648 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



would not recninniemi, at least I do not now join in tlie recommen- 

 dation. A drug is, by its very nature, a poison, and even tliougli 

 only used as a iirophylactie, must have its damaging effect. 



1 am not by any means well acquainted with ajiicultural litera- 

 ture, and so ilo n'ot know by whom or wlicn the idcn of shutting 

 diseased bees uji until their honey was (■()iisinii''d lii'f"ri' imtting 

 them into their ^)ermanent home was originated. 1 woidd liere 

 only say, tliat with our present knowleilge.thatin a colony taken 

 from ail afflicted hive, many, at least, of the bees are themselves 

 tilled with bacilli, we can see that the plan of shutting up is the 

 very worst that <-ould be adopted. The bees that drop, as Mr. 

 Simmius suggests. " from exhaustation." would most probably be 

 those dying of foul brood, and beiuu confined (the stricken with 

 the sound) are likely to perpetuate the disciise. The real benefit 

 arises here, not from consuming the honey as I have shown, but 

 from delaying the time of egg- production, and so letting the 

 diseased bees die off before they have a chance to act as nurses. 

 If this ruinous, and to me cruel, plan were in any way necessary, 

 I should say, unqueen your diseased colony, cutting out all queen- 

 cells ten days after, anil givuig from a healthy ciilony a cell just 

 sealed. When the queen hatches, make a sw'arm of the whole 

 uito a skep, and transfer next day to a frame hive. The skep is 

 only needful because making the swarm is likely to throw spores 

 into the ail'. The queen will, in eight or nine days begin to lay, 

 and all would most probably go well, much more probably than 

 by the starving plan. The diseased bees would be dead and gone 

 before any nurse-work commences. All the brood that will hatch 

 is securetl, and the queen gets no cliance of contamination by 

 constantly putting her abdomen into infect<'d cells. A possible 

 contingency if she be allowed to begin oviiiositiiig in the idd and 

 diseased li'ive. My last point is readied— the method of cure 

 which I suggest. 



About three years smee, Mr, Robert Sproule, an Irish gentle- 

 man of culture, with whom I several times hatt had the pleasure 

 of a conversation, mentioned to me that be had used phcnul in 

 the treatment of foul brood with some success. 1 n'plied that I 

 would seek opportunities of experimenting, and if 1 found the 

 result advantagi'ous. I would do as I am always glad to do, 

 mention his iiaiiie with tlianks for the suggestion. I'he sugges- 

 tion was, however, not quite novel, but no one appears to nave 

 (lone more than think that phenol was out of tlie question: bees 

 would not take it. This idea is correct, and 1 find by a letter 

 received from Mr. Sproule, dated 18th ult.. that he with the 

 remedy in bis possession, for want of noting the way of giving 

 it, lost a large part of bis apiary. Mr. Sproule's plan was to 

 feed with syrup, into liich be put a small quantity — how mucli 

 1 do not know— of Calvert's No. 1 Phenol. He says tliat in 1882 

 he was successful with it, "but"- I ((note from his letter— 

 " unfortunately 1 requeened all my colonies, save one of black 

 bees, with IJ'gurians. The disease re-appeared, and as the 

 Ligurian bees refuse to take the carbollzed syrup, I lost them all 

 by foul brood, except the black colony." 



" What man has done, man can do " was my motto, and I 

 sought opportunities of treating the pest, and up to the close of 

 1883 had so manipulated six diseased colonies tliat I felt con- 

 vinced I had, with proper management, a remedy beside which 

 salicylic acid was but ve.\ation of spirit, I imagine that with Mr, 

 Sproule's method 1 should have failed as he did, as 1 operated 

 entirely on Liguriaus and hybrids. Reference to my writings in 

 the " Country " newspaper ten years since, shows that my argu- 

 ment has always been in favor of the remedy being given in the 

 food. We have here a constant (juantitv; every grub must receive 

 the same aiiKMint of nourishment, and if we can find a curative 

 agent and the dose, the difficulty is accomplished. I wrote thus, 

 seven years since, in speaking of salicylic acid: "When combs 

 i're in a very decomposed condition, they may have to be taken 

 away, but I do not believe, rather 1 have not found, this step to 

 be necessary. It is, in ray opinion, far more necessary to remove 

 the store; for, supposing, the honey to carry no infection, it is at 

 least the means of preventing one remedy being given to the 



§rubs. Remove the store; and the bees themselves become the 

 ispensers of the drug which we have provided." 

 To place the fond bottle with added jibenol on the hive will, 

 however, do nothing in the greater number of cases. If honey 

 be coining in, the'bees will not touch it; but open the hive, 

 remove the brood comb, and pinir from a bottle having a drop- 

 ping-tube, loosely placed in its neck, the medicated syrup into 

 those cells immediately around and over the brood, and the bees 

 will and do use a curative quantity of phenol. The synip is best 

 poured in by holding the comb at about the inclination of ordi- 

 nary writing, not by placing it on its side. (For tender combs an 

 appliance may be made like a chemist's wash-bottle. Iiv which 

 the combs i aii have the syrup poured into them while they are 

 In the upright iiosition.) Sometimes it is enough to simply pour 

 the syrup into the back comb, when they will fetch it into the 

 brood-nest as needed, and the disease will disappear. But suc- 

 cess comes through failure, and I had to experiment and destroy 

 colonies in experimenting hi order to find the curative do.se. 

 The vapor of phenol, the phenol beaig poured on blotting paper, 

 on two occasions, killed all the brood. Last autumn I inocnlateo 

 a colony and allowed it to get into bad condition. I then in- 

 serted a comb of store in the centre of the broodnest and treated 

 one side. The disease disappeared, but raged, although with 

 abated fury, in the other half. Possessing a skep which might 



be scented from afar, I divided the combs by transferring into 

 two of my colonies, and after alio ing the disease to get ahead, 

 quickly had them perfectly simnd ai;ain. . 



1 toiiiid that 1-300 was refused by the bees altogether; that 

 1-400 might be given con.stantly to a sound cnl ny without 

 appearing to limit the queen inbreeding or touch her health; 

 that 1-.5U0 dispatched foul brood quickly even wliile honey was 

 coining in, and that 1-7.50 appeared enough when it was not. I 

 have established these quantities as the correct ones. I then, in 

 the interest of apiculture, requested the British Bee-Keepers' 

 Association to provide ine with a bad case so that the attention 

 of bee-keepers might be arrested. The colony has been supplied 

 me by the kindness of Mr. Mills, and lif,s been open to visitors, 

 marked by Mr. Hooker, and officially attested. When it arrived 

 on the night of .Inne 21, it contained seven frames, only enough 

 bees to cover two of tlieni, aid queen-cell afterwards found to 

 contain foul-broody matter only, scarcely any living brood, and 

 a good deal of dead brood. A casual counting of one of tl;e 

 best frames gave 371 dead i.akv.e on one side. The odor was 

 pronounced. A case such as this would have been utterly liope- 

 le.sson any plan but the one I am now advocating. 



With me queen lessness presents the worst of all difficulties. 

 No grubs, no physic, no cure. Unqneenhig a foul-broody colony 

 is giving up at once, it is decapitating to cure the headac e. I 

 had stipulated that the cohmy should have a queen, so my 

 difficnlty was greater than I anticipated, and yet the colony is 

 here today strong, vigorous, and healthy and lias b en so for a 

 week past. No cell has been uncapped, and no diseased grub 

 removed by me. My treatment lias been, giving food and 

 getting that food converted into bees as rapidly as possible. 



Seeing, earlv next morning, June 32, the utterly disheartened 

 condition of the poor bees, I went to a nucleus, took out a very 

 fine Italian mother, having just proved as purely fertilized, and 

 putting lier under a dome cage on a caul, placed the card over 

 the frames. The bees came up and seemed to see in her a new 

 hope. I lifted the card, she was welcomed, and the colony was 

 now queened. I waited three days till she was regularly laying, 

 giving tiiem syrup pbenolated by 1 in .WU, and then tliok two 

 frames from a coloiij- containing the very comb once us d in 

 experimental inoculation to which. I previously referred. The 

 combs were ugly, and 1 wanted to be rid of them. They were 

 full of brood. This step would not have been necessary, but 

 from the fact that I required a strong, healthy colony by the 

 time of the Congress. The bees were now shut up tofonr 

 frames, and those beliind the division-board, waiting introduction 

 as the liees multiplied, smelt so badly (the weather being hot), 

 that for comfort of myself and bees 1 was forced to spray with 

 water 200, phenol 1. Every evening the medicated syrup was 

 given. The smell vanisbeif", the bees becameactiveand earnest. 

 The comb with 371 dead larvie on one side was last added, and in 

 ixdaysl could only tinif five sunken caps in the whole of it. 

 Now and again a grub took the disease, but quickly, perfect 

 immunity was the issue. The brood is now as bright, pearly, 

 and healthy as an > I have ever .seen. The liive has not been 

 touched except for manipulation, and yet lis bottom-board has 

 been kept most jierf 'ctly clean by the Iiees tliemselves. 



Here a caution is needful. Carbolic acid is an impure phenol, 

 and is useless. (Phenylated soap of good qualitv with plenty 

 of water is the best cleanser of hives and ajiparalns.) Carbolic 

 acid contains creosote and cresols, and bees abhor it. Absolute 

 phenol must be, used. My fear is lest dealers should profess to 

 supply what is required, and substitute a cheaper for au abso- 

 lutely pure article; if so, difficulties will arise. 



Pardon me in saying that I feel )niiud that I have been so 

 fortunate as to contribute -omething to the science of the ques- 

 tion, while I feel delight in that the worst difficulty of bee- 

 keepers has almost cea.sed to be a difficulty. 1 ccuild take an 

 apiary in the beginning of March with every colony diseased, 

 and by May 1, with but very little labor, deliver it up clean and 

 strong, as strong as though the disease had never appeared. 

 These experiments and investigations have cost me much in 

 time, and money, and mental effort; but as they will, I feel 

 assured, be the 'means of saving thousands annually to bee- 

 keepers generally, I rejoice, and ask them to rejoice with me. 



Acton, London, England. Fuaxk R. Cheshire. 



By the apiarists of England the above is regarded as 

 one of the greatest discoveries of the age. Phenol is 

 carbolic acid, and must be pure to have the desired effect. 

 We shall give more on this subject in future numbers of 

 the American Bee Journal. To show how positive 

 Mr. Cheshire is of its being an absolute cure, he says : 



"I assert with all the positiveness I can command, that phenol, 

 upon my plan, is a specific, and only needs a careful and correct 

 application. And, best of all, no loss is occasioned; the food 

 given stimulates and strengthens, as well as restores healtli, 

 and a smitten colony will, from the little extra attention it gets, 

 soon become probably the best in the apiary. This notion, too, 

 about infected hives is largely a delusion. Burning is sheer folly. 

 Boiling is utterly useless, for it would not kill the spores, if such 

 were present. Washing with carbolized soap is all-sufficient." 



