Foul Brood. 145 



plan. I can do no better than to insert a recent article of his right 

 here : 



There is a vast difference between black brood (European foul brood) 

 and American foul brood; the former being more virulent and destructive, 

 yet yielding to milder treatment. What I have to say in this article will have 

 reference to European foul brood. 



About four years ago I discovered some diseased brood in a colony that 

 had been purchased the previous autumn. The same day that I made the 

 discovery, one of the inspectors called, pronounced it "very suspicious," and 

 advised treatment by the shaking method. That evening, hoping to prevent 

 any spread of the disease, the whole colony, bees, brood, combs and hive, was 

 buried deep in the earth. But I was doomed to disappointment, as, during 

 the season, eight more colonies showed the disease in a mild form. 



The next spring my troubles began in real earnest. By June 15th there 

 were 160 diseased colonies in my home-apiary. I sent for Inspector Mortimer 

 Stevens, and he came, accompanied by Inspector Chas. Stewart. They pro- 

 nounced it black brood in its worst form, and advised shaking off the bees, 

 stacking up the brood to let what there would of it hatch, burning out the 

 inside of the hives, and the melting up of the combs. They also advised 

 Italianizing. 



Having three out-apiaries, with no one to help me, the item of labor was 

 an important factor; so I decided to give the Alexander plan a trial on part 

 of them. I dequeened 40 colonies, and, 10 days later, gave each a ripe queen 

 cell from healthy Italian stock. I did the work carefully, and was full of hope, 

 but the disease appeared again with the second filling of the combs. I then 

 shook the greater part of them and doubled them up. A few were dequeened 

 and given the Alexander treatment* the second time, and those colonies cleaned 

 up and stayed cured. 



Later experience has taught me that it was not the second treatment 

 that effected the permanent cure, but the presence of Italian bees that were 

 hatching out. If I had given them more time they would have cleaned up 

 without the second shaking. The rest of the colonies in this apiary were 

 shaken, the combs melted and the frames burned, but the disease reappeared, 

 that same season, in some of the colonies. 



The following season the disease appeared in one of my out-apiaries; 

 also in a good many of the colonies at the home-apiary; even among those 

 that had been shaken the previous year but not requeened. Upon studying 

 over the situation, I noticed that it was the hybrid and black colonies that 

 did not stay cured, no matter what kind of treatment was given. There were 

 some pure Italian colonies in all of the apiaries, and, with a single exception, 



*Go to every diseased colony you have and build it up either by giving frames 

 of maturing brood or uniting two or more until you have them fairly strong. After 

 this, go over every one and remove the queen; then in nine days go over them again, 

 and be sure to destroy every maturing queen-cell, or virgin if any have hatched. 

 Then go to your breeding-queen and take enough of her newly hatched larvae to 

 rear enough queen-cells from to supply each one of your diseased queenless colonies 

 with a ripe queen-cell or virgin Just hatched. These are to be introduced to your 

 diseased colonies on the twentieth day after you have removed their old queen, 

 and not one hour sooner, for upon this very point your whole success depends; for 

 your young queen must not commence to lay until three or four days after the last 

 of the old brood Is hatched, or 27 days from the time you remove the old queen. 

 In regard to those old queens that were formerly in your old hives, I think it 

 best to kill them when you first take them from their colonies — not that the queen 

 is responsible for the disease, for I am sure she is not; but a young Italian queen 

 that has been reared from a choice honey-gathering strain is worth so much more 

 to you that I can not advise saving these old queens. 



