454 DISEASES OF BEES. 
method in which he uses carbolic acid, otherwise called 
phenol, after the suggestion of an Irish Apiarist, Mr. R. 
Sproule. 
As bees strongly dislike carbolic acid, since it is used ta 
frighten them (670), the quantity has to be very small, or 
they will not touch the food containing it. The dose used 
by Mr. Cheshire, in the food, is about one ounce for forty 
pounds of syrup, amounting to 1-640th, but this proportion 
may be changed according to circumstances. When there 
is no honey in the fields, he says that the proportion may 
be reduced to 1-750th. 
“The carbolic acid should be added to the syrup when the 
latter is cool and equally mixed by careful stirring.’’—(Cheshire. 
Page 565.) 
. When the bees refused to touch the food thus prepared, 
Mr. Cheshire succeeded in compelling them to use it, by 
pouring it into the combs, in the cells immediately around 
and over the brood. He advises the use of one part of 
phenol in fifty parts of water, for spraying the infected 
combs that are removed from the bees, but in no case does 
he spray the inside of the brood-nest of the diseased col- 
ony with this solution.—( British Bee Journal, 1887, page 
397.) 
796. For our part, we should prefer the Bertrand-Cowan 
method of applying Hilbert’s regipe, to all others. It is 
most likely, however, that either of these methods will be 
successful if the Apiarist is careful and perseverant, but if 
he neglects the minutest precautions, for instance, washing 
his hands in a solution of phenol or of salicylic acid, before 
going to some other hive, after handling a sick colony, 
or if he does not apply a preventive treatment to all 
his colonies during and after the treatment of the sick ones, 
he may retain the disease in his Apiary indefinitely, for if 
but a few of the spores escape, they will soon spread the 
contagion again. 
