372 
FOUL BROOD 
mit the disease.* Hybrids and blacks, for 
some reason, do not effect this clean-up; 
and hence it is necessary either to melt up 
the combs, or, better, Italianize. 
To recapitulate, combs of American foul 
brood must be melted up or burned. Combs 
of European foul brood need not be de¬ 
stroyed, and can be used again, when given 
the proper environment. In the last stages 
of European where the combs are rotten 
the combs should be melted up or burned. 
9. American foul brood seems to be no 
respecter of persons, or, more exactly, no 
respecter of strains or races. European 
foul brood, in the first stages on the other 
hand, yields rapidly to a resistant strain 
of Italians without the destruction of 
combs. But not all Italians are equally 
resistant. Some strains, especially the yel¬ 
low, inbred until their vitality has been 
weakened, are no better than the ordinary 
blacks and hybrids. 
It seems to be apparent that bees which 
are good workers, and stand wintering 
well, are usually found to be very resistant 
to European foul brood, altho the rule does 
not universally hold true. When Italians, 
therefore, are spoken of as “resistant,” it 
should be remembered that there are Ital¬ 
ians and Italians — some better than others. 
10. While the shaking or brushing on to 
frames of foundation in clean hives is al¬ 
most sure to cure American foul brood, it 
is only partially effective with European. 
It often does more harm than good because 
it weakens the colony. In many cases, 
European foul brood will reappear after 
shaking. It is, therefore, apparent that, 
if shaking is employed, additional curative 
measures must be applied — doubling up 
and requeening. 
* I think the disease will not he transmitted by a 
diseased larva even tho still undried, if it is so far 
decayed that the nurse bees will not eat it. By the 
way,' this theory, original with me, has never been 
advanced by any one else, and, as it has never been 
objected to by any one, it is safe to say that it is 
the best theory yet advanced to explain how the 
disease is conveyed, and at the same time to ex¬ 
plain how and why the dequeening or caging cures. 
Here’s the theory in brief: When a diseased larva 
dies, the nurses suck its juices, feed them to the 
young larvse, and thus the disease is transmitted; 
but after the diseased larvae become so far decayed 
as to be offensive, the nurses will no longer suck 
their juices, hut leave them to become dried, or re¬ 
move them without sucking them. So a break in 
brood-rearing that leaves no longer any eatable dis¬ 
eased larvae stops the continuance of the disease.— 
C. C. Miller. 
CONFUSING SYMPTOMS OF AMERI¬ 
CAN AND EUROPEAN FOUL 
BROOD EXPLAINED. 
For some time tbe beekeepers of Cali¬ 
fornia, as well as other parts of tbe United 
States, have been greatly confused by a 
disease that appeared to be American foul 
brood, and yet yielded to European foul- 
brood treatment. This even led some bee¬ 
keepers to believe the two diseases identi¬ 
cal. 
Being greatly interested in these new 
symptoms, the author, while in California 
in 1919, succeeded in getting Dr. Phillips 
to send his bacteriologist, Mr. Sturtevant, 
to investigate the matter. After spend¬ 
ing some time there he came to the follow¬ 
ing tentative conclusions. 
In American foul brood he almost never 
found more than one organism, Bacillus 
larvae, the cause of the disease—a fact that 
accounts for the usual uniformity of symp¬ 
toms of this disease. The germ is charac¬ 
teristic in appearance. Under conditions 
unfavorable to its active growth it forms a 
small egg-shaped resultant body or 
“spore,” which resists drying and high 
temperatures. Under favorable conditions 
the germ kills the larva in a peculiar man¬ 
ner, leaving the trachea and chitinous parts 
intact and making a gluey substance of the 
soft parts. This causes the characteristic 
sliminess or ropiness, and, later on, adher¬ 
ence of the scale to the cell wall. Thd 
gluepot, or, as Mr. Sturtevant says, the 
fish-glue odor, is also quite characteristic. 
However, it is now found that there may 
be stages where the larvse may not have 
been dead long enough to have developed 
the characteristic ropiness and adherence 
to the cell Avail. At this stage the partly 
dried-down mass may not have even the 
characteristic odor, nor adhere to the cell 
wall, thus leading to the belief that the dis¬ 
ease may be European foul brood. 
The dead larva of European in the un¬ 
sealed cells can usually be distinguished 
from the dead laiwa of American in un¬ 
sealed cells, by the position which it takes. 
The former may be coiled in the bottom of 
the cell, or it may be extended, lying more 
or less irregularly, somewhat diagonally in 
the cell. A careful examination will show 
this difference. 
