FOUL-BROOD. 485 



for more. "Well," said the old doctor, "I hope that these 

 two experiments will convince you of the necessity of a 

 thorough treatment for both, with a disease that is trans- 

 mitted so readily, by contact." 



The ease is exactly the same with the bacillus. While we 

 are treating one colony, a few spores may be transmitted to 

 a neighboring hive, by the contact of a single bee, and the 

 disease is spread, unknown to us, while we are congratulating 

 ourselves, in the firm belief that we have eradicated it. 



798. The cure may be delayed, and may even fail alto- 

 gether, if the queen is infected. Then the only resource is 

 to kill her and give the colony another from a healthy hive. 



799. Mr. E. W. Alexander, in Gleanings in Bee Culture, 

 for November 1, 1905, asserts that he has cured black- 

 brood, which is only a variety of foul-brood, by removing 

 the queen and giving the hive a queen-eell from healthy 

 sources, at such a time as to enable all the old brood to be 

 hatched out before the young queen lays. This is under the 

 assumxjtion that the bees will clean out all the dead brood, 

 but in many instances it has been asserted that the bees do 

 not clean out the dead brood, so this cure is evidently not 

 to be relied on, in virulent foul-brood. It was previously 

 tried by Mr. Simmins, of England. 



All disinfectants and antiseptics are good, as preven- 

 tives and perhaps also as cure, but it must be borne in 

 mind that they cannot very readily reach to the bottom of 

 cells containing putrid or dried-up larvae. The irregulari- 

 ties in the reports of cure, some failing where others suc- 

 ceeded, may be ascribed to differences in the intensity of the 

 disease. On this matter Mr. Bertrand, in his work, "La loque 

 et son traitement," says: 



' ' In countries that are rich in melliferous resources, where 

 bees have been kept for years, and where, in consequence, foul- 

 brood must have been in existence for a long time and exists 

 in an endemic state, the race has acquired a relative immunity, 

 a force of resistance which diminishes considerably the eflfeots 



