THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



25 



who employs the steam process loses at 

 least one-third; while he who boils the 

 old combs probably loses as much as one- 

 fourth. 



«^^^<«*« 1 



Boii.iNc; Korr^ bkoodv honev. 



Dr. Miller still ari^ues in Gleanings in 

 favor of boiling foul broody honey more 

 than fifteen minutes in order that it may 

 be a safe food for bees. He would boil it 

 two and one-half hours. If I understand 

 him aright, he bases his belief upon the 

 experiments of Dr. Howard of Texas and 

 Prof. Mackenzie of Canada. These gen- 

 tlemen made cultures from the contents 

 of test tubes that had contained spores of 

 foul brood and been heated. Some of 

 these tubes had been kept at or near the 

 boiling point for a short time onl}\ others 

 for a longer time, and others for a still 

 longer time. Judging from the results 

 of these experiments one would be in- 

 clined to agree \nth the doctor, but I can 

 remember when the late Mr. Corneil of 

 Canada argued that in the making foun- 

 dation the wax was not sufficiently heat- 

 ed to destroy the spores of foul brood, 

 and in proof of his position, cited experi- 

 ments similar to those mentioned by the 

 doctor. Cheshire also reported that the 

 spores of foul brood were to be found in 

 the eggs laved by a queen taken from a 

 foul broody colony. 



These scientific experiments may V)e 

 all that they are reported, but the stub- 

 born fact remains that, so far as reported, 

 foul brood has never been disseminated by 

 the use of foundation; and the feeding of 

 foul broody honey that has been brought to 

 the boiling point has never resulted in a 

 case of foul brood, ami the giving of a 

 queen from a foul broody colony has never 

 carried that infection to the colony to 

 which the queen was given. So far as the 

 scientific experiments have gone, they are 

 probably correct; but there are probabh- 

 some yet undiscovered factors that have 

 a bearing on these matters. 



The foregoing was written while on the 

 cars going to Guelph t.) attend the meet- 



ing of the Ontario Bee-Keepers' .\ssocia- 

 tion. While at Guelph I visited the 

 .Vgricultural college, and had the pleasure 

 of a long chat with Prof. Harrison, bnc- 

 teriologist at the college. For about 

 three years he has been making a special 

 study of foul brood. He says there is 

 some of Dr. Howard's work that he has 

 been unable to verify. Cheshire's state- 

 ment that the eggs of a queen from an in- 

 fected colony may contain germs of foul 

 brood, is verified by Prof. Harrison's 

 work. In fact, he very kindly invited 

 me into his labratory and showed me, 

 among other things, a glass slide upon 

 which had been crushed the egg of a 

 queen from an infected colony. When 

 placed under the microscope there show- 

 ed, very distinctl)^ four of the little, rod- 

 like forms of foul-brood, and as many of 

 the little round spores from which foul 

 brood may be developed. He showed 

 me several little slips of glass the 

 surfaces of which had been smeared with 

 a mixture containing the germs of foul 

 brood. These germs had been exposed to 

 the air in semi-darkness more than two 

 years, yet they readily grew when placed 

 in a new culture. He admitted, however, 

 that they were losing their "resistance," 

 that is, would succumb to a shorter period 

 of boiling. Along this line it might be 

 mentioned that, according to Prof. Harri- 

 son's experiments, germs from a freshly 

 disea.sed larva have a greater resistance 

 than those from an old larva that has 

 dried down into a hard gluey scale. This 

 may explain why different results have 

 been obtained by different experimenters 

 as to the length of time required to kill 

 the germs by boiling. I might say in 

 passing, that Mr. Mc Ivvoy reported at 

 the Ontario convention that he had never 

 known foul brood to be communicated to 

 a colony by feeding it foul broody honey 

 that had been mixed with an equal quan- 

 tity of water and then brought sharply to 

 the boiling point; but many people were 

 so careless that he never advi.sed it. 



Prof. Harrison admitted the apparent 

 clash between science and practice as re- 



