because in the hr.s't place 1 

 am comparatively little known, cer- 

 tainly not as extensively as Mr. Muth 

 is ; second, the latter gentleman is a 

 personal friend of mine, with whom 

 1 very much dislike to disagree, when 

 I know that this may possibly rob me 

 of his friendship. For tliis reason I 

 have abstained from criticising his 

 articles, hoping he would in time cor- 

 rect himself, for the benefit of all 

 concerned. 



But now to the prescriptions Mr. 

 Muth gives : I quote from Bee 

 Journal of 1S79, vol. 15. page 508, 

 where he states that E. Ililbert used 

 50 grammes of salicylic acid and 400 



frammes of pure spirits, which re- 

 uced by 50 gives 1 gr. of the acid to 8 

 of spirits, this he discarded, because 

 he found it killed the larvae and he 

 had made up a, different solution by 

 his druggist, viz : 128 grains of acid, 

 128 grs of soda borax and 16 ounces 

 of water, or reduced by 16 — 8 grs. acid, 

 8 grs. borax and 1 ounce of water. 

 But in Bee Journal of 1880, vol. 16, 

 page 535, it is stated 16 grs. acid, 16 

 grs. borax and 1 oz. water. 



Now it is evident that Mr. Mutli 

 has made some grave mistakes and 

 the reappearance of the disease in his 

 apiary may be caused as mucli from 

 that as by contagion from outside 

 sources, as I shall presently show. 



1. The first solution of "tlie acid in 

 alcohol is too strong and his larvie did 

 not die from the effects of the alcohol 

 but from an overdose of tlie acid ; he 

 states " 1 drop of that solution into 1 

 gramme of water," as used by E. Hil- 

 bert, and in the next column " a 

 small portion," What signifies a 

 drop? Of alcohol it takes 138 drops 

 to hll a fluid drachm, but only 45 drops 



of water to do it. How much is "a 

 small portion V" Is a physician war- 

 ranted to use that expression in his 

 prescriptions V Will it do for him to 

 say take of arsenic or laudanum a 

 small portion V The difference in size 

 of a dose of calomel makes all the 

 difference in the world as to the effects 

 of it. Nobody need suppose that 

 salicylic acid is as harmless to bees as 

 some are inclined to believe. If used 

 too strong in the feed for the bees, 

 they will not take it, if weak enough 

 so that they do not object to it, it may 

 still be strong enough to kill the brood, 

 as Mr. Muth found out, though draw- 

 ing wrong conclusions. But let us 

 proceed to his mistake number two. 



2. In vol. 15 of Bee Journal, the 

 proportions are as 1 oz. water to 8 grs. 

 of acid. In vol. 16 of tlie same paper 

 they are as 1 oz. of water to 16 grs. of 

 acid or double that of the tirst; in the 

 first it is in the pioportion of about 1 

 gr. of the acid to 57 grs. of water in the 

 second 2 gi's. of the acid to the same 

 amount of water. As Mr. Muth re- 

 fers to those in his other articles and 

 essays on foul brood, which is the 

 right one ? I answer : Neither ! This 

 leads me to mistake number three. 



3. Borax is borate of soda or two 

 equivalents of boracic acid combined 

 with one of soda. Now it is known 

 that in liquid solution boracic like 

 carbonic acid is a very weak acid and 

 easily driven from its base, the soda, 

 by others even such as acetic acid. To 

 illustrate the process I subjoin the 

 following diagram : 



vt ^,..,x- ) Boracic acid ^BOs '» liberate'J 

 / Isoiax ; a„j.. -vr n i •""* '■'"^^ '" 



( jteOda.JSaU) solution. 



I Salicylic acid (" I'omMnes and forms 



^ -^ ' salicylate of soda. 



But salicylate of soda is entirely use- 

 less as a disinfectant, in fact any soda 

 salt interferes with the disinfecting 

 properties of salicylic acid. 



If Mr. Muth had told the druggist 

 for what puriiose he wanted the solu- 

 tion, he would, perhaps, have been 

 told the merits of that composition ; 

 but if he did, I am rather inclined 

 to believe that it is an oversight of 

 the druggist, forgetting that some 

 remedies or medicines are incom- 

 jKitible. 



If anyone should doubt my state- 

 ments, I refer them to the article on 

 salicylic acid, in the United States 

 Dispensatory, 14tli edition, 1877, page 

 1749 and 17-50, where it plainly states 

 that soda salts must be avoided to aid 

 in dissolving salicylic acid if used as 

 a disinfectant. 



But what about the cure lie effected ? 

 some will ask. I reply, a cure has 

 never been effected, but Mr. Muth 

 treated his diseased colonies to pure 

 comb or foundatian, and pure honey, 

 by which a suppression of the disease 

 was effected only for a shorter or 

 longer period, after which a renewed 

 outbreak made its appearance, as 

 abundantly proven by Mr. Muth's 

 admissions. 



This explains also, why_ some claim 

 not to have been successful with sali- 

 cylic acid, as they probably used the 

 method Mr. Mutli recommended. 



Besides tfie points taken above, 

 there are others of as much import- 

 ance, for instance the temperature of 

 the solution to be used in sprinkling 



the bees and brood ; " lukewarm " is. 

 a vague expression , but 70 or SO^J Fahr. 

 everybody can Hud out what that 

 meaiis. This article is longer than I 

 intended it to be and I will close itfor 

 the present. 

 Youngstown, O. 



For the American Bee JoumaL 



The One-Piece Sections. 



JAMES FORNCROOK. 



Mr. Editor. — In Gleanings for Jan- 

 uary the following editorial paragraph 

 appeared. It reflects upon me, and 

 classes me with N. C. Mitchell, and I 

 would ask space in the Bee Journal 

 to reply thereto, and to set myself 

 right. Mr. Root says : 



Forncrook's Patent One-Piece 

 Sections.— Out of respect to friend 

 Forncrook we have permitted the ad- 

 vertisment to go in as you see it, al- 

 though it does seem as if he were get- 

 ting very close to our friend Mitchell, 

 in claiming all section boxes made of 

 one piece of wood. I have pointed 

 him to a letter in Oleaninqs, describ- 

 ing one-piece sections, made and used 

 several years ago; but his reply was 

 to the effect, that sections made of 

 strawberry-box stuff are quite another 

 thing. Tills amounts to saying, as I 

 see it, that a rough box is not patented; 

 but if you ))Iane it, or sandpaper it, 

 you are" infringing. Do you say that 

 a patent has been granted him V Very 

 likely ; but so has a patent been 

 granted on the foundation we are us- 

 ing ; on putting it on to wires ; on 

 division- boards for bee-hives, and 

 also on the very tin separators we are 

 using, and have been using for years. 

 The Patent-Office supposed all these 

 things were new, and are doubtless 

 honest; but, friends, is it in anyway 

 likely they have a man in the whole 

 Patent-Office corps who has an idea of 

 modern bee-culture ? A proposal was 

 started, at the convention, to raise a 

 fund for mutual protection, if any of 

 our number should be subjected to 

 exi^ense; but I trust uotliing of this 

 kind may be ever necessary. Mr. 

 Forncrook proposes to make all bee- 

 keepers pay $6.00 iier thousand, in- 

 stead of the established price of $4.50. 



The letter Mr. Root refers to is in 

 Oleanings for April, 1876, and is as 

 follows : 



Section Frames and Honey 

 Bo:s.ES— Friend Boot : I see by Glean- 

 ings for March, that J. I. Jolinson, 

 Palmyra, N. Y.. asks a preventive of 

 bees running the combs together in 

 section boxes. I will tell you what I 

 did last summer, and it worked to a 

 charm. I had 8 colonies of bees in 

 double hives, my own make, Quinby 

 suspended frame, 20 frames in hive. 

 I made 100 lbs. box, 150 in sections, 

 and -50 extracted lioney. I live on a 

 public road, and people constantly 

 passing wanted a few pounds of honey; 

 of course they had nothing to liold it. 

 Well, I thouglit about a section box; 

 I could get nothing to make them of 

 easily, so I got some peach box covers 

 and some strawberry box stuff, and 

 ripped them up in one-inch stiips (I 



