366 
FOUL BROOD 
the wrong hive. As they do not ordinarily 
show any of the manifestations of ordin¬ 
ary robbers, they are admitted. If they 
carry honey from an infected colony, as 
many of them do, they will transmit the 
disease as soon as they give pap made out 
of such honey to young brood; and that ex¬ 
plains why there will be only a single cell 
or a group of cells, perhaps, one square 
inch that will have foul brood, while all the 
rest of the brood in the hive is perfectly 
normal. If one can be sure that the 
comb containing the diseased cell or cells 
is the only one affected, the removal of that 
comb may effect a permanent cure. As will 
be stated further on, all such colonies 
should be carefully watched to see that the 
disease does not develop later on. 
THE TREATMENT AND CURE OF 
AMERICAN FOUL BROOD. 
At the outset the Quinby method was 
spoken of as being the basis of the most suc¬ 
cessful treatment for American foul brood. 
This plan involved the melting-up of the 
old combs (shaking bees into clean hives) 
and compelling the bees to start anew. As 
this treatment was described before foun¬ 
dation was known, of course no mention 
of it was made. Practically the only im¬ 
provement over the Quinby treatment is 
giving the bees starters or full sheets of 
foundation instead of empty frames with 
mere wooden guides. In more recent times 
the late D. A. Jones of Beeton, Ont., gave 
out what he called the “starvation” plan. 
It involved the same principles as the 
Quinby treatment, with this difference, 
that he shut the combless bees, after shak¬ 
ing, in a large wire-cloth box or a box with 
wire-cloth cover, and set it in a cool place 
until the bees had consumed all the honey 
in their honey-sacs. His idea was to elim¬ 
inate all possible sources of infection be¬ 
fore the bees were put on frames of foun¬ 
dation and fed. The treatment worked ad¬ 
mirably; but it was found in later years 
that it was not necessary to starve the bees 
—that they would use up any infected 
honey that they might have in their sacs 
in drawing out foundation, provided the 
hive had no combs. Later, William Mc- 
Evoy of Canada, who had then recently 
been appointed foul-brood inspector for 
Ontario, had been very successful in shak¬ 
ing the bees into their own hives, and giv¬ 
ing them frames of foundation starters. 
They were allowed to build combs on these 
for four days. Llis idea seemed to be to 
let the bees use up the infected honey in 
building the combs and storing it in the 
built comb. These combs supposed to con¬ 
tain infection were then removed, and 
the colony was given full sheets of founda¬ 
tion. But experience has shown in thou¬ 
sands of cases that it is not necessary to 
remove the first set of combs built on foun¬ 
dation starters, and that such removing in¬ 
volves a large amount of waste; and that, 
when the second set of foundation is given, 
the bees are in a demoralized condition, 
and quite inclined to swarm out. 
Years ago, when an apiary of the pub¬ 
lishers had foul brood, they shook 80 colo¬ 
nies and gave them only one set of frames 
with full sheets of foundation in clean 
hives. The treatment was a success in 
every case. Altho the author has pre¬ 
scribed this same treatment in hundreds if 
not thousand of cases, he has never had 
one report saying that the disease had 
returned. The bees, as a matter of fact, 
will either consume or use up all the in¬ 
fected honey in drawing out the first set 
of foundation; and it is very important 
to give the bees either a clean hive or dis¬ 
infect the old one. When he shook into 
the old hive the disease came back in some 
cases. This disinfecting may be best accom¬ 
plished by scorching the inside of the hive 
with an ordinary blow torch, such as is used 
by telephone men and painters to remove 
paint from a house; or it may be accom¬ 
plished by smearing the inside of the hive 
with kerosene, touching a lighted match to 
it, and letting it burn until the inside of 
the hive is charred to a light brown. The fire 
may be easily quenched by using a little 
water and putting on the cover immedi¬ 
ately. The steam, generated whetn the 
cover is clapped down, immediately puts 
out the fire. But there may be an objec¬ 
tion to kerosene leaving an offensive odor 
in the hive. Another plan is to use a 
handful of common dry straw, setting it 
on fire, and then with a stick poke the burn¬ 
ing straw around the hive so that every 
portion of it will be slightly scorched. The 
straw should be dumped out and a little 
water dashed in the hive. 
