36 MEETING OF INSPECTORS OF APIARIES. 



This paper has probably come to the notice of but few bee keepers 

 in the United States, because the report of the agricultural college is 

 not widely distributed. To make it available for comparison, there- 

 fore, it is included here. 



The Foi l Brood Ba< hi. is (B. At. via ) ; its Vitality and Development. 

 [From Ontario Agricultural College Reporl for 1892, pp. 267-273.] 



Mr. J. J. Mackenzie, B. A., bacteriologist of the provincial hoard of health of 

 Ontario, read Hi" following paper : 



Gentlemen: At the request of your secretary, Mr. Holtermann, I undertook 

 for your union some investigations on the subject of foul brood, the results of 

 which I propose giving you in this paper. Although if is almost a year now 

 since I undertook this work under the auspices of the Agricultural ami Experi- 

 mental Union, it is by no means exhausted, and there are many points which 

 require to he further elucidated, which I have not had time as yet to touch on. 

 owing to the fact that investigations on foul brood had to he carried on simul- 

 taneously with my regular laboratory work. These points I hope to work at 

 no\i summer, and reserve the privilege of reporting again to your union on the 

 lesults of* further investigation. 



The subject of foul brood is an old one to apiarists and an intensely interest- 

 ing one to Canadian bee keepers, but in reading over the bee journals one can 

 not help being struck with the great want of unanimity amongst bee men as to 

 the disease, how it should be treated, how it is spread, and on many other points. 

 Some would have us believe that the disease arises de novo whenever insanitary 

 conditions prevail; others claim that there is a specific infection and where the 

 disease arises it must have originated from previously existing disease: some 

 claim that the honey is the only method of transmittal ; others that it is nor. and 

 so on. On every point there seems to be plenty of arguments pro and con. 



I have attempted in my work to take hold of some of these controverted 

 points from a bacteriological standpoint in order to aid in coming to some deii- 

 nite conclusion. Some of these points I should consider settled from the results 

 of previous investigation: but as many bee men do not seem prepared to accept 

 this, my work will have value as confirming what has already been done. 



Before an association which includes many practical bee keepers it would be 

 superfluous to enter upon a minute account of the clinical features of the dis- 

 ease. Most of you know them better than 1 do. 1 certainly would not be pre- 

 pared to "spot" foul brood in an apiary; although I certainly think I can under 

 the microscope. The infectious character of the disease has been generally 

 accepted for many years, but not until Cheshire and Watson Cheyne worked it 

 out scientifically was it definitely proved. They isolated a bacillus {Bacillus 

 alvei) which they found in the diseased brood and which they cultivated on 

 nutrient media for many generations, finally reinfecting perfectly healthy brood 

 from these pure cultures. This evidence to a bacteriologist is absolutely con- 

 clusive that Bacillus alvei is the specific cause of foul brood. Consequently, 

 when I began my investigations on some samples of diseased brood which were 

 senl me through Mr. Holtermann, I looked at once for Bacillus <i!r<i. Micro- 

 scopically and by means of bacteriological methods I bad no difficulty in isolating 

 ;. bacillus which corresponds in all points to Bacillus <ilr<i. If is a bacillus 

 similar to that of Cheshire's in size, produces spores which are somewhat 

 thicker, giving the bacillus a clubbed appearance. On agar jelly it grows 

 rapidly so as to cover the whole surface. In gelatin its growth, is very peculiar, 

 shooting out from the infected point in all directions. On potatoes it produces 



