FOUL BROOD 
371 
that of American foul brood; but a more 
careful examination will show a decided 
difference. 
1. Larvae affected with European foul 
brood in its first stages are not usually 
ropy, but when they do rope the thread is 
coarser and does not string out as far. 
American will often rope from four to six 
inches in a fine thread near the end. The 
dead matter of European has more of a 
jellylike consistency; and, if it clings to a 
toothpick, the roping is coarse, lumpy, and 
salve-like, and will not extend more than 
an inch or rwo at most and then break 
like a rotten rubber band. 
2. European in its first stages comes on 
mainly in the early part of the season, and 
it is confined largely to the unsealed brood. 
The dead larvae first turn gray, then light 
yellow. Sometimes a yellow spot shows in 
the center of the grub before it turns yel¬ 
low all over. It does not finally assume a 
shapeless melted-down mass as is found 
in the American disease. It retains its 
shape without a break in the skin, finally 
shriveling up into a dry scale which the 
bees easily remove. The dried scales of 
American foul brood, on the contrary, stick 
to the side of the cell like so much glue; 
and it is very easy to detect combs previ¬ 
ously affected with this disease, altho it 
may be a year or so afterward, because 
the lower sides of the cell look as tho 
they had been daubed over with some sort 
of dark-brown gluey substance with a rem¬ 
nant of larval skin. 
3. The ordinary gluepot or foul-brood 
odor is almost entirely lacking in combs af¬ 
fected with European foul brood. There is, 
in place of it, a sour, musty, or rotten-egg 
smell that is not as easily recognized as the 
odor of the other brood disease. In the 
later stages, it takes a spoiled-meat or car¬ 
rion odor with a suggestion of ammonia, in 
which stage the sour smell seems to be lost 
or obscured by the more pronounced odor 
of decay. The color of European foul 
brood in its earlier stages is a yellow or 
gray or combinations of these two colors. 
Later the yellow and gray change to quite 
a dark brown. 
4. European foul brood seems to spread 
much more rapidly than American. If an 
apiary is affected at all, more colonies will 
be involved; but in the American disease, 
honey seems to be the main source of infec¬ 
tion. In the European type, while honey 
may be a source, it certainly does not seem 
to be the only means of transmission. 
5. Black and hybrid bees are much more 
subject to the ravages of European foul 
brood. If the disease is not too far ad¬ 
vanced and the colonies are strong, the 
mere introduction of a vigorous strain of 
young Italian queens may cure the whole 
apiary. There are some localities in New 
York and Virginia where Italian apiaries 
are surrounded by apiaries of black and 
hybrid bees; and yet the remarkable fact 
is that these Italian yards are almost en¬ 
tirely free from disease, while the yards of 
black or hybrid bees around them are af¬ 
fected with it in spite of treatment by 
shaking. 
6. There also seems to be a general agree¬ 
ment among authorities that weak colonies 
are the ones that are first attacked by Eu¬ 
ropean. It is important, where this dis¬ 
ease gets into a yard, that all the weak 
colonies be doubled up; for it is only the 
strong and extra strong that are able to 
combat it, even when they are given every 
assistance possible on the part of the 
owner. 
7. Again, it has been noticed that, as 
soon as a good honey flow is on, European 
foul brood begins to disappear; and some¬ 
times as soon as there is a dearth of honey 
it breaks out again, particularly when 
brood-rearing is well under way in the 
spring, for that is the time of the year 
when it usually makes itself manifest. 
8. In the case of American foul brood it 
has been proven that combs or honey from 
a diseased colony are sources of infection. 
While all the honey could be extracted out 
of the combs, it has been demonstrated 
over and over again that it is impossible 
for a colony of bees to remove the germs 
by any process, for the simple reason that 
the dead matter sticks like glue to the sides 
and bottoms of the cells. On the other 
hand, the combs of European foul brood, 
because the dried larvae do not stick, can 
be readily cleaned up by a vigorous colony 
of Italians and used over again. Before 
they have been cleaned np they may trans- 
