Bill wrote:

>But no chemicals in hives before the mid 90's, a quote from Randy. There
>was the first, sulfur, which was around early in the last century, and
>fumidil, terra and a host of others for Tracheal, all well before Varroa
>and the mid 90s.

I am sure you must be thinking of Sulfa, which is short for Sodium
Sulfathiazole. This was first promoted as a treatment for American
Foulbrood around 1947. (By the way Alexander Fleming, Ernst Chain and
Howard Florey shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their  work
on antibiotics).

Sulfur, on the other hand, was used for fumigating bee combs and comb
honey as least as far back as the 1880s. Root says that in 1887, they
experimented with a variety of chemicals to treat foulbrood, including
salicylic acid and carbolic acid. Carbolic acid was later used to
drive the bees out of supers, possibly as early as the 1930s, I'm not
sure about that.

I have some Walter T Kelly catalogs from the late 1940s and early 50s,
which are interesting:

In 1947 they wrote: "Everybody is talking about the cures they have
made with sulfa. This is the new wonder drug." In the 1948 catalog you
can find "Para-moth" (paradichlorobenzene) and carbolic acid for
taking off honey, although they wisely state: "This requires a careful
operator and we do not recommend it to the average beekeeper."

Fumadil (fumugillin) appeared in their catalog in 1954. In 1956, they
offer "5% Chlordane" for ants and Cyanogas (cyanide) to kill infected
bees. Terramycin was introduced in 1957.  The 1958 catalog states:
"Terramycin, Sulfa, and Fumagillin can all be mixed in the same batch
of syrup."

The good ole days.

-- 
Peter L. Borst
Danby, NY  USA
42.35, -76.50

picasaweb.google.com/peterlborst

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