22 



SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



2. Brood-combs and various imple- 

 ments from diseased hives, used by other 

 bee-keepers, and borrowed articles. 



3. All the bees in an apiary dead 

 from foul brood, and the hives having 

 an abundance of honey in the brood- 

 combs, said combs placed out by the 

 side of hives so that neighbors' bees might 

 get the honey. From those combs I 

 lined robber bees to seven other apiaries, 

 and each time became diseased and were 

 treated. 



4. Robber bees working on empty 

 honey-packages in the back-yards of 

 grocery stores and baking factories. 

 Said honey came from diseased apiaries, 

 some located in far distant States, even 

 Cuba. 



5. Loaning of hives, combs, extrac- 

 tors, and even empty honey-packages. 



6. Buying honey from strangers, or 

 not knowing where it was produced, and 

 feeding it to bees without boiling the 

 honey. 



7. Too common a practice of using 

 old brood-combs from ' some apiary 

 where the owner's bees have died from 

 "bad luck," as he calls it. 



8. Queen-bee — by buying queen-bees 

 from strangers and introducing her in 

 the cages they came in. I have traced 

 several new outbreaks of the disease 

 to the hives where such queens were in- 

 troduced, and the queens came from 

 distant States. To be safe, on arrival 

 of queen, put her carefully alone in a 

 new and clean cage with good food in 

 it. Keep her in there, warm and com- 

 fortable, for a few hours before intro- 

 ducing. The shipping cage and every 

 bee that came wnth the queen should be 

 put in the stove and burned. I do not 

 think there is any danger from the queen 

 so treated, even from diseased hives, but 

 I do know of many cases where dis- 

 ease soon appeared in the hives where 

 the shipping-cage and bees were put ir 

 with the colony. The great danger is 

 in the food in said cage being made 

 from diseased honey. I was called to 

 attend a State bee-keepers' meeting in 

 another State and I asked if any there 

 had had experience with foul brood. 

 There was a goodly number of raised 

 hands. Then I asked, "Do any of you 

 think you got the disease by buying 

 queen-bees?" Again several hands were 

 raised. Even bee-keepers there had 

 traced the disease in their apiaries to 

 the buying of queens, and all from the 

 same breeder. If you get queens from 



abroad, I hope you will do with her 

 as I have above described. Better be 

 on the safe side. 



Experiments. 



1. A prominent Wisconsin bee-keep- 

 er some years ago had foul brood among 

 his bees so bad that he lost 200 colo- 

 nies before the disease was checked. 

 Having a honey-extractor and comb- 

 foundation machine, he first boiled the 

 hives in a large sorghum pan, then in a 

 kettle all combs were melted after the 

 honey was extracted, the honey was 

 boiled and also the extractor and im- 

 plements used. The bees were returned 

 to their hives on comb-foundation he 

 made from the wax made from the 

 melted combs, then fed the boiled honey. 

 Several years have passed and there 

 has been no signs of disease in hi<; 

 apiary since. 



2. Foul-brood germs are not always 

 killed when exposed to a temperature 

 of 212 deg. F. (boiling point) for 45 

 minutes. But in every case where the 

 combs are boiled in boiling water, and 

 same were well stirred while boiling, 

 no germs were alive. 



3. Foul brood in brood-combs is not 

 destroyed when exposed to the tempera- 

 ture of Wisconsin winters of 20 deg. be- 

 low zero, and in one case I developed 

 foul brood from combs that had been 

 exposed to 28 deg. below zero. 



4. Hone}^ if stored in diseased combs, 

 acts as a preserving medium, and in 

 such cases the germs of disease will re- 

 main so long as the comb is undis- 

 turbed. Four years at least. 



5. Honey or beeswax, or the refuse 

 from a solar or sunheat extractor, is 

 not heated enough to kill foul-brood 

 germs. Several cases of* contagion 

 where robber-bees worked on solar ex- 

 tractor refuse or honey. 



6. Comb-foundation made b\' supply 

 manufacturers is free from live germs, 

 of disease and perfectly safe to use. 

 To prove this experiment beyond doub:, 

 I took a quantity of badly-diseased 

 brood-combs from several apiaries, and 

 rendered each batch of combs into wax 

 myself on the farm where found. Then 

 on my own foundation mill I made 

 some brood-foundation. I also took 

 quite a quantity more of said wax, went 

 to two wholesale comb - foundation 

 manufacturers, and both parties will- 

 ingly made my experimental wax into 

 comb-foundation just the same as they 



