THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



103 



the bees to re-fill the same comb, time 

 after time, without troubling them to 

 build it afresh. 



5. Comb Foundation— For compell- 

 ing the bees to build straight combs 

 for rearing worker bees, and prevent- 

 ing them from rearing drones. 



6. Honey Knives, for uncapping 

 frames of sealed honey preparatory 

 to placing them in the extractor. 



7. Syringe for wasliing drone brood 

 out of cells. 



8. Queen Cage, for introducing fresh 

 queens into the hives. 



9. The Cheshire Bee Trap, enabling 

 bees to leave a box but not to re-enter. 



10. Bee Smoker, for puffing small 

 quantities of smoke into hives, 

 whereby the bees, fearing that they 

 are to be driven from their home, are 

 induced to fill their honey sacs with 

 honey ; the consequence being that, 

 like a man after a good dinner, they 

 are not inclined to be quarrelsome, 

 and the hive may be opened without 

 fear of the operator being stung. 



For tbo American Bee Journal. 



Mr. A. K. Kolinke and Foul Brood. 



D. A. JONES. 



In reply to Mr. A. R. Kohiike, on 

 foul brood, page 8 of the Bee Jouit- 

 NAL for ISSii, I would say that I am 

 sorry his cure is too expensive, and 

 requires too mucli time for me ; be- 

 siaes, I do not know of a case of foul 

 brood in Canada now, althougli I sui)- 

 pose there are some. A bee-keeper, a 

 friend of mine, told me he knew of a 

 case not far from him, which is about 

 40 miles from me. I told him how to 

 cure it ; he promised me to do so. last 

 fall. I suppose he did. 



Mr. Kohnke makes a proposition to 

 cure in six weeks ; why, bless his soul, 

 1 would not give him a cent to fool six 

 weeks with a case of foul brood that 

 can be cured with one or two hours' 

 labor without the use of salicylic acid, 

 or any other medicine. Twenty de- 

 grees "below zero will not kill foul 

 brood. Take honey from a badly-dis- 

 eased foul brood colony, mix it with 

 acid as strong as the bees can take it, 

 and feed a clean colony ; it will be- 

 come diseased. The same lioney 

 boiled for fifteen minutes may be fed 

 with impunity. But bad foul-broody 

 combs si)rayed with acid for days, 

 then soaked in a strong solution of it, 

 completely immersed, when given to a 

 colony starts the disease. I will make 

 the following offer to Mr. K.: if he 

 will bring me" a colony of foul brood 

 that I cannot cure with a few minutes 

 or houi's of labor, I will give him one 

 hundred dollars for it ; 1 to use no 

 drugs. Or, if he will bring me five 

 very bad foul-broody colonies, and 

 take an equal numher himself, equally 

 bad, if I cannot cure mine, without 

 the use of the acid or any drugs, in 

 less time than he can by the use of the 

 acid safely, then I will forfeit five 

 .hundred dollars. We have no salicy- 

 lic acid in Canada that cures foul 

 brood, but we have plenty of men that 

 can do it. But we have no means of 

 curing it without melting up the 



combs into wax ; we return the wax 

 to\he bees made into foundation. 



At some seasons of the year bees 

 may first be shook into a clean hive, 

 prepared with foundation : combs 

 rendered into wax, honey extracted, 

 boiled and fed back to the colony, and 

 the hive and rack scalded for fifteen 

 minutes. Dr. Duncan, of Embro, 

 Canada, did this last spring (see 

 Gleanings in Bee-Culture, page 32 for 

 this year). If bees are removed from 

 the diseased hive and made to con- 

 sume all the honey in their abdomens 

 before they commence breeding, no 

 disease will appear. 



Some recommend burning all. A 

 gentleman in California wrote me 

 some time ago that he had just burned 

 17S colonies, hives, combs, honey and 

 all. Now this is bee murder, and a 

 useless distraction of property. It 

 reminds me of the bed-bug recipe that 

 was being sold and guaranteed a sure 

 cure. It read as follows: " If your 

 house is infested with bed-bugs, just 

 burn it and it will kill everyone with- 

 out fail." I used to fear the moth 

 miller more than I now do foul brood. 

 The curing of foul brood is less labor 

 with me than transferring from log- 

 gums, and when I hear of any in this 

 part of Canada, I see that it is cured. 



Now some may think from the above 

 that foul brood "is not the dangerous 

 disease that it is represented to be, 

 and if they just shake off the bees 

 from the combs of a diseased coloiiy 

 into a clean hive of combs, and whis- 

 tle Yankee Doodle, that the job is 

 done and the disease is cured. Such, 

 however, is far from being the case. 

 If bees are placed on empty combs 

 immediately from a diseased colony, 

 some will carry their sacs full of the 

 diseased honey and empty it into the 

 cells of the clean combs, then, per- 

 haps, go to the fields, gather more 

 honey, and store it on the top of the 

 diseased honey. Now, that honey 

 might remain there for a long time, 

 but when fed to larvfe it would bring 

 on the disease. The great danger in 

 treating the disease is in liees from 

 clean colonies getting a drop of the 

 affected honey, as all the honey in a 

 diseased hiveis affected, and one drop 

 of honey from the affected hive will 

 start it in a clean colony. So all opera- 

 tions should be performed when bees 

 are not flying, or under a wire tent, or 

 some other device that prevents any 

 other bees from getting one drop of 

 the diseased honey. An old saying is, 

 " An ounce of prevention is better 

 than a pound of cure," and this is 

 doubly true in this case, for 100 colo- 

 nies may all become affected by the 

 careless handling of one colony. 

 When honey is .scarce you should 

 make your bee-yard a quarantine as 

 far as possible. 



I will give the following mode of 

 curing : Suppose a person has a large 

 apiary affected witli the disease. I 

 would first remove all tlie combs not 

 containing brood, extract the honey 

 and boil it. then it is ready to feed 

 back. Render the combs' into wax 

 and make it into foundation ; boil the 

 framesl5minutes,and fill in the foun- 

 dation again, placing then in clean 

 hives. I next drum and smoke the 



bees until they all fill themselves with 

 honey (this is very important, for if 

 some are not filled, they will die when 

 others have plenty) ; then shake off as 

 many bees from the colony as can be 

 spared, always taking the (|ueen from 

 the colony, leaving enough to nurse 

 the broo<l ; place them in a box, cover 

 it with wire clotli, carry it to a dark, 

 cool cellar or bee house, lay it on its 

 side, and allow the bees "to remain 

 there from 60 to 80 hours, until you 

 see them beginning to drop down 

 and show signs of starvation ; then 

 shake them into the clean hives with 

 foundation, feed them, and put them 

 into a new location at least 1 or 2 

 miles away from the diseased yard. 

 Queenless colonies will not last as long 

 when left to starve as those with 

 queens, and should be doubled with 

 others, or watched more closely, as 

 they are sometimes so restless that 

 they exhaust their food in 2 days or 

 less. It will not do to put bees in a 

 light, warm place to starve, as some 

 run around and get excited, consum- 

 ing all the honey in their sacs, and 

 starve, when others more quiet have 

 plenty. A dark, cool, quiet place, 

 where they remain clustered quietly, 

 is the proper place. 



It will not do to remove the affected 

 colonies and keep the purified at home, 

 unless they are taken 3 or more miles 

 away, as "sometimes bees return to 

 their old location, and might bring 

 the disease with them ; while if any of 

 tlie purified ones retui'n, they remain 

 and are treated with the others again 

 when the brood hatches. As soon as 

 the queen and bees are removed for 

 starving, the hatching brood and bees 

 should be doubled up so as to have all 

 colonies full of combs of hatching 

 brood. The empty hives thus secured 

 should be scalded for future use. As 

 soon as all the brood hatches, the bees 

 may be brushed off the combs after 

 being made to fill themselves with 

 honey, same as the first, placed in 

 some boxes as the first were, and 

 treated in the same way. While they 

 are starving, scald the hives and 

 frames, render the combs into wax, 

 make it into foundation, return it to 

 frames again, place them in the puri- 

 fied hives, and put your starved bees 

 into them again. The honey that was 

 in the combs, of course, should be ex- 

 tracted before cutting the combs out 

 of the frames, and boiled to feed them. 

 Now bring the first lot luirified back 

 to the yard again, and you have all 

 your bees and hives purified and free 

 from disease, if you have done it as it 

 should be done, without any loss ex- 

 cept your time. 



Now. if it is done when there is no 

 brood in the hives, or if you do not 

 care to save the brood, the entire yard 

 can be pnrilied in about 3 days, as you 

 remove all the bees from every hive 

 to starve, while they are starving the 

 hives are biiiled, honey extracted and 

 boiled for feeding back, combs ren- 

 dered into wax. made into foundation, 

 returned to the frames after they are 

 boiled t<i disinfect them, return the 

 frames with foundation to the purified 

 hives, and the bees when starved may 

 be shaken back in the hives on the 

 original .stands, and fed back their 



