Cure of Foulbrood.
Mr. Editor:—I promised, (vol. V., page 187,) to report how my refrigerator wintered its colony. The frames were covered with a piece of old carpeting, and the whole space outside the inner hive packed with straw and shavings. This spring it was in splendid condition, and it was found necessary to remove brood and cut out queen cells as early as the 20th of May; and, for this locality, the surplus would have been large, if I had not been obliged to break up the colony on account of foulbrood.
You can imagine my disappointment when my apiarian friend, Mr. Sweet of West Mansfield, pointed out to me this loathsome disease in my choicest Italian colony, early in June, when up to that time I had supposed that everything was prosperous with my twelve colonies. After a thorough examination I found six hives more or less affected, and according to high authority, should be condemned to death. The other six appeared free from disease at this time, although three more subsequently became diseased.
This is my second summer of bee-keeping, and all the duties pertaining to an apiary were entered into with the enthusiasm, and shall I confess it, the ignorance and carelessness of a novice. Yes, ignorance and culpable carelessness, for in gathering empty combs from various quarters, the disease was introduced and spread among my pets. One hive, in particular, of empty comb had the peculiar odor, perforated cells, and brown viscid fluid, with which I have since become so familiar this summer; and it seems unaccountable to me, how any person with the Bee Journal wide open and Quinby’s instructions before him, could be so careless as to give such combs to his bees.
But such was the fact, and foulbrood spreading right and left. What shall be done to get rid of it? Shall Quinby be followed, purify the hive and honey by scalding, and treat the colony as a new swarm; or shall the heroic treatment of Alley be adopted; bury or burn bees and hive, combs and all? The latter has sent me some fine queens; but the former has always given reliable advice, and I shall follow his instructions with two colonies which are past all cure, and reserve the others for treatment, hoping that I may find some cure, or at least palliative for the disease, and add my mite of experience, and, perhaps, useful knowledge to our Bee Journal.
Accordingly, June 8th, the combs of the two condemned colonies were melted into wax, the honey drained over and scalded, and the bees, after a confinement of forty hours, were treated like new swarms; and now, September 18th, are perfectly healthy and in fine condition for winter.
I will not occupy your valuable space with all the details of my experiments and fights (which lasted through three months) with the trials of doses of different strengths and kinds, with old comb and new, with young queens and old ones, and with no queen at all, and how, in doing this, I was obliged to keep up the strength of the colony for fear of robbers and of spreading the disease to my neighbors. Suffice it to say, that after two months I had made no apparent headway, although still determined to “fight it out on this line, if it took all summer” and my last hive. In fact, I devoted my apiary to the study of this disease, and, perhaps, death.
Starting with, and holding to the theory that foulbrood is contagious only by the diffusion of living germs of feeble vitality, (and I was strengthened in my conjecture in microscopical examinations, by finding the dead larvæ filled with nucleated cells,) I determined to try those remedies which have the power of destroying the vitality of these destructive germs, these living organisms. And no remedies seemed to me more potent than carbolic acid and hyposulphite of soda. At first I used both, making one application of each, with an interval of one day, and with apparent benefit. But, attributing the improvement to the more powerful of the two, I abandoned the hyposulphite and used the carbolic acid alone, and I was so infatuated with the idea of its superiority, that I did not give it up until three of the four hives had become so hopelessly diseased, that the combs were destroyed and the colonies treated to new combs (as it was late in the season,) and freely fed with sugar and water. These are now in good condition for winter.
The fourth hive was carried a mile away, the queen caged, and the colony strengthened with a medium sized second swarm. After all the brood, which was advanced, had left the cells, I transferred the colony to a clean hive; thoroughly sulphured the old hive with burning sulphur, and stored it away in a safe place for future experiments. I now thought my apiary free from the pest; but on thoroughly examining the whole, three new cases of foulbrood were found—one very badly affected, and two slightly so, with perhaps twenty to forty cells diseased and perforated.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by Samuel Wagner, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
This was about the 1st of August, and again hyposulphite of soda was selected for the trial; and from the first application I have had the disease under control. Three days ago I examined the three colonies thoroughly, and found no new cells diseased in the two which had been the least affected; and in the almost hopelessly diseased one (as much diseased, in fact, as any of those that I destroyed,) an entire brood had been raised, with not over fifty or sixty diseased and perforated cells with dead larvæ remaining, most on one comb, and nearly all the cells contained a new supply of eggs; this colony is certainly convalescent, and I think now, from the recent and second application of the hyposulphite of soda, is entirely cured. Still, I should not be surprised to find two or three, or even more, perforated cells after this second crop of brood has hatched, as the whole hive, honey, and comb, had been for so long a time so thoroughly saturated with the disease, and at least two-thirds of the cells had, before the medicine was used, been filled with putrid larvæ. If so, I shall treat it to a third dose.
Now, Mr. Editor, as it is frequently of as much practical importance to tell how to administer a remedy, as it is to know its name, I will ask your indulgence a little longer, hoping that others may improve upon my remedy or at least test it, if they are so unfortunately ignorant and careless as I was, in bringing “the wolf home to the fold.”
The solution of hyposulphite of soda which I used, was one ounce to half a pint of rain water. With this I thoroughly washed out every diseased cell with an atomizer, after opening the cap; also spraying over the whole of the combs and the inside of the hive. The instrument I use is a spray producer, invented by Dr. Bigelow of Boston, and sold by Codman & Shurtleff of that city. There are two small metallic tubes, a few inches long, soldered together; and by placing the point of exit of the spray at the lower part of the cell, the whole of the contents of the cell is instantly blown out upon the metallic tubes. With a very little practice there is no necessity for polluting the comb with the putrid matter. Place the comb perfectly upright or a little leaned towards you, and there is no difficulty; yet, if a drop should happen to run down the comb, it would do no harm, but had better be carefully absorbed with a piece of old dry cotton cloth. I quite frequently do this with the bees on the comb, as it does them no harm, to say the least, to get well covered with the vapor.
It is not at all injurious to the larvæ, after they are two or three days old, though it may be before that time, as I have noticed that after using the hyposulphite where there are eggs and very young larvæ, the next day the cells are perfectly clean.
There are many interesting points which have come up during my summer’s fight, which I would speak of; but I have already gone beyond all reasonable bounds in this communication.
Edward P. Abbe.
New Bedford, Mass., Sept. 18, 1870.
[Translated from the Bienenzeitung,
For the American Bee Journal.]