Diseases of Bees
Dysentery is a disease produced either by long confinement, by dampness, or by feeding in the winter. The first thing bees do when disturbed is to fill themselves with food, so that in winter weather, when they cannot get out to void their fæces, hives should not be meddled with, otherwise the complaint may be brought on. It is also engendered in many instances by the state of the weather in winter months, and is indicated by the yellow colour of the excrement, and by its being voided upon the floors and at the entrance of the hives, which bees in a healthy state generally keep clean. All, that can be done for them when affected is to well clean or to change the floor-board, and so produce cleanliness. Having made some remarks on this disease at page 214, in connection with bees sent to Australia, we will pass on to the more formidable, but happily less common, malady of “foul brood.”
This disease does not attack the bees themselves, but affects the larvæ, by causing them to putrefy in the cells, thus destroying all hope of the rising generation. Bees are exceedingly fond of their young, and are greatly dispirited when their hives are in this plight. In common with most pestilential disorders, no satisfactory cause is assigned for its first appearance. Some apiarians contend, that “foul brood” is another name for chilled, brood; others, that the queen, by a freak of nature, deposits some of her eggs the wrong way upwards, and that these putrefy in the cells and contaminate the others. Whatever may be the origin, one thing is very certain, “it is catching;” there is, however, in the circumstance of the adult bees and of those about emerging from the cells not being injuriously affected thereby, a great help to its eradication, as will presently be shown.
There are two kinds of foul brood—one is moist and fœtid, the other is dry and not contagious, the brood merely drying up in the cells, and, from its partial character, is probably within the power of the bees themselves to overcome. In the former, instead of drying up, the brood remains dark and slimy in the cells, and emits a most unpleasant odour, perceptible at some distance from the hive.
In the year 1848, Pastor Dzierzon lost a large number of stocks from this disease; he, however, was enabled to banish it from his apiary, and communicated to a German bee-journal very wholesome advice, which Mr. Langstroth quotes, and from which we make an extract:—“When the malady makes its appearance in only two or three of the colonies, and is discovered early (which may readily be done in hives having movable combs), it can be arrested and cured without damage or diminution of profit. To prevent the disease from spreading in a colony, there is no more reliable and efficient process THAN TO STOP THE PRODUCTION OF BROOD; for where no brood exists, none can perish or putrefy. The disease is thus deprived both of its aliment and its subjects. The healthy brood will mature and emerge in due time, and the putrid matter remaining in a few cells will dry up and be removed by the workers. All this will certainly result from a well-timed removal of the queen from such colonies. If such removal becomes necessary in the spring or early part of the summer, a supernumerary queen is thereby obtained, by means of which an artificial colony may be started, which will certainly be healthy if the bees and brood used be taken from healthy colonies. Should the removal be made in the latter part of summer, the useless production of brood will at once be stopped and an unnecessary consumption of honey prevented. Thus, in either case, we are gainers by the operation.”
In cases where the disease assumes a more malignant character—in other words, “has got ahead,” through “not being nipped in the bud,”—it will be well to take notice of another quotation from Mr. Langstroth’s book:—“In the spring or summer, when the weather is fine and pasturage abounds, the following cure is recommended by a German apiarian:—‘Drive out the bees into any clean, hive, and shut them up in a dark place without food for twenty-four hours; prepare for them a clean hive, properly fitted up with comb from healthy colonies; transfer the bees into it, and confine them two days longer, feeding them with pure honey.’”
Mr. Woodbury’s apiary was severely attacked by this disease in the spring and summer of 1863. The writer happened to be on a visit to him at this juncture, and witnessed him withdrawing infected combs from hives that were literally masses of corruption, the brood-cells of which, on being opened with a pointed instrument, revealed the dark brown slimy matter before alluded to, and from which arose a most unpleasant smell. Mr. Woodbury communicated to the Journal of Horticulture, of July 21, 1863, an exact and graphic account of his misfortunes, headed “A Dwindling Apiary.” Finding that the removal of the putrid matter must be simultaneously effected and the bees driven out and placed in hives that had undergone a complete purification, Mr. Woodbury set about endeavouring to accomplish his object, and was so far successful, that he was able to furnish an article to the before-named journal of August 4th, under the more cheerful title of “Convalescent,” in which he says: “First, let me indorse the opinions both of Dzierzon and Rothe, that, except under very especial circumstances, it is unadvisable to attempt the cure of a foul-breeding stock: better, far better, to consign its inhabitants to the brimstone pit; the hive itself, if a straw one, to the flames; the comb to the melting pot; and appropriate the honey to any purpose, except that of feeding bees.”
Mr. Woodbury further says: “Before starting, it was requisite to insure the transfer of the bees to unpolluted hives; and here I found that Dzierzon declares that every hive that has contained a foul-breeding colony should be exposed to the sun and air for two years before being re-stocked. In my own case, this was simply impossible, and I therefore adopted the practice of another German writer on the subject, viz., to scrape out the hive very carefully, wash it all over with a saturated solution of chloride of lime, keeping it closely shut up for twenty-four hours, and then, after thoroughly washing it with clean water, exposing it to the sun and air until the smell of the disinfectant had passed off. This method has the advantage of enabling one to use a wooden hive again after a lapse of a couple of days, and is, I believe, thoroughly effectual.”
Mr. Woodbury then captured the queen, secured her in a “cage,” and placed her in a clean empty hive; all her bees were brushed from their combs into it as rapidly as possible, in order to prevent their carrying much of the infected honey with them, whilst the combs themselves were set draining out of the bees’ reach, and consigned as quickly as possible to the melting pot. After the lapse of three or four days, the queen (still imprisoned) and bees were again transferred to another clean hive, furnished with a few pure combs, and in this they were suffered to remain, their queen being released in a day or two, as soon as they appeared contentedly settled. Mr. Woodbury gives another important hint that operations of this kind with tainted combs should be performed out of reach of robber-bees from adjacent hives, lest they should carry the infection to their respective houses. By the before-mentioned process, Mr. Woodbury succeeded in completely extirpating foul brood from his apiary in 1863, and has had no return of it since. English apiarian writers have made so little allusion to this disorder, that some of our older bee-keepers contend that modern hives and foreign bees have something to do with bringing it about. To show that the disease made its appearance in former days, there is a chapter on this subject in Bonner’s “Bee-Keeper’s Companion,” published at Berwick, in 1798, entitled, “An uncommon Disaster which sometimes, though rarely, happens to Bees,” which Mr. Woodbury quotes at length in the Journal of Horticulture. Bonner, after recounting therein his observations of the dwindling state of his apiary for which he could not account, says: “He saw plainly that the young were all going backward in the cells, and that he looked down between the combs, but was unable to proceed for the stench that the rotten maggots produced.” Mr. Langstroth writes that “Aristotle speaks of a disease which was accompanied with a disgusting smell, so that there is reason to believe that foul brood was known two thousand years ago.”
When we take into consideration how sorely our farmers are perplexed by the cattle plague, known as the rinderpest, concerning which so many conflicting opinions exist (and the same may be said of the recommendations for its cure), can we wonder that our little favourites should occasionally be liable to disorders of this sort, which puzzle even experienced bee-keepers? In the hope of allaying unnecessary alarm, we would just add that “foul brood” is not a very general complaint, and, so far as our observation extends, has been most fatal in large experimental apiaries, where extensive propagation has necessarily had to be pushed forward. With the experience and advice already gained, this disorder may now be said to be deprived of its terrors.