mine it a colony is alive or dead. It is not safe to start a diseased 

 colony into the winter, for it is sure to be abnormally low on young 

 bees, and the chances are decidedly against it surviving. 



Treatment: The method of treatment will depend entirely upon the 

 proportion of infestation in the apiary. Fundamentally, the treatment 

 of American foulbrood consists of separating the adult bees from the 

 contaminated material. The adult bees when separated are put on a 

 starvation basis for four days in order to rid them of all contaminated 

 material which is carried in their honey sacs. This process is known 

 as the "shaking treatment," or is sometimes referred to as the McAvoy 

 treatment. 



If the disease is occurring for the first time in an apiary and but 

 one colony is diseased, the safest and surest method is to destroy 

 the entire hive and its contents. To do this, dig a deep pit and start 

 a fire in it. The entire hive in which the bees have been killed 

 during the previous night, is placed on top of the fire and after thj 

 material has been burned thoroughly the remainder of the contents 

 of the hive are covered with the dirt. The pit must be deep enough 

 so that the remains of the hive are far below any ordinary disturb- 

 ance of the soil such as spading, plowing and ordinary grading. This 

 method is open to objections and the real d.fflculty lies in not suf- 

 ficiently covering the remains of the colony. The honey is not dis- 

 infected in the least for it runs out of the combs when they melt 

 at about 3 35 degrees, whereas, to disenfect honey, it must be heated 

 to 212 degrees and held there for 30 minutes. 



An actual experience will illustrate the difficulty. A diseased col- 

 ony was killed, a pit was dug and the colony put on the fire. The 

 fire did not completely burn the material, but the pit was refilled. 

 In time an odor came thru the soil which attracted dogs which dug 

 down and uncovered the unburned remains of the colony. After 

 reaching the decaying mass they left in disgust. The bees in the 

 apiary found this hole and had acsess to the buried honey. The slight 

 heating had not destroyed the bacetria in the honey, the disease, in- 

 stead of being eliminated from the apiary, spread to six or eight addi- 

 tional colonies. It is of utmost importance to make a thoro disposal 

 of the contaminated material in a colony in order to prevent the spread 

 of American fourbrood. 



A diseased colony should be taken from the yard where the healthy 

 colonies are located if treatment is to be given. It should be moved 

 in the evening after all of the field bees are in the hive. On the new 

 location, a confusion board should be put in front of the entrance so 

 that the field bees will not tend to return to their old location. It is 

 impossible to treat a diseased colony satisfactorily in the same yard 

 with healthy colonies, tho where it is difficult to move a colony very 

 far, where one has but a few colonies in a back yard, the diseased 

 colonies should be separated as far as possible from the healthy 

 ones before the shaking treatment. 



The shaking process should be given to the diseased colony between 

 sunset and dark, and all preparations should be made in advance so 

 that it can be accomplished quickly. The new equipment should be 

 made ready, including three or four sheets of foundation, since the 

 remainder of the frames need not be put in the hive until later. When 

 the new or clean equipment is ready, the diseased colony is removed 

 from its stand and placed with its entrance elevated 45 degrees and 

 but a foot from the original entrance. The new equipment is placed 

 on the old stand and a newspaper or old cloth is spread in front of 

 the entrance. The bees should be smoked as little as possible in 

 order to keep down the confusion among them. One by one the 



