Miscellaneous, 387 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



On the Death of the common Hive- Bee, supposed to be occasioned by 

 a parasitic Fungus. By the Rev. H. H. Higgins, M.A. 



On the 12th of March last, Timpron Martin, Esq., of Liverpool, 

 communicated to me some circumstances respecting the death of a 

 hive of bees in his possession, which induced me to request from him 

 a full statement of particulars. Mr. Martin gave me the following 

 account : — 



" In October last I had three hives of bees, which I received into 

 my house. Each doorway was closed, and the hive placed upon a 

 piece of calico ; the corners were brought over the top, leaving a loop 

 by which the hive was suspended from the ceiling. The hives were 

 taken down about the 14th of March, and two were healthy, but all 

 the bees in the third were dead. There was a gallon of bees. The 

 two hives containing live bees were much smaller, but in each there 

 were dead ones. Under whatever circumstances you preserve bees 

 through the winter, dead ones are found at the bottom in the spring. 

 The room, an attic, was dry, and I had preserved the same hives in 

 the same way during the winter of 1856. In what I may call the 

 dead hive, there was abundance of honey when it was opened, and it 

 is clear that its inmates did not die from want. It is not a frequent 

 occurrence for bees so to die, but I have known another instance. 

 In that case, the hive was left out in the ordinary way, and possibly 

 cold was the cause of death. I think it probable that my bees died 

 about a month before the 14th of March, merely from the circum- 

 stance that some one remarked about that time that there was no 

 noise in the hive. They might have died earlier, but there were cer- 

 tainly live bees in the hive in January. I understand there was an 

 appearance of mould on some of the comb. There was ample venti- 

 lation, I think ; indeed, as the bees were suspended, they had more 

 air than through the summer, when placed on a stand." 



When the occurrence was first made known to me, I suggested 

 that the bees might probably have died from the growth of a fungus, 

 and requested that some of the dead bees might be sent for examina- 

 tion. They were transmitted to me in a very dry state, and a careful 

 inspection with a lens afforded no indication of vegetable growth. I 

 then broke up a specimen, and examined the portions under a com- 

 pound microscope, using a Nachet, No. 4. The head and thorax 

 were clean ; but on a portion of the sternum were innumerable very 

 minute, linear, slightly curved bodies, showing the well-known oscil- 

 lating or swarming motion. Notwithstanding the agreement of these 

 minute bodies with the characters of the genus Bacterium of the 

 Fibrionia, I regarded them as spermatia, having frequently seen 

 others indistinguishable from them, under circumstances inconsistent 

 with the presence of Confervse, as in the interior of the immature 

 peridia and sporangia of Fungals. 



In the specimen first examined there were no other indications of 

 the growth of any parasite ; but from the interior of the abdomen of 

 a second bee I obtained an abundance of well-defined globular bodies, 

 resembling the spores of a fungus, -00012 to -00016 inch in dia- 



