STATE BEE-KEEPERS ASSOCIATION. ' 27 



FOUL BROOD 



AND 



OTHBR DISBASBS OF BBBS. 



[Republished by permission of N. E. France, Foal Brood Inspector, 



of Wisconsin.] 



. Foul brood — bacillus alvei — is a fatal and contagious dis- 

 ease among bees, dreaded most of all by bee-keepers. The 

 germs of disease are either given to 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 increase with great rapidity, go- 

 ing from one little cell to another, colony to colony of bees, 

 and then to all the neighboring 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. Dzierzon, in 1868, lost his entire apiary 

 of SCO colonies. Cowan, the editor of the British Bee Jour- 

 nal, recently wrote: "The only visible hindrance to the rapid 

 expansion of the bee-industry is the prevalence of foul brood, 

 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 

 239s 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 greatest honey-producing countries, and was lately re- 

 ported to me by a Wisconsin becrkeeper who has been there, 

 -and will soon return to Wisconsin : "So plentiful is foul brood 

 in Cuba that I have known of large apiaries 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 colo- 

 nies, but where is that apiary and my other iso-colony apiary? 

 Dead from foul brood." Cuba, in 1901, exported 4,795,^ 

 pounds of honey, and 1,022,897 pounds of beeswax. 



Cuba at present has laws to suppress foul brood, and her 

 inspector is doing all possible to stamp the same from the 

 island. 



Even in Wisconsin, I know of several quite large piles of 

 empty hives, where all the bees have died from foul brood ; 

 also many other apiaries where said disease had gotten a 

 strong foothold. By the kindness of the Wisconsin bee-keep- 

 ers, 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 



