[THE RISK OF LOSS THROUGH DISEASE AND ENEMIES.]
Winter losses through disease superinduced by unfavorable surroundings which it is within the power of the bee keeper to avoid have already been considered. But one other very serious disease has been widespread.
FOUL BROOD OR BACILLUS OF THE HIVE.
This is a highly contagious affection which, as it mainly affects the developing brood in the cells, is commonly known as "foul brood." It is due to a microbe (Bacillus alvei) whose spores are easily transported from hive to hive by the bees themselves, by the operator, in honey, or in combs changed from one hive to another. Once established in an apiary, it usually spreads, unless speedily and energetically checked, until all of the colonies in the neighborhood are ruined and even exterminated. The most apparent symptoms are the turning black of larvæ in open cells, many sealed cells with sunken caps, frequently broken in and containing dead larvæ or pupæ in a putrid condition, brown or coffee-colored, jelly-like or ropy in consistency, and giving off an offensive odor. The disease, though known to exist in nearly all countries, can hardly be said to be common. The writer, in an experience of over thirty years in bee keeping in several States of the Union, as well as in a number of foreign countries, has met the disease but rarely, and has had but one experience with it in his own apiary, it having been in this instance brought in by a neighbor who purchased bees at a distance. It was easily cured, without great loss. Thus the beginner's risks of disaster in this direction are, if he be forewarned, comparatively small. He may, furthermore, gain assurance from the fact that, should the disease invade his apiary, prompt and intelligent action will prevent serious loss.
The following is the treatment for a colony which still has sufficient strength of numbers to be worth saving: The bees are to be shaken from their combs just at nightfall into an empty box, which is to be removed at once to a cool, dark place. They are to be confined to the box, but it must be well ventilated through openings covered with wire cloth. During the first forty-eight hours no food should be given to them, and during the second forty-eight hours only a small amount of medicated sirup—a half pint daily for a small colony to a pint for a strong one. This food is prepared by adding one part of pure carbolic acid or phenol to 600 or 700 parts of sugar sirup or honey. At the end of the fourth day the bees are to be shaken into a clean hive supplied with starters of comb foundation. This hive is to be placed outside on a stand some distance from all other colonies, and moderate feeding with medicated sirup or honey should be continued for a few days thereafter.
The combs of diseased colonies which contain brood may be assembled over a single one of these colonies, or, if the amount of brood be too great for one colony to care for, over several such diseased colonies, until the young bees have emerged. All of the honey is then to be extracted. While it is wholesome as food, it should not be offered for sale, lest some of it be used in feeding bees or be inadvertently exposed where foraging bees might find it and carry to their hives the germs of this disease, harmless to other creatures but so fatal to bee life. A good use for this honey is to employ it in making vinegar. One and one-third pounds added to each gallon of rain water or soft spring water and allowed to ferment for three months in a warm place makes a quality of vinegar quite equal to the best cider vinegar. Provision for the free circulation of air through the cask should be made. This is easily secured by placing the cask, not completely filled, on its side and boring an auger hole in each end near the upper side, the holes to be covered with cheese cloth or fine gauze, to keep out insects.
If the honey containing the germs is to be used for feeding bees, it is to be diluted with half its own quantity, by measure, of water and kept at the boiling point for three hours in a water bath—a vessel within another containing water.
The combs from which the honey has been extracted, as well as all of the pieces built by the bees during their four days' confinement, may be melted into wax, by thorough boiling in soft water. This wax should be kept liquid for 48 hours or longer, to allow all impurities to settle. These will include the foul brood spores, which may then be removed with, the impure wax by scraping or cutting away the bottom of the cake. These scrapings should be burned. The same disposition had better be made of the frames from which the combs containing germs were removed.
In all of this work the utmost care should be exercised to avoid the dripping of honey about the apiary or the exposure of implements, receptacles, or combs smeared with or containing honey from the diseased colonies. It may even be better, in order to save time and possible risk, where but few combs and a comparatively small amount of honey are involved, to destroy all of these immediately after their removal from the hive. The old hive and all utensils used about the diseased colony should be disinfected by washing in a solution of corrosive sublimate—one-eighth ounce in one gallon of water—and should afterwards be exposed to the air and sun for some time. If healthy colonies are to be manipulated immediately after handling diseased ones the hands of the operator must also be disinfected by washing in the solution just mentioned.
Those who care to try and save combs and brood should employ the remedial method developed by the late Professor Cheshire. This is explained in full in his work on bee keeping,[C] and a brief statement of it may also be found in "The Honey Bee," Bulletin No. 1, new series, of the Bureau of Entomology, United States Department of Agriculture. Notwithstanding these remedies, some will prefer, where healthy colonies of bees can be bought at moderate prices, to burn diseased bees, combs, and frames rather than spend time to effect a cure, and risk, as they fear they may, the further spread of the pest. To kill the bees thus is, however, neither profitable, humane, nor necessary, for if confined as described above and separated at once from the other colonies, this work being done at nightfall, when all of the bees are in their hives, the risk of spreading the disease will not thereby be increased, nor is the labor much greater than that involved in the removal of combs and bees for burning. And if it be found that the diseased colonies are weak in numbers and seem, therefore, individually hardly worth saving, this need not be taken as an excuse for the death sentence, as several colonies may be smoked and shaken together into the same box to make a single strong colony, the best queen of the lot having been selected and caged in the box in such a way that the workers can release her within a few hours by eating through candy.