ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



2^ 



all and give them a queen and bees, 

 between two of her own brood-combs 

 from a hive where she has lived. I do 

 not think pickled brood is often the 

 fault of the queen, but rather a lack 

 of proper food and heat in the hive. 

 In most cases a shortage of liquid honey, 

 or moldy pollen, even in hives with 

 plenty of sealed honey in the outer 

 combs. There is a time in spring in 

 Wisconsin between dandelion an-d white 

 clover bloom when there is no honey 

 coming in from flowers and often cold 

 days and nights so that the live bees 

 consume the liquid unsealed honey first, 

 and cluster in a compact body to keep 

 warm, the result often is the larval 

 bee just changed from the egg to a 

 tender little grub, is either starved, half- 

 fed or chilled so that it grows slowly 

 and too often it dies, and then it is 

 we first notice this about the time white 

 clover honey begins to come in. In 

 other parts of the State, where pickled 

 brood appeared it was from the same 

 cause, and at other dates, which was 

 due to a difference of time of honey 

 bloom. 



Wherever I fed daily some honey or 

 even sugar syrup, and kept the hive 

 warm, all dead brood soon disappeared; 

 while in the same apiaries other colo- 

 nies affected and not so treated, con- 

 tinued for some time, but got rid of it as 

 soon as treated. 



Strong colonies of bees in the fall with 

 a young laying queen, and an abund- 

 ance of good honey sealed or capped 

 by the bees, if properly cared for dur- 

 ing winter whether in the cellar or in 

 chaff hives, wintered out of doors in 

 sheltered location, seldom have pickled 

 brood, chilled or other dead brood, or 

 dysentery, and are the colonies that give 

 their owner profit. 



Black Brood. 



Black brood is another fatal and con- 

 tagious disease among bees, affecting the 

 old bees as well as the brood. In 1898, 

 1899 and 1900 it destroyed several 

 apiaries in New York. Last year I 

 foun-d one case of it in Wisconsin, 

 which was quickly disposed of. Dr. 

 Howard made more than a thousand 

 microscopical examinations and found 

 it to be a distinct form of bacteria. 

 It is most active in sealed brood. The 

 bees affected continue to grow until 

 they reach the pupa stage, then turn 



black and die. At this stage there is a 

 sour smell. No decomposition from 

 putrefactive germs in pickled brood. In 

 black brood the dark and rotten mass in 

 time breaks down and settles to lower 

 side-walls of the cell, is of a watery, 

 granulated, syrupy fluid, jelly-like, is not 

 ropy or sticky as in foul brood, and has 

 a peculiar smell, resembling sour, rotten 

 apples. Not even a house-fly will set a 

 foot upon it. 



Treatment. 



Best time is during a honey-flow, and 

 the modified McEvoy plan, much as I 

 have treated foul brood, by caging the 

 queen five days, remove the foundation 

 starters and give full sheets, keeping 

 queen caged five days longer. As great 

 care should be taken of diseased hives, 

 combs, honey, etc., as in foul brood. 



Dysentery. 



Dysentery among bees in Wisconsin 

 in the spring of the year, often is quite 

 serious. Many colonies die with it. Dys- 

 entery is the excrements of the old bees ; 

 it is of brownish color, quite sticky and 

 very disagreeable-smelling, and is some- 

 times mistaken for foul brood. 



Causes. 



1. Bees confined too long in the 

 hives, so that they can no longer with- 

 hold their excrements, and are com- 

 pelled to void the same on the other 

 bees and combs. 



2. Poor winter stores gathered in 

 the fall from honey-dew, cider-mills, 

 sorghum mills, rotten fruit, also some 

 kinds of fall flowers. 



3. Old and especialy moldy pollen or 

 bee-bread. 



4. Hives too cold or damp. If mois- 

 ture from the breath of the bees is not 

 carried out of the hive by some means, 

 such as through a deep cushion of some 

 kind over the bees that will absorb mois- 

 ture and at the same time retain the 

 heat, or by some means of ventilation, 

 so that all is dry and comfortable. If 

 mold forms on the combs or cellar so 

 damp as to form mold, there is great 

 danger the bees will have dysentery and 

 die. 



Treatment. 



I. First of all, have an abundance of 

 combs of sealed clover or basswood 

 honey in brood-frames carefully saved, 

 and see that each colony is wintered on 



