ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



189 



«cared for; and the hives cleaned up 

 . for use another season. 



I note that Doctor C. C. Miller has 

 recently run foul of this foul disease 

 and it is reported that he has had 

 "lots of fun" in the treatment of 

 -same. 



Would that we all might be as phil- 

 osophical as he in such a misfortune. 

 P. S. — No Italian Queens for sale. 

 W. D. WRIGHT, 

 Altamont, N. T. 



The President — The next is "How 

 to know American Foul Brood," by N. 

 E. France of Wisconsin. 



Mr. France — Mr. President, I may be 

 somewhat partial in this, that Ameri- 

 can foul brood so widely spread has 

 been the one thing as to which our 

 bee-keepers have been alarmed. But, 

 if I realize the seriousness of foul 

 brood, either American or European, in 

 connection with which I have been 

 the Wisconsin Inspector, acting now 

 this thirteenth year, I am ashamed to 

 own that in my own State practical 

 bee-keepers-, who are keeping bees 

 lor a commercial consideration, pay 

 little attention to the disease until it 

 is in their own yard; don't know what 

 it looks like, and before they are 

 3.ware that it is there, through their 

 tnanagement it has gone through a 

 large part of the yard. I am asked, 

 how near to my yard is there some- 

 one infected That cuts but little 

 figure, for with the various ways of 

 exchange in which bee-keeper® now-a 

 days are engaged, a far-distant State 

 ■may be his nearest neighbor. We 

 have had several cases of it brought 

 into our State across a good many 

 States. Every practical bee-keeper 

 should know every symptom of the 

 disease, and every time he has a hive 

 open the must be on the watch for 

 those symptoms. Never let it get a 

 start, for with those who are produc- 

 ing extracted honey, especially^ with 

 the combs all going Into the same 

 extractor, and back into other hives 

 again, the bee-keeper has been the 

 means of repeatedly spreading it 

 througih his own yard. The loaning 

 of the extractor or other implements 

 has been tthe means. ' Even where 

 they have called it bad luck, and the 

 bees did not winter well, or died from 

 other causes, not knowing that foul 

 ibrood was the cause, and have loaned 

 their extracting comibs to some neigh- 



bor, who might use them for a year or 

 two to avoid tihe danger of their be- 

 ing destroyed by the bee moth. You 

 can see what tJhe ill- effect would be. 

 So that I do find, after thirteen years 

 of hard work in our State, many bee- 

 keepers who today could not tell the 

 American foul brood were it in their 

 yard. In fact, I expect to get home 

 some time early tomorrow, and the 

 next morning leave for near Br. Mil- 

 ler's neighborhood to inform some 

 pai-ties in regard to the disease in 

 that locality. But, to be brief, do we 

 know what the symptoms of American 

 foul brood are when we see them? 

 The sunken capping with a perfora- 

 tion in it is a fair indication from out- 

 side appearance, especially if those 

 sunken cappings witih holes in are ir- 

 regular, more or less, all over the 

 comb. There is also a little tendency 

 towards a darker shade to those cap- 

 pings, but at that age, where those 

 cappings become sunken, 'f a tooth- 

 pick or something similar is inserted 

 into the dead larvae, and it draws 

 out brown and ropy, with a foul odor, 

 you need not question; that one char- 

 acteristic sets it apart from the other 

 diseases. It w^ill continue to dry down 

 until on the lower side wall of the 

 comb, a Jittle way back from tftie 

 front end, will be noticed a little black 

 dried down scale, not quite as thick 

 as the side walls of the comb. In 

 that condition it will remain almost 

 indeflntely, but it is dangerous. In a 

 crowded condition, in a swarm, the 

 queen will deposit eggs in that same 

 comb, or the bees put in pollen or 

 honey, and in either case it is the 

 medium for again spreading the dis- 

 ease. I question if the disease spreads 

 as rapidly in that hive, where it be- 

 gins as many have inferred. If there 

 are but a ifew cells infected, I can't 

 see how it would spread in that hive 

 until thiose infected cells had had a 

 medium for transimission, mostly toy 

 honey having been placed in that cell 

 and then that used as food to feed the 

 other larvae. So that there is in every 

 hive, in the earlier stages, a larger 

 per cent of the brood healthy. The 

 more that becomes infected, the more 

 rapidlly it spreads, of course. At your 

 convenience, at the noon hour, you can 

 look at this sample w^hiich I took 

 from a hive, where, a year and one 

 month ago, I found four cells of Amer- 

 ican foul brood in the wibole yard, in 



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