BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
In the earlier stages of foul brood the disease consists of a _bacillus_ which can be destroyed in ways hereafter described, but when the disease has killed the brood and the latter has become a coffee-coloured mass (which later on dries up, forming thin brownish flakes on the sides and bottoms of the cells), the bacilli turn into _spores_. These spores, unlike the bacilli, cannot be destroyed by disinfectants unless the disinfectantsare so strong that they would also kill all the bees. The treatment, therefore, which will cure a hive in the early stages of the disease is absolutely useless in the advanced stages, and this fact the bee-keeper must never forget.
_Do not mistake chilled brood for foul brood. If brood becomes too cold it dies, but thereafter, in time, it turns black, never brown, as in foul brood._ Later on it dries up and be comes hard; it never forms a sticky, putrescent mass of coffee-coloured, " ropy," or pappy matter, such as is to be found in cases of foul brood.
**The Treatment of Foul brood in its First Stages**
We will now deal with the remedies which will eure the disease in its _first_ stages, of which the best known are the following :--
**Salicylic Acid**.
This remedy was discovered many years ago, and some bee-keepers still use it with good results. It is used in two ways--namely, to spray the combs with, and to mix with the food. The solution for spraying the combs is made as follows :--8 grains of salicylic acid, 8 grains of soda-borax, and 1 oz. of water (it is necessary to add the soda-borax, as salicylic acid, by itself, is practically insoluble in water): all the honey in the hive must be uncapped, and the solution projected on to the combs in a fine spray from a spray diffuser (fig. 41).
Figure 41:Spray Diffuser.
hand. We now come to the way in which formic acid is used: the best method is to pour it into one side of a clean, empty comb, which should be placed at the back of the hive, as far away from the entrance as possible; the acid then by evaporation diffuses itself throughout the hive, destroying the germs of disease. The above is abridged from Mr. Sproule's directions in the _British Bee Journal_ for October 2nd, 1890 (which also appeared in _Gleanings_).
Mr. Cowan's method of using formic acid in cases of foul brood, in its early stages, is as follows:--A piece of funnel or sponge should be tacked on to the back of the division board and kept saturated with a solution of formalin composed of 1 oz. of commercial 40 per cent. formalin to each 3 ozs. of water.
**Naphthol Beta**.
Naphthol beta has now been used for foul brood a considerable time; and during this period it has proved highly satisfactory, and very excellent results have been obtained by its use. It is a white crystalline powder, possesses very little smell, and, though insoluble in cold water, it dissolves readily in alcohol; when dissolved in this, it should be added to the syrup while the latter is still _hot_, and it will then remain in solution. But it must not be put into the syrup while the latter is _boiling_.
To predicate 18 lhs. of sugar, made into syrup, \(
rac{1}{3}\) oz. naphthol beta is required, while \(
rac{1}{4}\) oz. (avoidupois) will predicate 36 lhs., and \(
rac{1}{3}\) oz. is required for 72 lhs. Just enough alcohol (rectified spirits of wine) should be added to dissolve the naphthol beta, and the two must be shaken up together; when all the naphthol is dissolved, no more alcohol should be put with it. Candy may be treated in a similar manner, the same amount of naphthol being added to the same quantity of sugar used in making the candy.
**Medicated Syrup for Diseased Bees**.
In feeding bees with syrup medicated by one or other of the foregoing methods, except when feeding in late autumn, the syrup should be thin--_i.e._, it should be made with 3 lhs. of sugar to each quart of water, because the nurse bees will then be more inclined to feed the young brood (larvae) with it than to store it (which they would do if the syrup were thick), and thus the disease will be more rapidly cured.
The best feeder to use for diseased bees is Taylor's " Physic " Feeder, which is manufactured by Messrs E. H. Taylor Ltd., of Welwyn, Herts. This feeder consists of framed tiers of metal troughs, between the uppermost of which and the top bar of the frame a bee space is provided. It should be placed in the centre of the brood nest by removing one of the frames, the object being to get the bees to take the syrup down immediately the first sign of the disease is noticed, and also to bring the syrup up to the same degree of heat as the centre of the brood nest, so that volatile disinfecting vapour may be given off and the syrup consumed rapidly even in the middle of summer when it is often difficult to get bees to accept syrup if honey is coming in very freely from the fields.
Treatment of Foul Brood in its more Advanced Stages.
Hitherto we have only treated of those remedies which will cure foul brood in its _first_ stages : when, however, a great part of the brood has become coffee-coloured, and when the combs contain irregular patches of brood with sunken and perforated cappings to many of those brood cells that are sealed, the disease has reached so advanced a stage that we may be sure spores are present, and when this is the case the remedies (all disinfectants) that have already lean detailed would be unable to cure the disease.
If, therefore, the diseased stock is a weak one, the best and safest thing to do will be to destroy the bees, combs, and quilts, and _thoroughly_ disinfect the hive, before our other (or our neighbours') bees are contaminated by this plague. The destruction should be effected in the following manner : a hole about one foot deep, and a little smaller than the hive, should be dug in the ground. In the evening, when the bees have ceased flying, some sulphur should be lighted in the bottom of this hole, and the hive, removed from its floorboard, should be placed over it, care being taken that the quilts are tucked in all around at the top of the frames, so as to prevent any bees from escaping. The fumes from the burning sulphur will suffocate the bees, and when they are dead the combs, frames, dead bees, and the quilts must _all_ be burnt, as they harbour the spores, which are capable of lying dormant for astonishingly long periods, and afterwards, when the bee-keeper might suppose all danger past, these spores, under favourable circumstances, suddenly develop and restart the disease afresh in the apiary. The hive and its stand must be _thoroughly_ scrubbed, inside and out, with boiling water and strong soap, and then painted all over (again inside and out) with a solution of one part of Calvert's No. 5 carbonic acid to each two parts of water. Take care that the carbonic solution is _thoroughly_ worked into every joint and crevice. The site where the diseased stock stood must be dug up and the earth turned over for a radius of at least 6 feet around the old stand. When--but only when--by exposure to sun and air the smell of carbonic has passed away (and this will take some time) the hive may be used again.
##### "Starvation" or "Fasting" Cure for Foul Brood
If, however, the diseased stock is still strong in bees, it may be cured by what is known as the " starvation" or "fasting" method. This consists in shaking all the bees off the combs into an empty box or straw skep--an operation which should be performed towards evening when the bees have ceased to fly, lest some may enter other hives and carry the disease with them. The bottom of the box or skep should then be covered with cheese cloth (a very coarse sort of muslin which admits the air freely), and placed in a cool, _dark_ cellar, the box or skep being stood on two small strips of wood about 1 or 1\(
rac{1}{2}\) inches thick (sticks will do) so as to raise it from the floor and thus secure a thorough current of air underneath; this is most important, as otherwise the bees would be smothered. The reason for placing the bees in the dark is that, if left in the light, they would make such frantic efforts to get out that many would become worn out and die.
While the bees are in the cellar all the combs, frames, and quilts must be burnt, the hive thoroughly disinfected as just explained, the site dug over, and a fresh, clean hive prepared in its place, the frames in which must be fitted with starters of foundation only. These starters should be only \(
rac{1}{2}\) inch deep.
After being kept in the cellar for forty-eight hours, _without any food whatever_, the bees should be put into the fresh hive, like an ordinary swarm, and fed on medicated syrup. Syrup medicated with naphthol beta (see page 84) is in my opinion best for the purpose.
As the box or skep in which the bees were confined _must be destroyed_; it is best to use a box, since skeps are more expensive.
Bee-keepers must remember that _honey_ is one of the most frequent and one of the most dangerous sources of infection, as it harbours the spores. It is, then, needless to say that healthy colonies of bees must never be fed with honey from diseased or suspected colonies. Indeed, in my opinion, it is _always_ best to feed bees with syrup and not with honey, and in localities where it is suspected that foul brood may possibly exist it will always be best, whenever feeding is necessary, to feed the bees with syrup medicated with naphthol beta. Candy, when it is used, may be medicated in just the same way as syrup.
As the stocks which are most liable to be attacked by foul brood are those whose vitality is weakest, it is often found very helpful in curing foul brood, if the stock happens to be headed by an unsatisfactory queen, to destroy her and to introduce another in her place.
**The Bee-keeper must always Disinfect Himself most Thoroughly after Handling any Diseased or Suspected Stock before he Attempts to Open or Handle a Healthy One**.
Wherever possible, a bee-keeper should bare his arms to the elbow before handling a diseased or even a suspected hive, _and afterwards he must be most careful to disinfect himself thoroughly before he opens a healthy hive_ by thoroughly washing his hands and arms with strong carbonic soap and thoroughly spraying his clothes and washing any appliances that have been used with a solution of 1 oz, of Calvert's No. 5 carbonic acid to 12 oz, of water.
Robbing must be carefully guarded against when disease is present or suspected, as it is a most fruitful source of spreading the contagion.
**Prevention Better than Cure**.
**Naphthol beta and formalin are the two remedies now most generally used for the cure of foul brood, but the bece-keeper should remember the old adage that " Prevention is better than cure "; and if he knows that foul brood exists in the neighbourhood or in the apiary, he must** _immediately_ **take steps to prevent the other hives from catching it. A very good preventive is naphthalene (do not confound this with naphthol beta, which is used in the bees' food ; naphthalene is quite a different thing, and must** _never_ **be used in this way); it possesses a strong smell, and can be obtained in white crystalline flakes and in sticks ; whichever form is used, care must be taken to have it quite pure. Of flake naphthalene, as much as can be heaped on a sixpence should be placed on the floor-board, at the back of the hive, as far from the entrance as possible. If we are using the stick naphthalene, one or two pieces as large as a small nut will be found sufficient. Naphthalene evaporates, especially the flake naphthalene, and the supply of it must therefore be renewed in the hive every ten or twelve days--in winter it does not evaporate so quickly, and so will not need to be supplied to the bees so often.**
**Cleanliness.**
**Both in the prevention and in the cure of any bee disease, whether it be simple dysentery, foul brood, or Isle of Wight disease, cleanliness is of the greatest importance. Floor-boards should be kept clean and well scraped, and no** _debris_ **of any kind should be allowed to accumulate about the apiary.**
**Isle of Wight Bee Disease**.**
**Isle of Wight bee disease, or** _Microsporidiosis_**, as it is sometimes called, is the most terrible scourge to which bees are subject. It appeared first in the Isle of Wight in 1304, and, spreading to the mainland, it gradually worked its way up northwards to Scotland and Ireland, carrying devastation wherever it appeared. So terrible is this scourge that an authority as painstaking and eminent as Mr. T. W. Cowan tells us in the _British Bee Journal_ for March 4th, 1920, that, from carefully compiled statistics, it has been proved that about 90 per cent. of the colonies of bees that existed in Somersetshire had been destroyed by this disease ; and much the same has happened in every other county.
The origin of this disease is still very obscure. For long it was thought that it was caused by the existence in large numbers in the bee's chyle, stomach, or intestine of tiny microscopic animal parasites or protozoans known as _Nosema apis_ ; but, as this protozoan is also found to be present in other diseases of bees, which have nothing to do with Isle of Wight disease, it became doubtful whether it was really the _root_ cause of this disease. A great deal of careful research work has since been carried out both by independent men of science and by the Government. Drs. Rennie and Wood state * that it is caused by a parasitic organism of the _Acharea_ family (which they have named _Torsonemins Voodi_) invading the respiratory organs.
Footnote *: "Isle of Wight Disease in Hive Bees," by John Rennie, D.Sc., P. B. White, B.Sc., and Klisle J. Harvey, published by R. Grant & Son, Edinburgh, price 9e.
**Symptoms of Isle of Wight Disease.**
In the early stages of the disease the bee-keeper will notice that many of the bees, as they issue from the hive entrance, are unable to fly. They wander listlessly about the alighting-board, falling off it after a time, and then crawl about the ground and on blades of grass, etc. As evening approaches, they generally collect in clusters for warmth, but soon become chilled through in the night and die. These bees are known as " crawlers."
On the other hand, other of the bees that are affected by this disease dart quickly from the entrance and succeed in flying a considerable distance from the hive.
_With reference to " crawlers," afflicted with Isle of Wight disease, the bee-keeper must be particularly careful not to confuse bees which, in perfectly healthy hives_, returning heavily laden from the fields, sometimes miss the alighting-board (_especially in wundy weather_), _and falling to the ground, crawl about for a while, being too tired to rise again at the moment.__These bees often get chilled through, if the weather is cool, and eventually die._
Sometimes the diseased bees lose the use of their legs, or of one pair of them.
As the disease advances, the abdomens of the affected bees become swollen, and assume a dull black appearance, and very often the wings stand out in an abnormal manner, and become what is commonly called "dislocated." Often the diseased bees lose the hairs on their abdomens ; but the bee-keeper must be careful not to confuse such diseased bees with perfectly healthy _lean_ old bees (to be found in most healthy hives) whose abdomens have become black, shiny, and hairless with hard work.
In Isle of Wight disease, the bees sometimes soil their hives and combs with their excrement (for which reason certain people have styled it _Malignant Dysentery_), but in other cases they do not.
It must be clearly understood that the symptoms vary greatly, and also that the progress of the disease is sometimes very slow, and at others exceedingly rapid.
The disease, though occasionally met with in other parts of the world, does not appear at the present day to have the same virulence on the Continent that it displays in England. Whether, like the African cattle plague _Riladepest_, which every now and then sweeps as a terrible scourge through the continent of Africa, Isle of Wight disease has ever attacked bees in Europe in epidemic form before 1904, it is difficult to say ; but for myself I am inclined to think that it has, for in old works on bees we read, for example, that in 1790 " Bees of late years have been troubled with a nasty dysentery which both destroy a full stock in a very short time,"* while thirty to forty years later we read, " Dysentery in our bees' doth greatly trouble us, and a traveller from Holland reports that many thousands of stocks have died in that country."
### Cures and Prevention.
Although no certain cause and no certain cure, which will work infallibly in all cases, have as yet been found for Isle of Wight disease, experience and experiment have proved certain broad principles quite conclusively. For example,Italian and certain hybrid races of bees, though not in every case immune, are found to be far less liable to the disease than the ordinary native English brown or " black " bee. It is for this reason that the Board of Agriculture has latterly imported many thousands of Italian queens and made them available for British bee-keepers at very low prices, and they have further encouraged the importation of Dutch bees on a large scale for the restocking of apiaries which have been depleted (and in some cases entirely destroyed) by the Isle of Wight disease. Dutch bees, and the hybrids bred from them, are found, like Italians, to resist the disease better than English bees, but many people find they swarm excessively.
I have just pointed out that certain hybrids resist the disease better than our pure-bred native bees, but the beekeeper who contemplates breeding queens for the purpose of restocking his apiary with hybrids will do well to bear in mind what I have already drawn particular attention to, with regard to hybrids, in Chapter III.--namely, that an Italian or Carniolan queen crossed with an English drone generally produces workers which, although they are good honey gatherers, are usually very vicious and difficult to handle ; while, on the other hand, an English queen, mated with an Italian or Carniolan drone, generally produces workers which are both good honey producers and gentle when handled. But it must be borne in mind that these English queens, generally speaking, are not so prolific as either Italians or Carniolans. Since, however, in the second generation, such lack of prolificness tends to disappear, probably the best results of all would be obtained by breeding our queens from English mothers which had been crossed with Italian drones, and mating the virgin queens thus bred with Carniolan drones ; or, if the English mother had been mated with a Carniolan instead of an Italian drone, we should endeavour to have the virgin queens bred from her mated with Italian drones.
Although it occasionally happens that the strongest stocks in the apiary are the first to be attacked by Isle of Wight disease, yet it is _generally_ the stocks whose vitality is lowest --that is to say, the stocks which are headed by weak or inferior queens--that are most subject to be attacked. The importance, therefore, of keeping all stocks headed by _vigorous_ Italian or hybrid queens (whether the bee-keeper imports them or breeds them himself) must be manifest to all.1
Footnote 1: In this connection the experience of an American bet-keeper, Mr. Win. Belshaw, Everett, published in the _British Bee Journal_ of 3rd February 1921, is of great interest:
Certain disinfectants, such as Bacterol, Izal, and Flavine, are recommended for the cure of Isle of Wight bee disease. They should be used both as sprays, and also to medicate the syrup fed to the bees, in the proportions indicated on the bottles sold by the dealers in bee goods. "Apicure," advertised by the propriator of the _British Bee Journal_, is also recommended for curing this disease.
When medicated food is fed to the bees for this purpose it is best fed to them in Taylor's "Physic " feeder (fig. 41_a_) as in the case of foul brood; and the syrup used for such feeding should (except in late autumn) be thin--made with 3 lbs. of sugar to each quart of water.
Whether Isle of Wight disease is infectious or not is a moot point, but as it is certainly highly contagious, it will be best, if the stock attacked be a weak one, to smother the bees with sulphur in the manner described in the case of foul brood, and to burn _all_ the quilts, combs, and frames, as well as the dead bees, while the hives must be _most_ thoroughly disinfectedby first scrubbing them inside and out with boiling water and strong soap, and afterwards painting them over very liberally with a solution of one part of Calvert's No. 5 carbonic acid to each two parts of water, taking care that this solution soaks _thoroughly_ into every joint and cranny, just as in the case of fuel brood. After exposure to sun and air, until the smell of carbolic has passed off, the hives may be used again.
Stray swarms that have taken possession of old hives and combs in which the former bees had died of Isle of Wight disease have occasionally failed to contract the disease themselves. But this is no more proof that the disease is not infectious than the well-known fact that many nurses in infectious fever hospitals never contract fever themselves is proof that many virulent fevers are not both infectious and contagious.
**Need for Adequate Ventilation**.
Bee-keepers ought always to bear in mind that lack of proper ventilation is a contributory cause of Isle of Wight disease.
**Disinfection**.
The bee-keeper, after handling any hive infected, or suspected of being infected, with Isle of Wight disease, must take the same precautions to disinfect himself and any appliances he may have used very thoroughly before he manipulates another hive, as are necessary (and have been described) in the case of fuel brood. Needless to say, he must never put a comb, quilt, or anything else from.a diseased hive into a healthy one.
be found useful by those who do not possess the Swiss Wax Extractor, which is decidedly expensive. Nevertheless, it is seldom possible to extract _quite_ all of the wax from the combs without a Swiss Extractor, and if many old combs are melted down this failure to extract the last particle of wax from each comb will entail a loss in the long run.
**Do not Hive Swarms on Full Sheets of Foundation Only.**
Do not hive a swarm--particularly a large one--on full sheets of foundation alone, for its weight, especially in hot weather, is liable to break them down unless at least three frames containing already drawn-out comb are interspersed between the full sheets of foundation. If no frames of drawn-out comb at all are available it will be better to hive a swarm on frames containing "starters" of foundation 1 inch deep only.
**Do not Extract from Combs containing Brood.**
Do not, where possible, extract from combs containing brood, more especially unsealed brood. Not only is it likely to throw a large quantity of unsealed brood out into the extractor, but it is very liable to chill and kill the brood, particularly in cool weather. So experienced an authority as Simmins claims that large quantities of brood chilled thus will cause foul brood. Be this as it may, no much better "culture" for the germination of any germs of foul brood that may exist could possibly be found than brood " chilled" and killed in this way.
**Plinths and Hive Legs.**
**If the absolutely straight plinths shown in 6, fig. 6 (page 17), are used in the construction of a beehive, the upper storeys and the roof, unless made a little larger than the body box, will constantly stick tight when we try to handle them. To avoid this inconvenience manufacturers of beehives generally use the style of plinth shown in fig. 42. Many amateurs who make their own hives would find some difficulty in making plinths of this kind, and such people can
Figure 42: The best sort of Plinth for_Beehives.
now buy these plinths separately from Mr. Edward J. Burt, of Stroud Road, Gloucester.
Legs (fig. 43) which can be screwed to any beehive may similarly be bought separately.
Packing Bees for Travelling by Road or Rail.