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84 THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL. 
small apertures for entrances that do service 
in cooler regions. 
My bees have been as busy the past few 
days as though it wasalready summer, roaming 
in and out almost before daylight. Having 
watched the matter of the best workers pretty 
closely, being somewhat jealous of the reputa- 
tion of pure “ Italians,” 1 have concluded that 
a first cross between Italian and Black is 
frequently ahead of pure stock; but, as a rule, 
the purest bred stock give the best results 
over all ; that is, take any given number of 
pure stocks, and a similar number of hybrids, 
in the same locality, on the whole the best 
results will accrue from the pure stocks. 
The results from imported queens are fre- 
quently inferior, but the daughters of imported 
queens mating with pure drones, give the 
most satisfactory results. I have found many 
imported queens never fully recover the effects 
of the long confinement, and remain dull and 
attenuated, and die off early. 
I have found that hybrids degenerate very 
quickly until they become utterly worthless. 
As I have said frequently, first crosses are 
superior ; just now I have two such, that, just 
as day is breaking, are rushing out as if it were 
summer, instead of midwinter, whilst most 
others are quiet,, until the sun is well up. 
Hybrids do not spring dwindle so badly as 
pure stock. 
I see some of your correspondents talk much 
about queen rearing. Would it not be wise to 
set to work drone rearing, and get a lot of pure 
drones on the wing before black stocks are 
ready, and so get queens early mated with 
these pure drones P To correct the black 
nuisance also, Italian beekeepers should always 
keep a superabundance of drones flying during 
the breeding season, so as to Italianise all 
surrounding queens as quickly as possible ; it 
is astonishing how largely this can be done. 
Certain stocks in every yard should be allowed 
to rear plenty of drones, but let them be pure. 
Do not allow impure drones to be raised, 
I am convinced a vast improvement is being 
introduced in keeping the brood frames closer 
together than hitherto. I have been of 
opinion for years that our general fault is in 
having the combs too far apart in the brood- 
nest. This is well in the upper stories for 
extracting, but not down below. It may 
require more care in handling, but brood- 
nests should not be frequently disturbed. — 
Yours &c. CHAS. FULL W OOD. 
Brisbane, Queensland, 
12th July, 1886, 
QUERIES AND R EPLIES. 
Replies to Queries. 
G. F. Foul Brood . — There can be little 
doubt that you have foul brood in your 
hive. A few scattered covered cells, with 
the viscous foeted remains of the larva or 
imago, is the sign left in winter of the first 
seeds of the disease sown during autumn 
breeding, which if unchecked, will do mischief 
when warm weather and rapid breeding 
time returns. The spores are about, and 
will germinate so soon as the conditions 
are favourable. Chilled brood dies and either 
dries up, or if the hive be damp, gets mildewed) 
and unless the colony is very weak the bees 
will soon clear the remains out of the cells; 
if the nearly mature bee has died from cold it 
may be left still sealed, but it dries up in tho 
cell in a very different manner to a bee that 
has been destroyed by the bacillus alvei. Brood 
and unhatched bees often die when the colony 
dwindles, and become too weak to attend to all 
the brood, and the temperature gets too low to 
keep up their vitality. It is not unusual with 
weak stocks for the queen to shift her quarters 
in the hive when the approach of cold weather 
warns her to limit her laying, and the cluster 
leaves the combs farthest from her new 
locality to chance and almost inevitable 
chilling. Chilled brood we believe more 
often occurs from this cause than from 
exposure of brood combs when examining 
the hive, unless unpardonable carelesness has 
occurred. 
Many apiculturists contend that chilled 
brood is a predisposing cause of foul brood, 
and others even that the former passes into 
the latter condition if left in the hive ; but if 
our theory of the disease is correct, this can no 
more be the case than that a man dead from 
cold should spread small-pox infection. If 
chilled brood goes on to foul brood, the 
bacillus germ must have been there before the 
brood was chilled. To distinguish foul brood 
from chilled brood in the earliest stages may 
be difficult without the microscope, but in 
later stages the former becomes so characteristic 
that no mistake can be made, although the 
characteristic foetid odour be not apparent. 
The discovery of a preventative to this disease 
would be hailed as marking a most important 
epoch in bee-culture ; for although it is con- 
tended that when once we know any disease 
depends on a specific germ its spread is pre- 
ventable, we find practically that it is not 
prevented. The germs of foul brood are so 
widespread that it appears as inevitable as 
influenza or typhoid fever in the human 
subject. The hope, therefore, that we may 
discover and deal with the first nidus seems 
still remote. All that is at present known 
of this bee disease is lamentably little, and we 
(and we believe all our reader's) would be 
glad to hear that “ G. F.” had undertaken 
some investigation in this direction. — 
Ed. 
