THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



11 



It can be stretched out to the length of per- 

 haps an inch; but the odor is not noticeable, 

 unless the nose be brought close to the 

 brood. A few of the cappings over the 

 sealed brood may be sunken, with a small 

 hole in the center of each capping, but such 

 is not alwaj's the case. Perhax>s the one 

 tiure symptom of foul brood is the "ropi- 

 ness" of the dead larvte. If a splinter or 

 tooth-pick be thrust into a dead larva, and 

 then slowly withdrawn, the matter will ad- 

 here to the splinter and "string out" an inch 

 or more in length, then bi"eak, and the two 

 ends fly back to the points of attachment. 

 At the last meeting of the Michigan, State, 

 Bee Keepers' Association, at Lansing, Dr. A. 

 B. Mason, wlio has had much experience 

 with foul brood, said he had had many spe- 

 cimens of brood sent to him by men who 

 feared their bees were affected with foul 

 brood, and when this elastic, tenacious con- 

 dition of the brood was absent he had never 

 hesitated to place the suspected brood in a 

 colony of bees, and no harm had ever re- 

 sulted. 



To the best of our knowledge, honey is the 

 means by which the infection is usually 

 conveyed from one hive to another. Mr. 

 Cheshire says that the mature bees, the 

 queen and even the eggs are infected in a 

 diseased colony. Be this as it may, when 

 the bees of an infected colony swarm, or are 

 shaken from their combs and are put into a 

 new or disinfected hive, and given no combs 

 in which they can store the infected honey 

 that they may have brought with them, the 

 brood hatched afterwards in this newly 

 formed colony remains free from disease. 



The spraying of the combs with acids, and 

 the feeding of the bees with medicated honey 

 seems to be of little avail, so far as eradi- 

 cating the disease is concerned. Such treat- 

 ment checks the disease, but cannot be de- 

 pended upon to effect a cure. So far as we 

 understand the matter, from reading and 

 from conversation with those who have had 

 experience, the best plan of treatment is to 

 shake off the bees during a honey flow into a 

 new or scalded hive having no combs in 

 which the bees can deposit (and thus save 

 up) any of the infected honey which they 

 may have brought with them. The frames 

 may be furnished with "'starters" of founda- 

 tion, or full sheets of foundation may V)e 

 used. If there is much healthy brood in the 

 old hive, a few bees may be left to protect it, 

 and the hive allowed to stand until the brood 



is all hatched, when the bees from several 

 hives so treated may be united in a new hive 

 and given a queen. Where the hives have 

 loose bottom boards, several hives from 

 which the bees, or nearly all of them, have 

 been taken, may be placed one above 

 another, when, in three weeks, all of the 

 healthy brood will have hatched and will be 

 already united in one colony, when the bees 

 can be given a new hive and a queen, leaving 

 the combs free from healthy brood. Some 

 advise caging the queen three weeks before 

 shaking off the bees, that the combs may be 

 free from brood when the bees are taken 

 away; but it strikes us that the bees might 

 better be busy rearing brood in the new 

 hive during these three weeks; however, 

 there may be some other factor which, if we 

 understood, would lead us to a different 

 conclusion. When freed from bees- and 

 healthy brood the combs may be emptied of 

 honey by extracting, then melted into wax. 

 Thorough boiling of the honey will kill all 

 the germs of foul brood, but, to make assur- 

 ance doubly sure, some have added to the 

 honey a small proportion of salicylic acid. 

 Honey thus treated may be fed to the bees. 

 The hives ought to be boiled in water fifteen 

 or twenty minutes. Some have advocated 

 the burning of the combs with no attempt at 

 saving the honey and wax. If only a few 

 colonies are to be treated, this might be ad- 

 visable: but, wei-e we the owner of a large 

 apiary quite generally affected by foul brood, 

 we should expect to eradicate the disease 

 with the loss of only the diseased brood and 

 the time spent in making the manipulations. 

 \Vhoever undertakes such a job must remem- 

 ber, however, that "eternal vigilance is the 

 price of liberty;" that one drop of infected 

 honey secured by a robber bee means disease 

 once more in the hive to which it is carried. 

 Some one has suggested that the extracting, 

 etc., be done down cellar. It is a cool place 

 in which to work, and the bees can the 

 more easily be kept out. Please, remember, 

 friends, that we have had no experience with 

 foul brood, and that we are writing this 

 from what we liave read and been told, but 

 that we consider our sources of information 

 reliable. If we have made mistakes we wish 

 them corrected. As indicated by our head- 

 ing, foul brood is to be the special topic of 

 our next issue. We wish to know what gen- 

 eral course of action a bee keeper shall pur- 

 sue that he may become apprised at the 

 earliest possible moment of foul brood in 



