108 DADANT SYSTEM OP BEEKEEPING 



at least a half hour to the boiling point of water. When the 

 hive has been emptied, it is singed with the flame of a tinner's 

 gasoline torch and, after supplying it with frames, it is then 

 ready for the transfer of the next colony. This work succeeds 

 best when it is done, as we did it, just at the opening of the honey 

 harvest, and with the greatest care. 



After 48 hours, the bees are again shaken onto full sheets of 

 foundation, or on combs from healthy colonies if such may be 

 secured. This method is called the "starvation method." By 

 this is meant that the bees are deprived of their combs and placed 

 where they must build combs. So they consume all the honey 

 in their honey sacks, producing wax. This method was entirely 

 successful on the disease which is called "American foulbrood." 

 All the text books describe it. But we might as well give a short 

 description of it here. 



In American foulbrood, caused by bacterium named "Bacil- 

 lus larvae," which was discovered and named by Dr. G. F. White 

 of Washington, the unhatched bee dies just about the time when 

 it is sealed in its cell by the workers. Its body decays, turns to 

 a brown coffee color, has the odor of joiner's glue, and when a 

 toothpick is inserted into it, it strings out, like so much liquid 

 rubber, to the length of 2 or 3 inches. These 3 symptoms, when 

 together, indicate positively the existence of American foul- 

 brood. 



We succeeded fully in doing away with the disease and 

 afterwards harvested the largest crops that we ever secured. 

 But since the disease is in existence in the country, we find it 

 necessary to be constantly on the alert and treat, without delay, 

 any colony in which it is found, even if only a few larvae are 

 diseased. 



Neighbors of ours, who made light of the disease when 

 it first appeared, saw their colonies absolutely ruined in a very 

 short time. Two or three men near us quit the bee business 

 entirely, from discouragement. Yet beekeeping was never so 

 profitable as it has been since it requires greater vigilance than 

 formerly. 



We also had a fight with European foulbrood in one of our 



