ALEXANDER'S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 95 



cured of that disease. You might as soon expect a colony of bees to 

 clean out their combs If filled with paint as to expect them to be able 

 to remove the rotten larvae from American foul-brood combs. 1 will 

 admit that there are some things seemingly about the same in European 

 foul brood and American foul brood, but in other respects they are no 

 more alike than the mildest case of bowel trouble and the Asiatic 

 cholera. 



Many bee-keepers are continually speaking and writing of these two 

 diseases as one and the same. Now, if it were not for the young and 

 inexperienced bee-keeper I would not notice this mixing up of a very 

 important matter. Then when my critics go still further and speak of 

 the cure I recommended for European foul brood as failing to cure 

 American foul brood, and in that way belittle that cure when I from 

 the first wrote that I did not think it of any use for American foul 

 brood, they do me injustice. You might as well expect to cure Ameri- 

 can foul brood by throwing a cup of cold water in the grass in front 

 of your hives as to expect to cure it by requeenlng as I recommended 

 for European foul brood. 



The reason why American foul brood has never been cleaned out of 

 a comb is because a larva that dies from that disease is so much like 

 glue that the bees can not remove it in its soft state; and before it 

 dries down it penetrates with its spores into the cocoons of the cell 

 until it becomes a part of the comb itself, where it can not be reached 

 by any disinfectants, nor removed by the bees. Such infected cell be- 

 comes ever afterward worthless to rear brood in. But not so with Euro- 

 pean foul brood. Even in its very worst stages, after the larva diea 

 with this disease it soon dries up and cleaves from the cell, and is easily 

 removed by the bees; consequently the cell is soon ready for anotlie" 

 egg which often matures into a healthy bee. 



Another point of difference is, a larva affected with American foul 

 brood seldom dies until about old enough to be capped over, or after 

 it Is capped by the bees, while a larva dying from the effect of European 

 foul brood seldom lives to be capped over, as it usually dies when from 

 two to four days old. There is only one course of treatment for Ameri- 

 can foul brood, that is of any use. This is now known as the McBvoy 

 treatment. That is, to remove the bees from their combs and put them 

 on comb-foundation starters, and in two or three days remove them 

 again to full frames of foundation. This treatment will save the bees, 

 but is no cure for the combs, which are worthless except for wax. Fif- 

 teen years fighting this disease forty years ago, when this part of New 

 York State was badly affected by it, gave me lots of experience. At 

 that time I lost several hundred colonies with American foul brood, as 

 we had no foundation then to use, and our only way was to cut out the 

 combs as fast as it appeared and melt them up, and let the bees build 

 new combs again. We cut the combs across just above the brood, leav- 

 ing the honey in the hive with a strip of comb as a starter to build 

 on. We did not then think the honey diseased, but I now know it was 



