Bee Disease Control 13 



Making the Colony Qucenless. — It is necessary to check brood- 

 rearing for a sufficient time to give the bees an opportunity to clean 

 out the diseased material This is done by removing or caging the 

 reigning queen within the hive. This time will vary, depending 

 on the amount of infection and the activity of the bees in cleaning 

 out diseased material. Some colonies will be able to do the work 

 in 10 days and others may need to be kept queenless for 3 weeks. 

 Practically all the diseased larvae should be cleaned out before the 

 new queen which is to be given commences to deposit eggs. If 

 the infection is very light and the queen is considered excellent, 

 caging the queen in the hive will often prove successful. Killing 

 the queen is considered best by the writer. 



Requeening. — Best results will be obtained if a queen cell reared 

 from good Italian stock is introduced containing a queen about to 

 emerge. The period of preparation between the emergence of a 

 young queen in the hive and the time she deposits eggs appears to 

 be beneficial because under these conditions the bees display more 

 activity in cleaning thej cells for the reception of eggs. A laying 

 queen may be used if a satisfactory ripe queen cell cannot be had. 



Occasionally satisfactory results will be secured if a large swarm 

 is hived in a colony infected with European foulbrood after first 

 killing the queen in the hive. This disease sometimes disappears 

 during a heavy honey flow ; especially is this true if the honey 

 flow comes in the autumn. 



Sacbrood 



No case of this disease has come under the writer's observation 

 where any appreciable damage was being done to the infected 

 colony. The greatest infection would probably not. exceed 150 

 cells in a single colony Believing that bees which become infected 

 with sacbrood have a weakness which makes them susceptible to 

 this disease, requeening is recommended in pronounced cases. 



