DISEASES OF BEES 33 



panied by a certificate issued by a responsible State oificiaJ stating 

 that the apiary from which they came was free of disease. Some 

 States regulate the movement of bees within their own boundaries, 

 making it necessary, for example, for a beekeeper wishing to move 

 colonies to an out-apiary to receive a permit from the State inspector. 

 In some places the sale of used beekeeping equipment is only allowed 

 upon its being accompanied by a certificate showing freedom from 

 disease. With respect to these provisions there is no uniformity in 

 the laws of the various States. Some are very strict and some 

 lenient. Some States have strict apiary laws, but appropriate no 

 funds for enforcement ; consequently, the beekeepers receive little 

 or no State aid. They fight their own battles as best they can and 

 blame their neighbours for maintaining nuisances in the way of 

 sources of infection. 



In the application of area clean-up methods where the shaking 

 treatment or some variation of it was the sole method of control or 

 eradication. State apiary officials found they were making little 

 headway and, in spite of vigorous efforts, the disease would reappear 

 even in areas in which control measures had been applied for 

 several consecutive years. It was evident that better methods of 

 control were necessary, and thus was reborn the application of fire 

 to diseased colonies. 



The tenaciousness with which beekeepers treasure old combs is 

 well known. Even combs composed mostly of drone cells are 

 discarded with great reluctance, and to melt well-drawn-out combs 

 of worker cells, only a few of which are diseased, or which have 

 been used only in the supers of a diseased colony, requires almost 

 superhuman will power. In 1922 Dr. J. C. Hutzelman, of Glendale, 

 Ohio, came to the rescue of such beekeepers. Dr. Hutzelman, who 

 was a practising physician, had had some training in bacteriology ; 

 consequently, when he advocated the use of a solution containing 

 20 per cent, formalin and 80 per cent, alcohol for disinfecting foul 

 brood combs, the beekeeping fraternity immediately took notice. 

 This happened during the days of national prohibition, when the 

 average citizen could not buy grain alcohol to be used in making 

 his own solution. Also the Hutzelman solution was patented. 

 Stories of the success of formalin-alcohol for saving combs appeared 

 in the bee press, and soon many experimenters were trying other 

 concoctions, the principal one being 1 part formalin to 4 parts 

 water. The University of California and the Department of Agri- 

 culture tested both the formalin-alcohol and the formalin-water 

 solutions and found that it was possible to sterilize combs with 

 either, provided the utmost care was taken in the preparation of 

 the combs for treatment and in the subsequent handling of the 

 combs. 



The use of disinfectant solutions caught the fancy of beekeepers, 

 and many practical experimenters also entered the field of research. 

 Some concluded that, if formalin-water and formalin-alcohol 



