Manual of the apiary

by Albert John Cook

The symptoms are as follows: Decline in the prosperity of the colony, because of failure to rear brood. The brood seems to putrefy, becomes "brown and salvy," and gives off a stench, which is by no means agreeable, while later, the caps are concave instead of convex, and have a little hole through them.

There is no longer any doubt as to the cause of this fearful plague. Like the fell "Pebrine," which came so near exterminating the "silk worm," and a most lucrative and extensive industry in Europe, it, as conclusively shown by Drs. Preusz and Shönfeld, of Germany, is the result of fungous or vegetable growth. Shönfeld not only infected healthy bee larvæ, but those of other insects, both by means of the putrescent foul brood, and by taking the spores.

Fungoid growths are very minute, and the spores are so infinitesimally small as often to elude the sharp detection of the expert microscopist. Most of the terrible, contagious diseases that human flesh is heir to, like typhus, diphtheria, cholera, small pox, &c., &c., are now thought to be due to microscopic germs, and hence to be spread from home to home, and from hamlet to hamlet, it is only necessary that the spores, the minute seeds, either by contact or by some sustaining air current, be brought to new soil of flesh blood or other tissue—their garden spot—when they at once spring into growth, and thus lick up the very vitality of their victims. The huge mushroom will grow in a night. So too, these other plants—the disease germs—will develop with marvelous rapidity; and hence the horrors of yellow fever, scarlatina, and cholera.

To cure such diseases, the fungi must be killed. To prevent their spread, the spores must be destroyed, or else confined. But as these are so small, so light, and so invisible—easily borne and wafted by the slightest zephyr of summer, this is often a matter of the utmost difficulty.

In "Foul Brood" these germs feed on the larvæ of the bees, and thus convert life and vigor into death and decay. If we can kill this miniature forest of the hive, and destroy the spores, we shall extirpate the terrible plague.

REMEDIES.

If we can find a substance that will prove fatal to the fungi, and yet not injure the bees, the problem is solved. Our German scientists—those masters in scientific research and discovery, have found this valuable fungicide in salicylic acid, an extract from the same willows that give us pollen and nectar. This cheap white powder is easily soluble in alcohol, and when mixed with borax in water.

Mr. Hilbert, one of the most thoughtful of German bee-keepers, was the first to effect a radical cure of foul brood in his apiary by the use of this substance. He dissolved fifty grains of the acid in five hundred grains of pure spirits. One drop of this in a grain of distilled water is the mixture he applied. Mr. C. F. Muth, from whom the above facts as to Herr Hilbert are gathered, suggests a variation in the mixture.

Mr. Muth suggests an improvement, which takes advantage of the fact that the acid, which alone is very insoluble in water, is, when mixed with borax, soluble. His recipe is as follows: One hundred and twenty-eight grains of salicylic acid, one hundred and twenty-eight grains of soda borax, and sixteen ounces distilled water. There is no reason why water without distillation should not do as well.

This remedy is applied as follows: First uncap all the brood, then throw the fluid over the comb in a fine spray. This will not injure the bees, but will prove fatal to the fungi.