ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



51 



chance to experiment. I therefore took 

 from this hive a comb with a little 

 brood and honey and a handful of bees, 

 and put it in a hive with the queen, 

 and carried this hive in the lower part 

 of my yard, about two hundred feet 

 away from my other bees. The colony 

 from which I had taken the queen 

 was supplied with a young queen. 



During the honey-flow paralysis dis- 

 appeared and the afflicted colonies 

 gradually recuperated. 



Now,' in regard to the queen which 

 I removed from the most affected col- 

 ony: The little nucleus built up 

 during the summer strong enough that 

 I could winter on its stand on three 

 combs, which were packed in well all 

 around w^ith carpet and cushions 

 filled with leaves. This spring I as- 

 sisted it with a frame filled with 

 capped brood and honey. The colony 

 built up very fast during the summer 

 and produced one hundred and fifty 

 pounds of extracted honey, and goes 

 into the winter in a ten-frame hive 

 extremely heavy with honey. 



What does this teach? That the 

 queen is not the cause of paralysis, 

 and therefore requeening is unnecessary 

 if the queen is otherwise perfect. 



It seems that the cause of paralysis 

 is to be found in the food contained in 

 the hive, as the disease disappears 

 when a good flow comes on. 



The remedy might be to remove the 

 honey contained in the hive and to 

 feed syrup in its place ; where the 

 brood is in the same comb with the 

 honey this is rfot always practical, 

 but ^vhere the honey is contained in 

 the side combs and brood in the center 

 combs the removal of the honey might 

 be resorted to, at least, it is advisable 

 to make experiments on this line. 

 Rob't A. Holekamp, 

 Secretary Missouri State Bee-Keepers' 



Association, St. Louis, Mo. 



Mr. York: We have a couple of ques- 

 tions on foul brood. 



Question No, 7. 



Does foul brood show the same pe- 

 culiarities in the different States? 



Dr. Miller: I should say in the 

 main, yes, sir. There is very little 

 difference. The reports from all over 

 are very much the same. 



Question No. 8. 



Is it possible for foul brood to orig- 



inate from brood drawn from a late 

 brood, after the worker is gone, leav- 

 ing the brood to decay? 



Dr. Miller: Foul brood originates 

 only from the bacilli, but some one or 

 another is the cause. In other words, 

 the disease is caused by the growth of 

 a microscopic plant, and unless the 

 seed is there the plant won't grow. 



Tears ago it was claimed that brood 

 dying wouM be the cause of the dis- 

 ease, without there being any disease 

 anywhere around. But you must have 

 the seed before the plant will grow. 

 And unless there is the infection from 

 some other place, no matter how much 

 brood you have, you can't have foul 

 brood. 



Mr. Stone: Is it a seed and not a 

 living germ? 



Dr. Miller: There is a seed from 

 which the living germ grows. 



Mr. Stone: Is it a plant and not an 

 animal? 



Dr. Miller: Yes, sir, it is a vege- 

 table. It is a living germ, and I think 

 your error is a common one, and I 

 will confess that for a long while I 

 had the same idea, that the bacilli was 

 animal life. It is not, it is vegetable 

 life. It is a little plant that grows. 



Mr. Stone: It is not animal life? 



Dr. Miller: No, sir, but vegetable 

 life, something like mold. 



Mr. Stone: It never flies in the at- 

 mosphere, only carried in the honey? 



Dr. Miller: I don't know. If it were 

 to fly in the atmosphere, because it 

 takes very little to kill. The spore 

 will live. That is the seed. Take the 

 spore and the bacilli, it is very much like 

 the grain of corn and the corn stock. 

 The spore is very hard to kill; it will 

 stand boiling water for a while, but 

 the plant is not hard to kill. 



Mr. Lee: Do you think it the same 

 under all conditions? 



Dr. Miller: Certain conditions make 

 this. You may have a colony that has 

 foul brood, and if conditions are favor- 

 able to it they will increase very rap- 

 idly, but if conditions are unfavorable, 

 if you have a good flow of honey in 

 the colony, your bee-keepers report the 

 disease disappears entirely. 



Mr. Holekamp: Dr. Miller's remark 

 creates the idea that it is American 

 foul brood. 



Dr. Miller: It is very important that 

 you have your colonies in the very 



