STATE bee-keepers' ASSOCIATION. 31 



SYMPTOMS OF FOUL BROOD. 



1. The infected colony is not liable tQ be as industrious. 

 Hive-entrance with few guard-bees to protect their home. 

 Sometimes fine dirt or little bits of old comb and dead bees 

 in and around the hive-entrance, and often robber-bees seek- 

 ing entrance. 



2. Upon opening the hive, the brood in the combs is 

 iregular, 'badly scattered, with many empty cells which need 

 inspection. 



3. The cappings over healthy brood is oval, smooth and of a 

 healthy color peculiar to honey-bee brood, but if diseased 

 the cappings are sunken, a little darker in color, and have 

 ragged pin-holes. The dead larval bee is of a light color, and, 

 as it is termed, ropy, so that if a toothpick is inserted and 

 slowly withdrawn, this dead larva will draw out much like 

 spittle or glue. 



5. In this ropy stage there is more or less odor peculiar 

 to the disease; it smells something like an old, stale glue- 

 pot. A colony may be quite badly affected and not emit 

 much odor, only upon opening of the hive or close examina- 

 tion of the brood. I have treated a few cases where the foul 

 brood odor was plainly noticed several rods from the apiary. 



6. Dried Scales — If the disease has reached the ad- 

 vanced stages, all the above-described conditions will be easily 

 seen and the dried scales as well. This foul matter is so tena- 

 cious that the bees cannot remove it, so it dries down on the 

 lower side-wall of the cell, midway from the bottom to 

 front end of the cell, seldom on the bottom of a cell. Accord- 

 ing to its stage of development there will be either the shaoe- 

 less mass of dark-brown matter, on the lower side of tne 

 cell, often with a wrinkled skin covering as if a fine 

 thread had been inserted in the skin lengthwise and 

 drawn enough to form rib-like streaks on either side. 

 Later on it becomes hardened, nearly black in color, and in 

 time dries down to be as thin as the side-walls of the cell. 

 Often there will be a small dried bunch at the front end of the 

 cell not larger than a part of common pin-head. To see it 

 plainly, take the comb by the top-bar and hold it so that a 

 good light falls into the cell at an angle of 75 degrees from 

 the top of the comb,' while your sight falls upon the cell at 

 an angle of about 45 degrees. The scales, if present, will 

 easily be seen as above described. This stage of disease in 

 combs is easily seen and is always a sure guide or proof 

 of foul brood. Such combs can never be used safely by the 

 bees and must be either burned or carefully melted. Be sure 

 not to mistake such marked combs in the spring for those 

 soiled with bee-dysentery. The latter have a somewhat simi- 

 lar appearance but are more or less surface-soiled, and will 

 also be spotted or have streaked appearance by the dark- 

 brown sticky excrements from the adult bees. Please ex- 

 amine closely this half-tone print, which I photographed from 

 a diseased comb containing all stages of foul brood. This 





