454 DISEASES OF BEES. 



method in wMch 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 to 

 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 

 piounds of syrup, amounting to l-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 l-750th. 



" The carbolic acid should he 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 ajjplying Hilbert's recipe, 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 indeflnitely, for if 

 but a few of the spores escape, they will soon spread the 

 contagion agairi.. 



