I>4 MEETING OF INSPECTORS OF APIARIES. 



traduction of young, rigorous Italian queens from good stock. It 

 has been shown repeatedly that Italian bees are less liable to disease 

 than most of the black bees, especially of degenerate stock, as is so 

 much of the black stock when no attention is paid to improvement. 

 In a pamphlet issued in L903 by the inspectors of New York the 

 introduction of Italian brood was recommended. This is not 

 advocated a- a cure, however, but merely as a means of protecting the 

 colony againsl future infection. 



Reference has been made to the introduction of Italian queens as a 

 method of curing disease, and to this method the name of Mr. Alex- 

 ander i- attached. In the article in which Mr. Alexander first 

 advocated the plan he says, in part: 



" Bow to rid your apiary of Mack brood" (By E. W. Alexander). 



This cure is on the line of introducing new blood into the apiary, * * * 



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 dis- 

 eased 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 

 twenty-seven days from the time you remove the old queen. If you are very 

 careful about this matter of time between the last of the old brood hatching 

 and the young queen commencing to lay, you will find the bees will clean out 

 their breeding combs for this young queen, so that she will till them with as 

 fine healthy brood as a hive ever contained. This I have seen in several hun- 

 dred hives, and have never seen a cell of the disease in a hive after being 

 treated as above described. 



It is not necessary to remove any of the combs or honey from the diseased 

 colony: neither is it necessary to disinfect anything about the hive. Simply 

 remove the old queen, and be sure the young queen does not commence to lay 

 until three or four days after the old brood is all hatched. This treatment 

 with young Italian queens is a perfect :re for black brood. 



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

 besl to kill them wheu 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 thai lias beeu reared from a choice honey-gathering strain is 

 worth so much more to you that I can not advise saving these old queens. 



I have experimented along this line considerably, and found, after the colony 

 has been without a queen twenty-seven days, as above directed, it will usually 

 be safe to give them one .if these old queens, and the cure will be the same. 

 si ill. there have been exceptions, so l advise killing them at once. 



The essential point in the treatment is to allow several days to 

 elapse after the emergence of the last of the healthy brood before 

 the queen begins to lay. 



a Gleanings in Bee Culture, November 1, 1003. 



