MillerThousand AnswersBeekeepingQuestions.pdf - BioBees

9SDR. miller'sEuropean foulbrood? If so, state time to do it. Clover flow fromJune 20 to July 20.A. A cure would be likely to follow. Better not wait untilthe last half of the flow, as the case would be getting worse allthe time, but act at the beginning of the flow. But if only twoor three diseased cells are present, and the queen is good, all youneed to do is to cage her in the hive for ten days.Q. If caging a queen for a certain length of time, in case ofEuropean foulbrood, stops the disease, should the disease notcome to an end in fall, as all brood-rearing stops entirely forseveral months?If an apiary has foulbrood one season, will it be free from itnext year? There are no young diseased larvas from which thenurse bees can suck the juice and feed it to healthy ones thenext spring.A. The shortest answer to your question would be to say Idon't know. And that's the truth. I don't know why caging aqueen should stop the disease. If caging a queen stops the disease,Idon't know why the winter's rest from brood-rearing doesnot stop it. But here is the important fact that I do know. Iknow that in a large number of cases cessation of brood-rearingfor a week or so has stopped the disease. Note that I don't sayin all cases, but in the large majority of cases. I don't know thatin the great majority of cases the disease is conveyed from onecell to another by the nurse-bees sucking the juices of recentlydiseasedlarvEe, but it is a pretty satisfactory theory until a bettertheory is advanced.I think, however, that no one has advanced the theory thatthe disease is in all cases conveyed by means of larvffi that havebeen dead only a short time. It may in some cases be conveyedthrough spores in dried-up scales of larvss that have been dead along time. But I suppose these last cases are exceptional. Now,although I don't know all about it, if you will allow me totheorize, I'll tell you what I think is possible in the case youmention. In early spring or winter, when the brood-rearing begins,there are no diseased larva present. But there are driedscales containing spores. One would expect that the diseasewould begin rather slowly from these. And observation confirmsthat supposition. In a colony which has not been badlydiseased in the previous year, the first examination in the followingspring shows very little disease — possibly none. Subsequentexaminations will show it on the increase, although if I am notmistaken there are some cases in which a colony will remain