SPECIAL BULLETIN 64 JANUARY, 1914 
SUPPLEMENT TO SPECIAL NO. Bs. 
BY FP. E. MILLEN, STATE INSPECTOR APIARIES. 
INTRODUCTION. 
Since Special Bulletin No. 58 was published, additional knowledge, 
concerning European foul-brood, has been gained. A third brood-dis- 
ease, S Sacbrood, has also been identified and | is dealt with in the follow- 
ing pages. Also the new law déaling with Inspection of Apiaries, 
passed during the Legislative Assembly of 19138, is incorporated in 
this supplement. 
SACBROOD. 
beside two foul-brood diseases,—American foul-brood and Euro- 
pean foul-brood, there is a third brood disease known as Sacbrood be- 
lieved ta be caused by a filterable virus.* 
Older beekeepers will recognize this disease as pickled or sour-brood, 
since it now seems likely that most or all cases of pickle brood are 
really Sacbrood. 
While this disease is infectious, usually it is not severe enough to re- 
quire treatment in the general run of apiaries producing honey alone. 
Any bee-keeper in Michigan who suspects the presence of foul-brood 
in his or in his neighbor’s apiary should notify the State Inspector of 
Apiaries, Department of Entomology, Michigan Agricultural Conese 
rast Lansing, Mich. 
LOSSES CAUSED BY BROOD DISEASES. 
The name, “brood disease,” at once conveys the information that it 
is the brood which suffers. 
We know that the life of a worker honey-bee is short, and that dur- 
ing a heavy honey-flow the active part of its life is shortened to a few 
weeks, so that there must be a very heavy daily mortality through the 
summer sedson. The cleanly habits of the bees prevent the bee-keeper 
from noticing this loss, because the workers carry nearly all the dead 
bees away from the entrances, and then too, a very large number die 
in the field. In a normal, healthy colony with a vigorous queen this 
heavy loss passes unobserved, since the queen, capable of laying two- 
thousand or more eggs daily, easily keeps up the population of the 
hive. Directly foul-brood enters a colony the young larvae (worms) 
or (grubs) are attacked, and if the disease becomes serious, there may 
be as high as 90% of the larvae killed; thus in the place of the bees 
hatching daily by the thousand there may be only a few dozen. At 
* Circular 169, Bureau of Ent., U.S. Dept. of Agr., Dr. G. F. White. 
