CHAPTER 13 

 Diseases of Bees 



If any one had asked us, 20 years ago, how much trouble 

 might be expected from bee diseases, we should have probably 

 shrugged our shoulders and answered that they were very in- 

 significant and hardly worthy of notice. For 40 odd years after 

 we began beekeeping, the only disease we saw in the apiary was 

 diarrhea, also called dysentery, from which the bees suffer more 

 or less after a protracted winter, especially when their food is 

 not of the best. Spring dwindling, which is a result of this dis- 

 eased condition, is of importance only in rare seasons and late 

 springs. There is less of it with strong colonies than with small 

 hives. 



Foulbrood, in either of its two different forms, was entirely 

 unknown to us. In 1903, the writer had to go as far as Colorado 

 to be able to see some rare samples of it, rare because the bee- 

 keepers who had it in their apiaries kept it under control by 

 constant fight. 



It was not until the spring of 1908 that we found the disease 

 among our own bees. We had been feeding them some very fine 

 western honey, which we had on hand, so as to avoid buying 

 sugar, thinking that the bees would return that honey with 

 ample interest in a very few days. Whether this was the cause, 

 or whether the American foulbrood which had been noticed 

 in many parts of Illinois had just reached us in some other way, 

 we found it very much scattered among our bees, although none 

 of the colonies had more than a few cells of it. 



We did not hesitate in treating the bees. We transferred 

 every colony by the method recommended in text books of the 

 most modern date. We will give the method in a few words. 



We go to the first colony, remove it from its stand and put 

 upon that stand a clean empty hive with frames containing 

 only a few starters of foundation. All the bees and the queen 

 are shaken into it and treated just like a natural swarm. The 

 contents of the hive are removed, the brood is burned, the balance 

 of the combs rendered into wax, the honey being heated for 



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