ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



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cure American foul brood as easily as 

 that. 



Dr. Miller — I don't believe that 

 European foul brood, as it was in my 

 apiary, is as bad as American. 



Mr. Moore — What is the other 

 name for European foul brood, is it 

 black brood? 



Dr. Miller — Yes, in New York State 

 it was first called black brood. 



Dr. Miller — ■! was asked to try the 

 Alexander treatment, and after having 

 thrown perhaps, I think, 57, on foun- 

 dation, I did make some trial of the 

 Alexander treatment. I may say what 

 the Alexander treatment is; it is very 

 simple. Mr. Alexander said, make a 

 colony strong; make it queenless; 

 leave it queenless for twenty-one 

 days, then give it a young laying 

 Italian queen; that is all; that made 

 the treatment. 



Dr. Bohrer — ^For American or black 

 foul brood? 



Dr. Miller — OFor European or black 

 foul brood. 



Dr. Miller — ^Mr. Alexander, if I re- 

 member rightly, said he thought that 

 that would cure American foul brood, 

 too, but his experience was with the 

 European. 



Now, the first part of that I think 

 is not emphasized enough: Make the 

 colonies strong; there is no use in 

 fooling with the Alexander treatment 

 at all with a weak colony. If you 

 want to do anything with it at all 

 (and I may say right here, I succeed- 

 ed with the Alexander treatment with 

 some colonies, and with some I didn't) 

 — ^but if you want to do anything with 

 that, the first and foremost thing is, 

 you must have strong colonies. 



We made the colony queenless; in 

 ten days, we cut out the queen-cells, 

 and gave (now here is a departure from 

 Mr. Alexander's treatment, and I con- 

 sider it a very important departure) — 

 after the colony was queenless ten 

 days, cut out the queen -cells, give 

 it a virgin queen of best stock — and 

 that is all. After the colony is queen- 

 less ten days, cut out the queen-cells, 

 give it a virgin queen of the best 

 stock! Make the colony strong (don't 

 forget that!) Take away the queen 

 in ten days, destroy the queen cells, 

 give it a virgin queen — and the bees 

 will do the rest! 



It would perhaps be all the same if 

 instead of giving that virgin queen, 

 you should give it a queen-cell. Pos- 



sibly it would be all the same, if you 

 would leave one of their own cells 

 there and let them rear a queen from 

 that; but the point is this: After a 

 colony has been queenless for about 

 two weeks, it becomes discouraged, 

 and you keep it then queenless for 

 another week, so that it has been 

 entirely queenless for three weeks, and 

 that is a rather discouraged colony, 

 and it will not work as hard to clean 

 out as one in better heart, and I be- 

 lieve the giving of that .virgin queen 

 when the ten days are up is something 

 that is very important to- help them 

 to do the work of cleaning out the 

 disease. 



Right here I may say, that there 

 were cases in which we found very 

 little of the disease, and then perhaps 

 a week or two later we would loo-k 

 and would find the bees had cleaned 

 it Out themselves. You may perhaps 

 ask: "Could you tell very readily if 

 there was very little in one or two 

 cells?" 



Yes, it is not very hard to find a 

 single cell in a whole colony. You 

 know that the brood, when it' is well 

 grown, is of a pearly white, and if 

 the European foul brood is there, it 

 is cream color — yellow — and you will 

 spot it very pix>mptly. 



Take a frame that is diseased, you 

 may not smell a thing about it. If a 

 whole colony is diseased, you may 

 hold your head over it, and you may 

 get something of a smell; but there 

 is not such a smell as the smell of 

 American foul brood. 



If we left them there, with a very 

 little of it, the bees would, in some 

 cases, clean it out themselves. 



Now, I am not so sure that there is 

 anything I have not told you about 

 The question might be asked now: 

 "Would you prefer the Alexander 

 treatment or the McEvoy treatment, 

 as it is called?" 



Well, there is a division of opinion 

 at our house. Miss Wilson, my as- 

 sistant, as we were coming in today, 

 and discussing the matter (I don't 

 know that we had ever discussed it 

 before), but I said: "If I had it to 

 do over again, I would use the Alex- 

 ander treatment more than I did." 

 And, with her usual Scotch determina- 

 tion, she said: "Well, I wouldn't."^ 

 (And I don't suppose she would.) 



Mr. Macklin — Well, by the Alexan- 

 der method, the honey is left in there j 



