FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 307 



eased food may be given, and thus the disease should come 

 to an end. 



It was not hard to make the test. I caged the queen of a 

 diseased colony after strengthening it, and freed her after six 

 days of imprisonment. No more diseased brood appeared in 

 the hive. Of course, one swallow does not make a summer, 

 and this might not work in all cases. Neither would I in any 

 bad case recommend the continuance of the old queen after 

 treatment. A queen that has been for some time in a foul- 

 broody colony seems sluggish, and is better replaced by a vig- 

 orous yormg queen. 



As between the McEvoy and the Alexander — or the Alex- 

 ander-Miller treatment as it has been called — there is so much 

 to be gained in the saving of combs that, even if the first plan 

 always succeeds and the other sometimes fails, it may be 

 cheaper to use the latter and treat over again the failures. But 

 I may remark in passing that among the 27 cases of 1910 some 

 of them were of those that had been brushed upon foundation 

 the previous year. 



With my present knowledge of the disease, here is the 

 treatment that I believe well worth trying for European foul 

 brood: Make the colony strong, preferably by giving sealed 

 brood so as to have abundance of young bees; remove the 

 queen and at the same time give a ripe queen-cell or a very 

 young virgin, which cell or virgin shall be of the most vigorous 

 stock, and trust the bees to do the rest. 



In a mild case I do not think it necessary to take so much 

 trouble: merely keep the queen caged in the hive for a week 

 or ten days, and then free her. In the year 1913 about one in 

 four of my colonies was slightly affected, and in nearly all 

 cases all I did was to cage the queen for about eight days. The 

 fact that in spite of the disease I averaged a little more than 

 266 sections per colony from 72 colonies, spring count, shows 

 that good crops may be obtained even where European foul 

 brood is present. Still, I am sure I could have done a little 

 better without the disease. 



In 1914, five cases showed up in the first week of June in 

 91 colonies. They were all mild, and were treated successfully 

 by caging the queen. 



