AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



713 



Topics ol Interest. 



Foiil-Broofl Spread liy Comli-FoiiiKlatioii. 



S. CORNEIL. 



Ill closing my article on the above 

 subject, page 801, I intimated that I 

 was obliged to omit some important 

 matters. I now desire to reply to state- 

 ments made by those whose views differ 

 from mine, and to offer a reason, which 

 has not hitherto been given to the public, 

 for partial immunity from the disease, 

 when using comb-foundation. 



Mr. Root says I am magnifying a mole- 

 hill into a mountain. I thank him for 

 the admission that there is at least a 

 molehill. He tells us the wax in his 

 tank is kept at 170^ to 180^, for days 

 before it is worked up, and he explains 

 that the supply is kept up by putting in 

 a few cakes at a time, the melted wax 

 being dipped out as required. Suppose 

 a cake of wax, rendered in the solar wax 

 extractor, from foul-broody combs, is 

 put into this tank. Perphaps in less 

 than a hour one of the hands from the 

 wax room comes along, and dips out 

 some of the wax melted from this cake. 

 Is this foul-broody wax sterilized by 

 being kept in the tank for less than an 

 hour instead of for days, as is repre- 

 sented by Mr. Root ? and was I not 

 correct in saying I had no doubt that 

 foundation is sent out the wax of which 

 has never been heated. up to 190^ ? 



Mr. Root emphasizes his statement 

 that "all history of foundation making, 

 and its use are against my argument," 

 and Prof. Cook backs him up when he 

 writes regarding my contention that 

 "experience says no, no." These gentle- 

 men seem to forget that when foul-brood 

 breaks out it is seldom known where the 

 infection comes from. Mr. J. A. Green, 

 for instance, who had over 100 colonies 

 affected by the disease, says "I have not 

 the least idea what caused it." How, I 

 ask, can experience show that the in- 

 fection does not come through comb- 

 foundation in cases in which it is not 

 definitely known how the disease arises ? 



When the disease broke out in Mr. 

 Root's own yard he thought it came 

 through feeding purchased honey, but it 

 was only a vague guess. He had no 

 ^ proof that the honey contained the 

 infection, nor did he know that it-was 

 extracted from diseased colonies. Since 

 Mr. Root boldly admits that he placed in 

 his hives foundation made from the wax 



of contaminated combs, I submit that it 

 if more probable that the disease among 

 his bees was caused by 'using his own 

 foul-broody comb-foundation. 



Replying to the editor's foot-notes, I 

 may say that the quotation I used is one 

 taken by Prof. Huxley from a paper 

 contributed by Dr. Roberts of Manches- 

 ter, to the Royal Society. If, from the 

 data contained in this single experiment, 

 there was sufficient warrant for selecting 

 other periods of time, and working out 

 by calculation the corresponding tem- 

 perature required to cause sterilization, 

 as is done by the editor, instead of 

 finding them out by direct experiment, 

 Prof. Huxley and Dr. Roberts were quite 

 competent to make such calculations, 

 but they did not do so. Surely "men 

 rush in where angels fear to tread." 



The editor writes further as follows 

 "In making comb-foundation the wax is 

 held at over 212^ for 24 hours, as 

 shown by Mr. Dadant's statement on 

 page 470." The statement on page 

 470 to which he alludes is as follows : 

 "We have ascertained that to get rid of 

 all impurities in beeswax we should 

 keep it liquid for at least 24 hours." On 

 the editor's attention being called to his 

 two errors he corrected the first one but 

 for reasons not apparent he allowed the 

 second one to stand. Just why he should 

 desire to keep Mr. Dadant's wax boiling 

 for 24 hours after it is removed from 

 the fire, and set away to cool, is a mat- 

 ter for the editor himself to explain. 



It is always a pleasure to notice im- 

 provement. A short time ago Mr. 

 Dadant showed that the microbes of 

 wine are killed by a temperature of 

 140^ ; from this fact he argued that the 

 spores of foul-brood in wax are certainly 

 destroyed by 150^. This seemed' so 

 conclusive at the time that the editor of 

 the American Bee Journal metaphori- 

 cally ran up his colors, inscribed "The 

 Scare is Over," and in " Stray Straws," 

 Dr. Miller reported a decided improve- 

 ment in his respiration. But since I 

 have shown that there are no spores in 

 wine to be killed, and that Dr. Stern- 

 berg found a temperature of 212-' nec- 

 essary to kill the spores of foul-brood in 

 fluid cultures, the temperature of 150^ 

 has been abandoned; and 212^ is now 

 adopted by my opponents as the maxi- 

 mum temperature necessary for steriliz- 

 ing wax. 



When dry heat and moist heat are 

 spoken of as applied to spores, reference 

 is made to the condition of the spores 

 themselves as regards moisture. If they 

 are in a soaked condition, or in the con- 

 dition of seeds ready to sprout, they are 



