".■'■?W^»I^'" 



ILLINOIS STATE EEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



17 



?oul Brood and Other Diseases of Bees 



(Republished by permission of N. E. France, Foul Brood Inspector of 



Wisconsin.) 



Foul brood — bacillus alvei — is a fatal 

 and contagious disease among bees, 

 dreaded most of all by bee-keepers. 

 The germs of disease are either given 

 to the young larval bee in its food 

 when it hatches from the egg of the 

 queen-bee, or it may be contagion 

 from a diseased colony, or if the queen 

 deposits eggs, or the worker-bees store 

 honey or pollen in such combs. If in 

 any one of the above cases, the disease 

 will soon appear, and the germs in- 

 crease with great rapidity, going from 

 one little cell to another, colony to col- 

 ony of bees, and ithen to all the neigh- 

 boring apiaries, thus soon leaving 

 whole apiaries with only diseased 

 combs to inoculate others. The Island 

 of Syria in three years lost all of its 

 great apiaries from foul brood. Dzier- 

 zon, in 1868, lost his entire apiary of 

 500 colonies. Cowan, the eidtor of 

 the British Bee Journal, recently 

 wrote: "The only visible hindrance 

 ito the rapid expansion of the bee in- 

 dustry is the prevalence of foul broody 

 which is so rapidly spreading over the 

 country as to make bee-keeping a 

 hazardous occupation." 



Canada's foul brood inspector, in 

 1890 to 1892, reported 2,395 cases, and 

 in a later report for 1893 to 1898, that 

 40 per cent of the colonies inspected 

 were diseased. Cuba is one of the 

 greaitest honey-producing countries, 

 and was lately reported to me by a 

 Wisconsin bee-keeper who has been 

 there, and will soon return to Wiscon- 

 sin: "So plentiful is foul brood in 

 Cuba that I have known whole api- 

 aries to dwindle out of existence from 

 its ravages^ and hundreds more are on 

 the same road to sure and certain 

 death. I, myself, took in 90 days in 

 Cuba, 24,000 pounds of fine honey from 

 100 colonies, but where is that apiary 

 and my other ISO-colony apiary? 

 Dead from foul brood." Cuba, in 1901, 

 exported 4,795,600 pounds of honey, 

 and 1,022,897 pounds of bees-wax. 



Cuba at present hecs laws to sup- 

 press foul brood, and her inspector is 

 doing all possible to stamp the same 

 from the island. 



Even in Wisconsixi I kno-w of several- 

 quite large piles of empty hives, where 

 also many other apiaries where said 

 disease had gotten a strong foothold. 

 By the kindness of ithe Wisconsin bee- 

 keepers, and in most cases by their 

 willing assistance, I have, during the 

 last five years gotten several counties 

 free of the disease, and at the present 

 writing, March 12, 1902, have what 

 there is in Wisconsin under control 

 and quarantined. This dreadful dis- 

 ease is often imported into our State 

 from other States and countries, so we 

 may expect some new cases to develop 

 until all the states shall enact such 

 laws as will prevent further spread of 

 the same. Arizona, New York (1899), 

 California (1891), Nebraska (1895), 

 Utah (1892), Colorado (1897), have 

 county inspectors, and Wisconsin 

 (1897), and Michigan (1901), have State 

 inspectors. The present Wisconsin 

 law, after five years of testing and 

 rapid decrease of the disease, is con- 

 sidered the best, and many other states 

 are now making efforts to secure a like 

 law. 



There are several experimental apia- 

 ries in Canada under control of the 

 Ontario Agriculitural College, also a 

 few in the United States, especially in 

 Colorado, that have done great work 

 for the bee-keeping industry, and their 

 various published bulletins on the 

 same are very valuable. The Wiscon* 

 sin State Bee-Keepers' Association has 

 asked that an experimental apiary 

 might be had on the Wisconsin Ex- 

 perimental farm, but at present there 

 are so many departments asking for 

 aid that I fear it may be some time be- 

 fore bee culture will be taken up. 



Causes of Foul Brood. 



1. Many writers claim foul brood 



