BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
These imperceptible "sticks" break successively into several parts, every one of which forms a colony of spores, that pass through divers shapes before developing into new bacilli. We can judge of the promptness of their reproduction, and of their ninuteness, when we read in Cheshire, that a dead Since the present edition was printed, Dr. G. F. White, of the Bureau of Animal Industry at Washington, has reported bacteriological experiments on foul-broad and on black-broad which he has proven to be two different disease.s. "_Bacillus alwi_" has been found to be the black-broad of New York and is now called "European foul-broad" because it was first described in Europe. The true foul-broad of the West is described by him as "_Bacillus larvae_" and is to be called American foul-broad to distiguish it from the other.
**Dr. Phillips, in circular No. 79, of the Bureau of Entomology, thus describes black-broad now called European foul-broad:**
"Adult bees in infected colonies are not very active but do succeed in cleaning out some of the dried scales. This disease attacks larvae earlier than does American foul-broad, and a comparatively small percentage of the brood is ever capped; the diseased larvae which are capped over have sunken and perforated cappings. The larvae when first attacked show a small yellow spot on the body near the head and move uneasily in the cell; when death occurs they turn yellow, then brown and finally almost black. Decaying larvae which have died of this disease do not usually stretch out in a long thread when a small stick is inserted and slowly removed; occasionally there is a slight ropiess but this is never very marked. The thoroughly dried larvae form irregular scales which are not strongly adherent to the lower side wall of the cell. There is very little odor from decaying larvae which have died from this disease, and when an odor is noticeable it is not the "glue pot" odor of American foul-broad, but more nearly resembles that of soured dead brood."
**The methods of treatment of both diseases do not differ, and the McEvoy method seems applicable to both. See "Bacteria of the Apiary" U. S. Bureau of Entomology, Technical Series No. 14, by G. F. White, Ph. D.**
larva frequently contains as many as _one billion_ of these. spores (**2S**).
**7SS.** In the _Bulletin_algricole du lepartement de l'Aub's_, Mr. Brunet narrates the experiments made by Mr. Mareel Dupont, to breed the bacilli of foul-brood. Knowing that Pasteur used beef-broth in this kind of experiments, Mr. Dupont filled three glass-tubes with unsalted beef-broth, prepared according to the directions given by Pasteur, and after sealing and boiling them, to kill any living organisms that might have existed inside, he introduced into two of them, with a fine needle, a small quantity of a liquid, in which particles from the body of a diseased larva had been dissolved. One week after, the broth in both of these tubes, was cloudy and full' of bacilli, while the liquid, in the third tube, had remained clear and unchanged.
**7S9.** Description.
''In most cases the larva is attacked when nearly ready to seal up. It turns slightly yellow, or grayish spots appear on it. It then seems to soften, settles down in the bottom of the cell, in a shapeless mass, at first white, yellow, or grayish in color, soon changing to brown. At this stage it becomes glutinous and ropy; then, after a varying length of time, owing to the weather, it dries up into a dark coffee-colored mass. Usually the bees make no attempt to clean out the infected cells, and they will sometimes fill them with honey, covering up this dried foul-brood matter at the bottom.
Sometimes the larva do not die until sealed over. We have been told that such may be easily detected by a sunken capping perforated by a ''pin-hole.'' This is by no means invariably the case. Such larvae will often dry up entirely, without the cap being perforated or perceptibly sunken, although it usually becomes darker in color than those covering healthy larvae.
The most fatal misapprehension has been in regard to the smell of the disease. In its first stages there is no perceptible smell, and it is not until the disease has made a considerable progress that any unusual smell would be noticed by most persons. In the last stages, when sometimes half or more of the * 176 DISEASES of bees.
cells in the hive are filled with rotten brood, the odor becomes sufficiently pronounced, but the nose is not to be relied on to decide whether a colony has foul brood or not. Long before it can be detected by the sense of smell, the colony is in a condition to communicate the disease to others.
The eye alone can be depended on, and it must be a sharp and
trained eye, too, if any headway is to be made in curing the disease. (J. A. Green, in "Gleanings," January, 1887.)
**790.** "Foul-brood can be detected in the Spring, either through an unusual spreading of the brood, resulting from an unnoticed previous infection, of an indefinite number of cells, which contain sick or dead larvae, or, if the disease is just beginning, by the presence, among the brood, of sick or rotten larvae. The larvae die and rot either before or after sealing. It is only when the disease has lasted for some time, that the
Figure 212:
cappings are punctured, and that the brood has an offensive odor.''--(Bertrand, Revue Internationale d'Apiculture.)
Two things are important in the detection of the disease and on these we will insist, the ropiiness and the glue-pot smell. The ropiiness gave the idea of the French name of the disease "la loque" which means "rag, tatter." Evidently the Frenchman who gave it a name noticed that the dead larva, if you attempt to draw it out, comes in tatters, in rags, just as so much liquid India rubber. The glue-pot smell is also plain. These matters are important for there is a disease called "piekled brood" which is far from being as dangerous as foul-brood and has most of the symptoms of foul-brood except the ropiiness and smell (**S01**).
**791**. Cure. Several methods of cure for foul-brood have been given, with more or less suecessful results. We will first give the method of Hilbert, as practiced by Chas. F. Muth and described in his "Practical Hints":
''In April, I discovered two colonies in my apiary, affected with the disease. I brimstoned the bees the same evening, burned up the combs and frames, and disinfected the hives. Another colony showed it in May. Feeling sorry to kill a beautiful queen, besides a very strong colony of pure Italians, I brushed them on ten frames of como-foundation, into a clean hive, and placed over them a jar with food, as I shall describe hereafter. The old combs and frames were burned up, and the hives disinfected. This feeding was kept up until all the sheets of comb-foundation were built out nicely and filled with brood and honey. It was a beautiful colony of bees about four weeks afterwards, full of healthy brood, and with combs as regular as can only be made by the aid of comb-foundation. Four more colonies were discovered infected, one after another. All went through the same process, and every one is a healthy colony at present. I was so convinced of the conpleteness of this cure, that I introduced into one of these colonies my first Cyprian queen sent me by friend Dadant.
''All are doing finely now, and no more foul-brood. Should, however, another one of my colonies show signs of the disease,* 478. DISEASES OF BESS.
it would not be because it had caught it from its neighbor which I had attempted to cure, but because the germ of foul-broad was hidden somewhere in the hive, and of late had come in contact with a larva. "The formula of the mixture is as follows:
16 gr. salieylie acid,
16 gr. soda borax,
1 oz. water.
"I keep on hand a bottle of this mixture, so as to be always ready for an emergency; also a druggist's ounce glass, so that I may know what I am doing. My food was honey, with about 25 per cent. water added. But we may feed honey or sugar syrup, adding to every quart of food an ounce of the above mixture. Bees being without comb and brood, partake of it readily, and by the time their comb-foundation is built out, you will find your colony in a healthy and prosperous condition.
"Thus you sec foul-broad can be rooted out completely, and without an extra amount of trouble, provided you are sufficiently impressed with its dangerous, insilious character, and are prepared to meet it promptly on its first appearance.
"When an atomizer is used on combs and larva the medicine should be only half as strong as given in the formula."
**792.** Since Muth wrote the above, Hilbert improved the method, by dispensing with soda borax, and adding to his treatment fumigaticnis with evaporating salicylic acid. We give this new method, for it has been used successfully by Mr. Bertrand and several of his neighbors in a number of different apiaries in Switzerland.
Prepare:
_Solution No. 1,_
Crystallized salieylie acid 1 oz,
Pure alcohol, 8 oz.
With this mixture prepare:
_Solution No. 2,_ for washing ur sprinkling the combs with an atomizer, 20 drops of solution No. 1, mixed with 7 ounces of tepid rain water, or 200 drops in a pint of water.
_Solution No. 3,_ to be used in the food of the bees, about
## Chapter 26
220 drops of solution No. 1 in a quart of syrup or honey boiled with about a fifth of tepid water. To avoid the trouble of counting the drops every time, it is advisable to put them, the first time in a graded vial, or in a small bottle in which a mark can be made for the repeated measurement of the solution. The water can be measured in the same way.
Describing the Hilbert proeess, Mr. Cowan, who has also succeeded in curing a number of eases, writes:
"One of the simplest and most rapid ways of curing the disease is by Hilbert's fumigating process, as the fumes of salicylic acid have the power of penetrating everything in the hive and destroying all the germs of foul-brood. The apparatus used for this purpose is the fumigator improved by Mr. Ed.
Bertrand, (fig. 213). It consists of a cylinder A, to which is hinged, at D, a cover B, having a nozzle at C. This is 5 inches by 1%, so as to be easily inserted between hive and floor board, and it is kept in position by the fastening E. A spirit lamp H, has the flame so regulated that the acid placed in the metal dish I, above it, is gently evaporated. The hive to be operated upon is not removed from its stand, but is raised up at the back off its floor-board by means of blocks of wood, and
with, and all wood work painted over with the salicylic solution, to prevent the disease spreading any further. "If the treatment above given be adopted in time, it will effect a cure, but if the disease is neglected and allowed to assume the worst type, much more trouble will be experienced in its eradication. Some advise destroying the hives, but I never found any necessity to do this, as salicylic acid is sufficient to destroy any germs of the disease which may have adhered to the hive."--(British Bee-Keepers' Guide Book.)
**794**. Mr. Cheshire, in turn, finding this process of evaporating salicylic aeid long and tedious, contrived a new method in which he uses exndolie acid, otherwise called pheno!, after the suggestion of an Irish Apiarist, R. Sproule.
As bees strongly dislike exndolie acid, since it is used to frighten them (**670**), the quantity has to be very small, or they will not touch the food containing it. The dose used by Cheshire, in the food, is about one ounee for forty pounds of syrup, amounting to 1-640th, but this proportion may be changed, according to circumstances. When there is no honey in the fields, he says that the proportion may be reduced to 1-750th.
"The exndolic acid should be added to the syrup when the latter is cool and equally mixed by careful stirring.'--(Cheshire. Page 565.)
When the bees refused to touch the food thus prepared, Cheshire suceeeded in compelling them to use it, by pouring it into the combs, in the eells immediately around and over the brood. He advises the use of one part of phenol in fifty parts of water, for spraying the infeeted combs that are removed from the bees, but in no case does he spray the inside of the brood-nest of the diseased colony with this solution.--(British Bee Journal, 1887, page 397.)
A number of other drugs, such as naphtol beta, eamphor, oil of euealyptus, formalin, have been recommended in different ways, while some authors hold that drugs are of no avail. Mr. E. R. Root, in the \(\Lambda\) B C of Bee Culture, says:
* "All the difference from the MeEvoy treatment that I practice, I dig a pit on the level ground near the diseased apiary, and after getting a fire in the pit, such diseased combs, frames, etc., as are to be burned are burned in this pit in the evening and then the fresh earth from the pit returned to cover all from sight....I also cage the queens while the bees are on the strips of foundation."--(N. E. France, in Bulletin No. 2, Wisconsin Bee-Keeping.)
The above method is called the starvation method. That is to say, the bees are transferred and forced to build comb until they have used up all of the honey they had in the diseased hive. A similar method was recommended by Sehirach, the same man who discovered that a queen can be raised from a worker egg (109, footnote).
This method is based on the theory that the honey is the main transmitter of the disease. This is in contradiction with Cheshire's statement, that he found no spores in honey, but _practice has sufficiently proved that Cheshire's conclusions were erroneous._ Although the spores of the baeillus may not be very numerous in the honey, they are there in the very best position to spread the disease, since out of the honey and pollen is made the food which goes to the larva and it is the larva which suffers from the disease, in most cases. However, according to the bacteriologists who have made a study of the matter, the baeillus may also be found in the organs of the bees and of the queen, and some even assert that bees and queens (7S7) have been killed by the disease. McEvoy asserts that it is not necessary to disinfect the hives that have contained the diseased colonies. In this he is sustained by many others, but in very virulent cases we believe it is advisable to do it. Although the Bertrand-Cowan method has been used successfully we believe that the destruction of the combs of the diseased colonies will prove most effective. Such combs as contain brood should be burnt up, but those that contain no brood may as well be made into wax (S58-S62). Care should be taken -- when either honey or beeswax is heated to kill the germs of foulbrood\(-\)to keep the liquid at the boiling point for a couple hours at least, as it has been asserted by several experimenters that less than two hours, and in some cases less than three hours of boiling, left the germs alive. All agree that after three hours of boiling the germs are entirely destroyed. With those precautions the danger will be entirely eliminated. We have never seen a case of foulbrood in our own yards, although for years we have bought beeswax from all sources and made it into foundation, which we used in large quantities.
**796**. But the bee-keeper must remember that, since this is a contagious disease, he must use the greatest precaution, for instance, he should wash his hands in a solution of phenol or salicylic acid, when going from one hive to another, after treating a sick colony. He should carefully prevent all chances of robbing, and leave nothing exposed that has belonged to a diseased colony. It is also best to apply a preventive treatment by feeding mediated food to all the colonies in an apiary, when the disease has one been discovered, for if but a few spores escape and they find a favorable chance they will soon spread the contagion again.
**797**. This reminds our Senior of an incident that happened in his younger days, while he lived with his father, who was a physician. A laborer had come to the old doctor for an ointment to cure the "iteb." He had caught this --now uncommon and ever disgraeeful\(-\)contagious skin disease, while working as a harvest hand, in the country. Directions were given him for using the ointment, and he was told that his wife should anoint with it also, as a preventive. But the woman, who did not have the disease, refused to use it, and two weeks afterwards the man came back for more ointment. He was cured, but his wife had the itch in her turn. The doctor gave him some, and told him that he should use it too, or he might catch the disease again; but he did not mind the warning, and two weeks later, he had to call for more. "Well," said the old doctor, "I hope that these two experiments will convince you of the necessity of a thorough treatment for both, with a disease that is transmitted so readily, by contact."
The case is exactly the same with the baicillus. While we are treating one colony, a few spores may be transmitted to a neighboring hive, by the contact of a single bee, and the disease is spread, unknown to us, while we are congratulating ourselves, in the firm belief that we have eradicated it.
**79S.** The eure may be delayed, and may even fail altogether, if the queen is infected. Then the only resource is to kill her and give the colony another from a healthy hive.
**799.** Mr. E. W. Alexander, in Gleanings in Bee Culture, for November 1, 1905, asserts that he has cured black-brood,.which is only a variety of foul-brood, by removing the queen and giving the hive a queen-cell from healthy sources, at sneh a time as to enable all the old brood to be hatehed out before the young queen lays. This is under the assumption that the bees will clean out all the dead brood, but in many instances it has been asserted that the bees do not clean out the dead brood, so this eure is evidently not to be relied on, in virulent foul-brood. It was previously tried by Mr. Simmins, of England.
All disinfectants and antiseptics are good, as preentives and perhaps also as eure, but it must be borne in mind that they cannot very readily reach to the bottom of cells containing putrid or dried-up larvae. The irregularities in the reports of eure, some failing where others succeeded, may be ascribed to differences in the intensity of the disease. On this matter Mr. Bertrand, in his work, "La loque et son traitement," says:
"In countries that are rich in melliferous resources, where bees have been kept for years, and where, in consequence, foul-brood must have been in existence for a long time and exists in an endemic state, the race has acquired a relative immunity, a force of resistance which diminishes considerably the effects of the disease."of the disease and permits of its being more easily overcome. Perhaps, also, in those regions, the virus of foul-brood may have become weakened, in time, as has been observed in the virus of certain diseases affecting the human race. In such countries, the simple transferring of a colony of foul-brood bees into a healthy hive, seems sufficient to cure them."
**S00.** Foul-brood is transmitted from one hive to another--like Asiatic cholera among men--by different means. Robbing (**664**) is probably one of the main helps to contamination, as the robber bees may take the baecillus hone, among their hair, unaware. Working bees may even gather the seourge from some sweet-seentel blosson contaminated by previous visitors. The transportation, or shipping, of bees, from one part of the country to another, is often a means of spreading the disease, and some of our State legislatures have made very stringent laws on the subject. In these States foul-brood inspectors have been appointed to examine apiaries where the disease exists and treat the bees.
Contagious diseases were once the scourge of the land. Who has not heard of the plague, the dread disease of the dark ages? According to Chambers' Encyclopedia, the plague of 1665 destroyed seventy thousand people, in London alone. Earlier still, in 13\(\pm\)8, according to Sismondi, the plague destroyed three-fifths of the entire population of Europe, extending even up into Iceland. It was during that terrible-seourge that the city of Florence lost over one hundred thousand people. If these dreaded diseases are now but little feared, we owe it to scientific discoveries. The microscope has shown that nearly all contagious diseases, which men or animals are subject to, are caused by living organisms, and medical seience now teaches how they may be avoided by inoculation, or other means. More discoveries are daily made, and we can hope that the day is not far, when the advancement of science will have put an end to all these ills, and the baecillus alvei will be a thing of the past.
W. R. Howard of Texas, F. C. Harrison of Ontario, T. W.
## Chapter 11 Late 38
N. E. FRANCE,
Expert on Foul-brood, holding a diseased comb. The line drawn shows the direction of the eye to detect the dried-up?
Iurve. General Manager of the National
Bee-Keepers' Association.
newed in the cotton every four days, until a cure is effected, which does not usually require over a month. No combs need be destroyed, as the bees clean out the dead brood. It has been asserted by some writers that the oil of eucalyptus causes the bees to rob, on account of its strong suell. We have noticed nothing of the kind. We believe that in many cases where reports have been made of a prompt curing of foul-brool, the apiarist has mistaken this mild disease for true foul-brool.
## Chapter 11 Example
### 11.1 Example
The _Bee-Moth_ (_Tinea mellonella_) is mentioned by Aristotle, Virgil, Columbia and other ancient authors, as one of the most formidable enemies of the honey-bee. Even in the first part of this century, the bee-writers, almost without exception, regarded it as the plague of their apiaries.
Swammerdam speaks of two species of the bee-moth (called in his time the "_bee-wolf_"), one much larger than the other. Linnaeus and Reaunur also describe two kinds -_Tinea cereana_ and _Tinea mellonella_.
Seientists do not agree exactly as to these species, nor their names, calling them, _galleria cereana, galleria alcaria, tinea cereella_, etc.
The smailer moth, now denominated "Achroia Grisella," is mentioned in the A B C of Bee-culture. Mr. E. F. Phillips speaks of it in Gleanings, of October 1, 1905.
Most writers supposed the former to be the male, and the latter the female of the same species. The following description is abridged from Dr. Harris' Report on the Insects of Massaehusetts:
**803. ''Very few of the Tinea exceed or even equal it in size.
In its adult state it is a winged moth, or miller, measuring, from the head to the tip of the closed wings, from five-eighths to three-quarters of an ineh in length, and its wings expand from one inch and one-tenth to one inch and four.tenths. The fore-wings shut together flatly on the top of the back, slope steeply downwards at the sides, and are turned up at the end somewhat like the tail of a fowl. The female is much larger than the male, and much darker-colored. There are two broods of these insects in the course of the year.* Some winged moths of the first brood begin to appear towards the end of April or early in May--earlier or later, according to climate and season. Those of the second brood are more abundant in August; but some may be found between these periods, and even much later.**
Footnote *: Prof. Cook is of opinion (Guide, page 315) that there may be three broods in a year and we believe he is correct. We have seen them most numerous in hot October weather.
No writer with whom we are acquainted has given such an exaet description of the differences between the sexes, that they can always be readily distinguished. The wood-cuts of the moths, larvae, and ceooons, which we present to our readers, were drawn from nature, by Mr. M. M. Tidd, of Boston, Mass., and engraved by Mr. D. T. Smith, of the same city. Mr. Tidd seems first to have noticed that the _snout or palpus of the female, projects_ so as to resemble a bank, while that of the male is very short.
While some males are larger than some females, and some females much lighter-colored than the average of males, and occasionally some males as dark as the darkest females, the peculiarity of the snout of the female is so marked, that she may always be distinguished at a glance.