THE CONTROL OF EUROPEAN FOULBROOD. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 



Diffloulties of control 3 



Name of the disease 3 



Symptoms 4 



Basis of treatment 7 



Pag». 



Preventive measures 10 



Bemedial measures 13 



Oood beekeeping will eradicate the disease. . . IS 



DIFFICULTIES OF CONTROL. 



EUEOPEAN FOULBROOD has caused much trouble in treat- 

 ment and causes more anxiety among beekeepers than does 

 American f oulbrood. It is recognized generally that European foul- 

 brood requires less drastic methods than does American foulbrood, 

 but seemingly one cannot always be so sure of the efficacy of the 

 treatment, and it is often said by beekeepers that European foul- 

 brood " does not fight fair." The difficulty seems to lie in the fact 

 that the course of the disease in the colony has not been sufficiently 

 studied and the features of treatment have not been adequately 

 analyzed. It is not enough simply to know the name of the organ- 

 ism which causes the disease, but it is essential to know the habits of 

 the germ in the colony. 



European foulbrood was first recognized in New York State in 

 1894, and previous to that time no adequate diflferentiation had been 

 made between this disease and American foulbrood. Various writers, 

 especially those in Europe, had recorded two types of brood diseases 

 and had differentiated them sufficiently to call one mild and the other 

 virulent. Careful observations of beekeepers, as well as bacteriologi- 

 cal investigations, have shown that the two diseases are entirely dis- 

 tinct, that one does not change to the other, and that in treatment 

 they behave differently. 



Now that the symptoms of the two diseases have been carefully 

 studied, one can examine the earlier literature and find indications 

 that European foulbrood was rather widespread in the United States 

 before it was recognized as a distinct disease. At any rate it appears 

 certain that all the European foulbrood in the country did not 

 spread from the first recognized outbreak in New York State. New 

 York beekeepers with justice objected to the name " New York bee 

 disease " which was at one time applied to the disease. 



NAME OF THE DISEASE. 



When American beekeepers first differentiated this disease the 

 name " black brood " was generally applied to it. When the investi- 



79121°— 21— Bull. 976 3 



