570 



THE) MMERiear* BEE JO^KHMtr. 



- ■•■ ■-■■>— > — » ^ ^ — - ■— ■- — . >.^^^^^.^^^^^^^ 



gain but little more than half in weight 

 compared with the heavy fed ones. lie 

 feeds rapidly, and if he must feed, he 

 would feed stisar syrup in preference 

 to honey. While he strongly con- 

 demned feeding at all, if bees had not 

 enough stores for winter, he fed sugar 

 syrup. 



"Uo you use feeders?" was asked. 

 One bee-keeper fed by pouring the feed 

 in the back of the hive; others fed in 

 pans with floats of some kind. 



It was then moved, and after discus- 

 sion, carried, that ttie North American 

 Bee Keepers' Society be invited to hold 

 their annual meeting in 1889. at Brant- 

 ford, Ont. ; promising the Society a free 

 hall to meet in, reduced hotel rates, and 

 that this association would make every 

 effort to make the meeting a pleasant 

 one. 



Dlirereiice in Worker-Bees' Energy. 



J. 11. Howell asked what could ac- 

 count for the difference in energy of 

 worker-bees. 0. McNally said that 

 bee-keepers were running too much to 

 color in bees. He found of his best 

 lool?ing bees the poorest workers. The 

 writer tliought there was a tendency in 

 this direction ; he did not mind a little 

 black blood in the bees, in tact he pre- 

 ferred it, but wanted only a very 

 little. 



The Perforated Queen-Excluders. 



A discussion took place upon the 

 necessity of perforated queen-excluders 

 in producing extracted honey. Messrs. 

 Dickie, Birkelt, Howell and Holter- 

 mann used them and liked them. Some 

 complained now and then that a queen 



Eassed through. C. Culver, of Blooms- 

 urg, pointed out that it was impor- 

 tant to have a bee space on both sides 

 of the board. 



The convention then adjourned to 

 meet in December. 

 Brantford, Ont. 



'■^^■^■'■■^^^'■^A^^^Amtt^^^^mtimAM 



FOUL BROOD. 



Tlicoric§ 



of Hie First 

 Ilic DUcase. 



Cause of 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY JAMES A. GREEN. 



As to what may be the first cause of 

 foul brood 1 believe no theory has as yet 

 been advanced that will satisfactorily 

 cover all cases. 



The tlieory of Cheshire, that it is 

 caused by bacilli, or minute vegetable 

 organisms, is the one generally held by 

 those who have studied the disease. If 

 we accept this, we must suppose that 

 all cases of foul brood are traceable to 

 infection from some first case or cases. 

 Bacilli can no more grow without seeds 

 than corn or wlieat. It seems some- 

 what dillieult to account for all cases 

 on this supposition, although if Che- 

 shire's theory be true, that the bacilli 

 or spores may be deposited by the bees 

 from infected hives on the blossoms 

 they visit, to cling to and be carried 

 away by other bees that visit the same 

 flowers, we can easily see that the dis- 

 ease might be quickly spread over wide 



reaches of territory. The intervening 

 links might then be destroyed in some 

 way, leaving cases of foul brood appar- 

 ently many miles away from any source 

 of contagion. Even without this way 

 of spreading, the disease may be car- 

 ried far and fast by swarms escaping 

 to the woods, and by robbing. 



The credence given to Cheshire's 

 conclusions is no doubt largely because 

 they are in accord with what is known 

 as the " germ theory " of disease. This 

 is very captivating, very plausil)le, and 

 a very convenient pair of shoulders on 

 whicti to lay the burden of most of the 

 disease that alHict the inhabitants of 

 this mundane sphere. 



It is not my intention to attack this 

 theory. Apparently it rests on too 

 firm a foundation to be overthrown. 

 The whisper, though, is not unheard 

 in scientilic circles, that over zealous 

 investigators have sometimes mistaken 

 effect for cause, in concluding that be- 

 cause bacilli accompany a disease they 

 necessarily produce the disease. 



There are objections to the bacillus 

 theory in the case of foul brood. One 

 is, that Cheshire declared himself un- 

 able to detect either bacilli or spores in 

 honey, and gave it as his opinion that 

 the disease was never, or at least but 

 very seldom, transmitted by means of 

 honey. So tar as I know, no micro- 

 scopist has had any better success in 

 detecting either bacilli or spores in 

 honey. Yet the almost uniform testi- 

 mony of all who have had practical 

 experience with it is, that it is through 

 the medium of the honey that it is 

 most frequently and surely transmit- 

 ted. The most practical atid success- 

 ful methods of cure are based on this 

 assumption, while those which ignore 

 it have in practice proven uncertain 

 and unreliable. 



Starvatiou as a Foul Brood Cure. 



Cheshire declares, furthermore, that 

 foul brood is not simply a disease of 

 the brood, but that bariUus alrii affects 

 the mature bees, both workers and 

 queen. If so, they are very easily dis- 

 posed of, for I have repeatedly cured 

 the worst cases of foul brood by simply 

 confining the bees without food for 48 

 hours, then putting them into a clean 

 hive, and still more simply by brushing 

 them from their infected combs into a 

 clean hive, where they were obliged to 

 build comb before brood could be 

 reared. 



The plain inference is, that the con- 

 tagion, whatever its nature, is con- 

 tained in the honey, and that it is de- 

 stroyed when the honey is digested. 

 Possibly the digestion of the last parti- 

 cle of honey does away with the bacilli 

 so numerous in the vitals of bees and 

 queen ; but many will be inclined to 

 doubt. 



All attempts to get rid of foul brood 

 without boiling, or equivalent treat- 

 ment for everything except the bees, 

 have proven tedious, uncertain and un- 

 safe. By "equivalent treatment," I 

 mean a thorough washing or admixture 

 with carbolic or salicylic acid. To 

 spray the outside of an infected comb 

 is useless. While it is possible that the 

 fumes of sulphur may be a sufficient 

 disinfectant— though I do not believe 

 it— the process must be more thorough 



than that recommended on page 539. 

 To put infected hives and frames out 

 of doors in the summer— exposed to the 

 bees— as there recommended, and then 

 depend upon scraping and sulphuring, 

 is simply to invite destruction. 



The correspondent on page 538, has 

 very evidently had little experience 

 with foul brood, or he would not ven- 

 ture so wild an opinion as, that it is 

 caused by the larva getting reversed in 

 the cell, and that the puncture in the 

 cap of the cell is made by its " sharp 

 end " in the effort to get out. 



The fact is, that foul brood nearly 

 always attacks the larva before it is 

 old enough to be sealed up. Even 

 when it is attacked after it is sealed, 

 the cap is by no means invariably punc- 

 tured nor perceptibly sunken. 



Ropyness tbe Test or Foul Brood. 



The best test of foul brood is the 

 ropy, tenacious, sUyhtly elastic condi- 

 tion that the diseased larva assumes. 

 Do not expect, though, that it will 

 " snap back into the cell like a piece of 

 India rubber when you pull it out with 

 a stick," as some have said. I was not 

 in favor of this test once, simply be- 

 cause too much stress was laid on the 

 elasticity of the diseased matter. Re- 

 membering that its elasticity is but 

 slight, this feature becomes our best 

 criterion. 



Dayton, Ills. 



FINDING HONEY. 



Uncle True's Experience in Get. 

 ting it Out of a Chimney. 



Written for tlie Boston Traveller 

 BY H. P. BARNARD. 



Uncle Joshua True and Solomon ]5as- 

 kins lived in a double house. It was 

 Sundav, while the Baskins and Trues 

 had gone to meeting, leaving Joshua at 

 home alone. 



Suddenly, something like a small 

 black cloud came between him and the 

 sun ; Uncle True looked up and saw 

 that it was a swarm of bees hovering 

 directly over his bald pate, which he 

 covered with both hands and fled to 

 the house. Like a living ball they 

 hung suspended a moment, then swept 

 toward the house-top, alighting upon 

 an unused chimney. Uncle True ven- 

 tured out and eyed them wistfully. 



" Why couldn't ye come a week 

 day'i"' he growled. "Then I could a 

 got Collins— he"s a great bee-man— and 

 we'd put ye into that empty hive. It's 

 a pity it's the Sabbath ; a clean ten dol- 

 lars lis good as throwed away." 



But soon his face brightened. There 

 was the skylight, he could put the hive 

 out of that, perhaps they would take a 

 notion to it. 



A moment later Uncle True was 

 putting up the attic stairs. The nerves 

 in his crown crawled, as he remem- 

 bered how it had seemed to attract the 

 insects ; still he ventured a leg out 

 ujion the long sloping roof, and gently 

 proffered a home to the rovers, mutter- 

 ing : 



" There, ye can't do better'n that !" 



