Ordinary paralysis may generally be cured by strewing powdered sulphur
over the combs, bees, and along the top bars of the frames, the
precaution first having been taken of removing all unsealed brood. This
brood would be killed by the application of sulphur, but as there is no
danger whatever of spreading the disease by the transfer of brood or
honey from one hive to another, provided absolutely every one of the
adult bees has first been shaken or brushed from the combs, the latter
may be given to healthy colonies which need strengthening.
Another simple plan for getting rid of the disease and yet utilizing
the available strength of the affected colonies is to close their hives
at night and move them a mile or more, locating them, if possible,
outside of the range of other bees. As the brood in these colonies
remains healthy all that is sealed or even well advanced in the larval
stage may have the bees shaken from it and be distributed among the
remaining colonies of the apiary. The bees of the diseased colonies
thus become rapidly reduced in numbers, and several of the colonies
themselves may soon be combined, the best queen being selected to
continue egg deposition. Eventually the diseased apiary becomes, by the
removal of the developing brood and the death of the old bees, reduced
to nothing. None of the queens should be saved nor should any of the
adult workers be returned to the healthy apiary.
A combination of the sulphur cure with the last plan mentioned--that
of getting rid of the disease through the removal of brood combs from
affected colonies--is really, all in all, the best procedure. When a
fairly strong colony has been made up by shaking the adult bees of
two or more together and this removed to an isolated locality, the
application of sulphur may be made before any brood has been started.
It is well, also, to replace the queen with a vigorous one from stock
entirely unrelated to the diseased bees. Should any signs of the
disease reappear, constant removal of the brood should be followed, as
mentioned in the preceding paragraph.
Other bacterial diseases, though existing, have developed only very
locally or have been too limited in the amount of injury inflicted to
require special mention here.
INSECT AND OTHER ENEMIES.
The bee or wax-moth (_Galleria mellonella_ Linn.) is regarded by those
unfamiliar with modern methods in bee keeping as a very serious enemy
to success in this work. It was frequently such when only the common
black bee was kept and the old way of managing, or rather of trusting
to luck, was followed. But with the better races now introduced and
with improved hives and methods, and especially with the care that is
now given to have no colonies queenless long at a time, the wax-moth
larvæ are no longer regarded with great concern.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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