RELATION OF ETIOLOGY OF BEE DISEASES TO TREATMENT. 39 



cause the disease. Honey extractors, honey tanks, and wax ex- 

 tractors which have been used in infected apiaries are also a fruitful 

 source of infection. Therefore if you are to keep the disease-pro- 

 ducing bacteria out of your apiary, and thereby keep out disease, 

 you must not feed honey unless you are positive that it did not come 

 from an infected apiary or that it has been thoroughly boiled. 

 Neither must you use old combs unless you are positive that they 

 have not been in an infected apiary. Use no bee supplies from an in- 

 fected apiary unless they are thoroughly disinfected. 



These things being true of the infectious disease American foul 

 brood, of which we know the cause, until the cause of any other in- 

 fectious disease can be determined we can do no better than to suggest 

 the use of the same principles in the treatment of such a disease as 

 must be used in the successful treatment of American foul brood. 



CURATIVE TREATMENT. 



In the curative treatment, considering the colony as a unit, use is 

 made of two widely different principles — the removal of the disease- 

 producing material, thereby removing the germs, and the use of drugs. 



In separating the disease-producing germs from the coloiry, all the 

 combs are removed. This removes the principal sources from which 

 the brood is infected — foul-brood larvae and honey. It is always 

 safer to allow the bees to go into a new hive or a hive which has been 

 thoroughly disinfected. The greatest care should be exercised in 

 protecting all infectious material which has been removed, that it may 

 not be robbed by the bees. 



The principle involved in the treatment by drugs is that of an anti- 

 septic. The theory is that a small amount of some drug — like beta 

 naphthol, salicylic acid, carbolic acid, eucalyptus, formic acid, etc. — is 

 sufficient, when taken with the larval food, to inhibit the growth of 

 the pathogenic bacteria. 



Having thus in a general way considered the subject of the etiology 

 of disease and the treatment in accordance with such knowledge, let 

 us consider the different diseases separately. 



AMERICAN FOUL BROOD. 



That Bacillus larvce is the cause of American foul brood has been 

 demonstrated conclusively. It is a species of bacteria which when 

 it is introduced into the healthy larvae multiplies rapidly and causes 

 the death of a large amount of the brood. When the larva dies the body 

 decomposes and the remains dry down to a tongue-like scale on the 

 lower side wall of the cell. In this scale are millions of spores which 

 are able to produce disease in other larva 4 should they be fed to them. 



