ONTARIO DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



BULLETIN 112. Toronto, December, 1900. 



AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE AND EXPERIMENTAL FARM. 



FOUL BKOOD OF BEES. 



By F. 0. Harbison, Professor of Bacteriology. 



Historical Rbscm]^. 



In all probability the first definite reference to foul brood is by Aris- 

 totle (1), who mentions an inertness which seizes the bees, and causes a bad 

 smell in the hive. He also suggests that bees are liable to become diseased 

 when the flowers on which they work are attacked by blight. Bee dysentery 

 causes a bad odor as well as foul brood ; but in the former disease the spot- 

 ting and consequent smell are usually outside the hive. 



Columella (2) mentions a bee pestilence and an annual distemper which 

 seizes the bees iu spring. Pliny (3) writes of a disease of bees, but as he 

 uses the same term as Aristotle he has probably copied it from the latter 

 author. 



Schiraoh (4) in 1769 was the first writer to name the disease "Foul 

 Brood." He says that " it is dangerous and a most destructive disorder to 

 the bees, a genuine plague when the comp'aint hats reached a certain stage. 

 The cause can be attributed to two sources — 1. The putrid (or tainted) food 

 with which the bees feed the larvae for lack of having better. 2. By the mis- 

 take of the queen bee, in misplacing the larvee in their cells, head upside 

 down. In this position the young bee, unable to get out of its prison, dies 

 and rots away." Further, Sohirach clearly distinguishes between foul brood 

 and chilled brood, and mentions the fact, that putrefaction follows the death 

 of the brood from frost, but in this case " it is only an accident and not a 

 disease." 



The remedy Schiracb recommended was to remove all diseased combs 

 from the infected hives and to keep the bees fasting for two days, after which 

 they are furnished with other cakes of wax, and a suitable remedy given, 

 " as a little hot water mixed with honey, nutmeg and saffron, or a syrup 

 composed of equal parts of sugar and wine^ seasoned with nutmeg." Thus, 

 as Cowan (5) remarks " we had given us nearly 130 years ago, a method of 

 cure almost identical with what is by some claimed as new today." 



Tessier (6) about the same time as Schiraoh, says, that when the larvae 

 die in their cells it causes an infection in the hive which makes the bees sick. 

 It is then necessary to drive away or sometimes move the bees from the hive, 

 and to take care to fumigate the infected hive if it is going to be used again. 

 It is necessary, in order to avoid the same inconvenience, to take out the 

 parts of the comb that may be moulded by reason of the dampress. 

 Duchet (7), who wrote on bees in 1771, does not mention any disease that 

 can be certified as foul brood, but he describes bee dysentery. 



Delia Rocca (8), Vicaire-General of Syra, an island in the Levant, re- 

 lates with much detail the history of an epidemic of foul brood, which caused 

 great destruction in the island during the years 1777 to 1780. Delia Rocca 

 describes very minutely the symptoms, destruction and mistakes that were 



