THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL. 
91 
disease or are suspected. After dark close the 
entrance of each clean hive with perforated 
sine or wire cloth, to prevent bees from the 
infected hives from gaining access, 
_ .5 * el... J , n r. nftA V i 1 V 4” VI 
0 „ , and so 
treading the disease. Next morning, having 
already prepared perfectly clean hives, and 
* 1 ..,..) w jth three or four frames each. 
provided them vilu lwic. , 
according to the strength of the colony, and 
with starters (not whole sheets) in the frames, 
transfer the bees into their new quarters, 
taking out the frames one by one and shaking 
off the bees upon a sheet of paper in front of 
the hive. Take care to secure the queen and 
place her in a queen cage suspended between 
the frames. She should be kept there till the 
evening or the succeeding one, when she may 
be released if the bees have settled down. 
Finish off each colony by feeding with a quart 
of medicated syrup, described below. This 
should he given warm, as it is then more 
readily accepted, and should also be placed 
inside the hive to prevent robbing. No honey 
or syrup should be left about for the same 
reason. Collect with the greatest care all the 
infected frames, combs, Ac., from the diseased 
hives and hury or burn them ; also burn the 
hives if they are of no value. If, however, 
they are good ones, let them be thoroughly 
well boiled, using about four ounces of the 
better class of carbolic acid in the copper as a 
precaution. Let ail adhering wax, propolis, 
*C., be scraped off, and the hives scrubbed 
clean with soap and hot water. Calvert's 20 
Bfc. carbolic soap is excellent for this 
purpose. These hives can then be used again 
with perfect safety. It is very important 
during the cleansing process that the cleaned 
hives be not handled with dirty lingers. Let 
cadi be put aside before another is com- 
menced. To save purchasing new hives 
duriug the transferring, clean kerosene boxes 
may be used temporarily, adapting them to 
the Langstroth frame. It would lie better to 
burn all such boxes afterwards, including the 
quills After dark release the bees from the 
hives that were closed up whilst the infected 
colonies were being dealt with. Examine the 
transferred colonies in three or four days’ 
time, and give each one another good feed of 
jvarui medicated syrup. They can afterwards 
A , ' Wlth Plain syrup if no honey be coming 
i . but care must be exercised that each has 
en h t H . t0 , keep the beea aHvu and 
1,1 ' >'i dew n new combs. The 
E Tm f tr, \ D8f '-' rrin « bees from their 
mu, -d hives should be completed in one day, 
^ h ! ve hhould be left for another 
ooinDlet'u jj'h" act of stamping out should be 
cl ' ; ln on ® effort, and the apiary is then 
K P ° S8lble ’ however > that the signs 
WpWacd Jhw“ T rl00k , e<1 in the uol ° ni --'3 
cy'th' ,bl ,) ' lV v b \ CQ clea °. and a vigilant 
tiie first -t 'erefore be kept on those to detect 
tth^rtages Of the disease. If it should 
"Ah hi sUowin S >t should be dealt 
a similar way, but the work should 
not be commenced till evening, when the bees 
have all returned home. The operator must 
take care that no honey, bits of wax, &c., are 
dropped about, or the disease will spread, and 
he ought therefore to lay down newspapers 
over which to lift the combs. The papers can 
then be burned. It is also as well to burn or 
thoroughly disinfect all alighting boards, 
covers, &c., used in connection with the “ foul 
brood” hives, and to skim the surface of the 
ground where those hives stood. 
When “foul brood” is suspected in the 
apiary — and what beekeeper is not always in. 
dread of its appearing ? — the fingers should be 
washed with phenol solution before opening 
each hive. I use a quarter of an ounce of 
absolute phenol to a wine bottle of water, 
which gives about 1 in 100, and keep a piece of 
sponge moistened with it. The new hives or 
boxes, frames, feeders, &c., before being occu- 
pied by the transferred colonies should also be 
washed over with a phenol solution and allowed 
to dry. A strength of 1 in 200 is sufficient for 
this purpose. 
For feeding the infected colonies after trans- 
fer make the following syrup : — White sugar, 
10 lbs. ; water, seven pints. Add the sugar 
gradually to the boiling water, and allow tlie 
whole to simmer for a few minutes. Give one 
quart of this to each colony in any kind of in- 
side feeder after adding one ounce of the follow- 
ing mixture : — Salicylic acid, 16 grains ; soda 
borax, 16 grains ; water, one ounce. To pre- 
pare this, grind up the bora;: and mix it with 
the salicylic acid ; add a little water and work 
the mixture into a dough, then add it to the 
balance of the measured water and shake till 
it is dissolved. One ounce of this solution 
should be stirred into each quart of syrup. It 
is better to mix a bottleful of the salicylic 
solution and keep it on hand. A trifle less 
than one ounce av. each of the acid and borax 
is the right quantity for an ordinary wine- 
bottle. 
There are instances of the disease dying out 
of itself, and L. C. Root (“ New Beekeeping ”) 
states that in 1870 some stocks were infected 
when the winter commenced. These were 
marked and put into the cellar, and when 
opened up in the spring it was seen that the 
bees were perfectly healthy, and no trace of 
“ foul brood ” was discoverable. 
There are many interesting points which I 
have been obliged to leave unnoticed, such as 
the debated question of how tfce disease in 
conveyed, whether in the honey or by spores 
on the bee ; whether old bees are affected by 
it, or the brood alone suffers. 
I would say in conclusion that there is much 
that is obscure in “ foul brood,” and that fur- 
ther research is urgently needed to throw light 
upon the subject. 
Mr. A. E. Bonnet had never been able to 
cure the disease of foul brood, except when all 
the old combs had been removed. All the 
cures he had heard of had been effected by 
