THE BEE-KEEPERS- REVIEW. 



25 



the earlier stages of the disease nor very 

 noticeable until a great uvunber of larvii' are 

 affected. 



Most of the larvif are attacked before they 

 are old enough to be capped over, and of 

 those capped many will not show any perfor- 

 ation. The cai), though, turns somewliat 

 darker than that on healthy brood, and will 

 usually be somewhat sunken. 



There is a disease of the brood in which 

 the larvtp turns gray in color and simply 

 becomes watery without any ropiness, dries 

 up and I think is removed by the bees. 

 This disease is but slightly or not at all con- 

 tagious and is readily cured by removing the 

 queen and introducing a healthy one. 



Often it seems to go away of itself, and 

 undoubtedly many so-called cures of foul 

 brood have had to deal only with this com- 

 paratively mild and harmless disease. I 

 know my reputation as a bee expert suffered 

 when in the beginning of my experience 

 with foul brood I declared this disease to be 

 the genuine article, but which when neglect- 

 ed by the bee keeper, disappeared of itself. 



Not so witli foul brood. The larvse dries 

 down finally into a dark brown scale at the 

 bottom of the cell. 'J'he bees seldom or 

 never try to clean out the infected cells, but 

 they will store honey in them. In this way 

 the disease may be almost entirely covered 

 up and seemed to be cured, only to break 

 out witli renewed virulence when the honey 

 in these cells is used for brood rearing. I 

 believe foul brood is usually transmitted by 

 means of the honey, and this conviction 

 leads me to distrust Cheshire and others who 

 claim that foul brood is caused by a bacillus 

 which infests all the I >ees of the colony and 

 even the eggs laid l>y the queen, while none 

 are to be found in the honey. They may 

 indeed find bacilli in all bees of infected 

 colonies and nowhere else, yet bacilli may 

 accomoany a disease without being the cause 

 of it. 



The cause of foul brood may perhaps be 

 looked for in other bacillic forms, but all 

 methods of cure which do not recognize the 

 transmission of the disease through the 

 honey have proven impracticable and inef- 

 fective. 



Foul brood may also be conveyed by the 

 careless handling of infected hives, tools, etc. 

 It is well in treating the disease to have a 

 special set of tools to use on colonies known 

 to be infected and use these and only these 

 for that purpose until you are finally rid of 

 it. The hands or tools accidentally contam- 

 inated may be disinfected liy washing with a 

 three per cent, solution of carbolic acid. 



Hives may be disinfected by boiling. I 

 have disinfected large hives by scrubbii'g 

 thorouglily with a strong solution of carbolic 

 acid in hot soap suds, but thej' should be 

 boiled if possible. 



The only practicable methods of cure — and 

 I have te.-ted about all the reasonable ones 

 that have l)een [iroijosed — have been what is 

 known ar- the starvation method and plan of 

 compelling the bees to use un all infected 

 honey in comb building. The latter I prefer. 

 Shake all the bees off of the infected combs 

 and pui them (the bees) into a new or disin- 

 fected hive. The frames of this hive should 



contain only narrow starters of foundation. 

 If but little or no honey is coming in, full 

 sheets of founelation may be used, but it is a 

 little risky. I have known the disease to 

 reappear several times when full sheets were 

 used. The reason is that they are (luickly 

 drawn out into comb and the infected honey 

 stored in them. If honey is coming in freely 

 it is well to put in a case of partly worked 

 sections above, using a queen excluding 

 honey board to keep the queen below. If no 

 honey at all is coming in, feed sparingly 

 with sugar or with honey which has been 

 well boiled. 



Whatever you do, be extremely careful not 

 to get robbing starte !. and never open an 

 infected hive while bet .ue flying, at a time 

 when bees are inclined to rob. A single drop 

 of infected honey may give the disease to a 

 healthy colony. 



If your hives are not too close together 

 there is not much danger of it spreading 

 from one hive to another except as you carry 

 it, until the infected colonies get weak 

 enough to be robbed. But if the hives are 

 very close it will spread, through the bees 

 from infected colonies getting into adjoining 

 hives. It is a bad plan to unite infected 

 colonies, as stragglers returning to the old 

 home are liable to go into other hives. 



Combs containing brood may be given to 

 other infected cok)nies until all have hatched. 

 Be careful though to brush off all the bees 

 for fear some might stay a few days in the 

 new home and then "go a visiting" to the 

 old one. This I think a much better plan 

 than to cage the queen until the brood has 

 all hatched. Usually, if I could not give the 

 brood to other colonies I would rather de- 

 stroy it than cage the queen until it had 

 hatched. 



The honey may be extracted, boiled and 

 fed back to the Itees. 



Melt all combs into wax and be sure that 

 it lioils. Boil the hives, disinfect the extrac- 

 tor and all implements or articles that may 

 have received any contagion and pray that 

 you are through with it. 



Dayton, 111., 



Feb. 1, 1890. 



Foul Brood; Irregular Hatching of Brood De- 

 mands Attention; Great Caution Needed; 

 Not Transmissable by ftueens. 



L. O. WHITING. 



f PROMISED to write about foul brood 

 for the Review, but, after reading your 

 opening article, I find your ideas and 

 my experience agree so well that there is 

 but little more to say. You ask some ques- 

 tions, however, that are in order. 



I should regard the irregular hatching of 

 brood as a symptom calling for attention. 

 A healthy queen fills a comb in a uniform 

 manner. "When foul brood starts in a mild 

 way, a cell here and there will become dis- 

 eased. When the bees clean out one of these 

 cells, and the queen lays another egg in it, 

 this egg hatches later than the rest. This is 



