CHAPTER XIII 

 Spreading Disease from the Queen Yard. 



It is an unfortunate fact that much of the responsibility 

 for the present wide-spread prevalence of foulbrood must be 

 laid at the door of the careless queen breeder. Foulbrood has 

 been introduced into many localities by the purchase of queens 

 from diseased apiaries. The queen breeder cannot use too 

 much care in keeping his apiary and his locality free from dis- 

 ease. In any event, queens should not be mailed to purchasers 

 from an apiary where disease is present. In our present state 

 of knowledge of European foulbrood, it is uncertain in just 

 what manner the disease is spread, but it is very probable that 

 a queen bee, taken from a diseased colony, might be the means 

 of introducing it into a healthy colony, even though no honey 

 or bees accompany her. 



It is reasonably certain that there is little danger of the 

 spread of American foulbrood, except in the honey from dis- 

 eased colonies. The postal regulation which requires that honey 

 used to make candy, to stock queen cages to be sent through 

 the mails, be boiled for thirty minutes, is supposed to meet all 

 requirements. While this may be true, as far as American 

 foulbrood is concerned, it is not sufficient protection for the 

 purchaser, from European foulbrood or paralysis. 



The late O. O. Poppleton related something of his experience 

 with paralysis, to the writer. For a time he had serious losses 

 among his bees from this disease. He was finally able to trace 

 the trouble to the introduction of queens from the yards of a 

 well known breeder. By requeening all his yards with a dif- 

 ferent strain of bees, he was able to eliminate the disease. 

 Later he introduced the same disorder to his apiaries again 

 with queens from another source. On investigating the matter, 

 he was surprised to learn that the man from whom he bought 



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