ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



171 



come to is that combs which never 

 have had foul brood in are safe to use. 



Mr. Friess — Does not the good 

 honey below become infected by the 

 foul brood honey? 



Mr. Taylor — No, it is because they 

 store honey in cells that have the 

 dead brood in. 



Mr. Friess — Will they remove that 

 up above? 



Mr. McEvoy — Yes; some times. 



Mr. Newton — I have not been so 

 much interested in the work of foul 

 brood until the past year. As I have 

 been passing around from yard to 

 yard, I have seen people have 

 been too lenient altogether. They 

 want to save these few combs. It is 

 the thought of saving these top combs 

 that are over diseased colonies. I 

 wouldn't advise anybody to do that. 

 I think we should be very much 

 afraid of it. 



Mr. McEvoy — Johnnie, would you 

 destroy the combs over a diseased 

 colony? 



Mr. Newton — Yes, I am so much 

 afraid of it. 



Mr. McEvoy — You are dead wrong. 

 (Laughter.) 



Mr. Newton — In the past season I 

 have found people who have used 

 these old combs thinking they were 

 safe, and the disease has broken out 

 again. Wouldn't it have been better 

 If they had resolved in the first place 

 to cure and get rid of the old combs? 

 Mr. McEvoy and myself and many ex- 

 perienced bee-keepers might save the 

 old combs to advantage, knowing 

 what we were doing, but when you 

 come to the inexperienced bee-keeper, 

 and he does not know the combs as 

 well, and he uses combs which he 

 thinks are all right in his own judg- 

 ment, but when the season comes on 

 in a good many cases the disease will 

 appear again, and for the sake of 

 others I say do not use any old combs 

 or anything in connection with hives 

 that have been diseased. 



Mr. Man waring — We have been told 

 by Mr. Taylor and others that it is 

 safe to use hives in which foul brood 

 has been found. I would like to know 

 whether that Is the universal belief or 

 whether there is any exception to 

 that. I understand from Mr. Taylor 

 that all that is necessary is to clean 

 out an old hive and you can use it 

 again. 



Mr. Taylor— I can"t tell what the 

 general belief is, but that Is the belief » 

 in my house. 



Mr. Pressler — We have enough men 

 here who have tried it and know iit. 



Mr. McEvoy — In my 33 years' ex- 

 perience I never had ^ case of foul 

 brood develop in an old hive, and I 

 never disinfected an old hive. 



Mr. France — I am not as old as 

 Brother McEvoy across the water, but 

 I have put in twelve years of inspect- 

 ing and treating diseased bees. In the 

 first year I boiled the hives, and if 

 ever I saw anything that was sicken- 

 ing to a bee-keeper, it was a lot of 

 boiled hives; they all warped out of 

 shape and I found they were no use. 

 and in later years no hives have been 

 boiled or burned and they are all in 

 use to-day. 



Mr. Holterman — I am not going to 

 say it is necessary to disinfect hives. 

 Mr. S. D. House of Camillus, New 

 York, stated to me distinctly that his 

 father attributed a second break- out 

 of foul brood to the fact that the hives 

 had not been disinfected. I want to 

 say Mr. House had no conclusive evi- 

 dence that the reason was because 

 the hives were not disinfected. If we 

 are going to learn we must be open to 

 reason, we must judge wisely and be 

 unprejudiced. On the other hand, I 

 want to make the assertion that be- 

 cause hives have been used for many 

 years and not disinfected does not 

 prove that the disease may not have 

 been transmitted in that way. We 

 know where colonies are treated for 

 foul brood the disease does break out 

 occasionally the second time, and the 

 man who believes that combs do not 

 need to be disinfected and can be used 

 the second time will say that that 

 was not the reason why the disease 

 broke out, but it was on account of 

 some other cause. At the same time 

 I want to say he does not know. Where 

 the disease does break out occasionally 

 the second time — and every inspector 

 and every one posted in this Tine 

 knows it does — he does not know that 

 it may not be because the hive was 

 not disinfected. I think Dr. White 

 and Dr. Phillips are men who should 

 be able to speak with authority upon 

 the subject of boiling hives, because 

 they are bacteriologists and they can 

 follow it up in a practical way. The 

 bee-keeper cannot. To disinfect a 

 hive it is not necessary to boil it 

 The germ may lie upon the surface 



