1884.J BEES. 61 



destroyed by it in one season. The other type, before it gets 

 free from the chrysalis state, begins to turn yellow. When 

 they get their full growth in the grub state, before capping, 

 they will look plump, like any ordinary larvjB, and then they 

 will turn a yellowish brown, and finally dry up. It takes 

 about seventy-two hours from the time the first evidence is 

 shown of the second type of foul brood before it becomes 

 developed. Both of them are claimed. by entomologists to be 

 the results of fungus. 



Question. I would like to inquire what the indications are 

 of the presence of foul brood ? 



Mr. Ji^FFRiES. In the first stages, you will detect it by 

 there being a few cells in the comb that are capped over. 

 On picking them open they will be found to contain the bee in 

 its most perfect form, but it is a viscid, rotten mass. It holds 

 its shape, but, at the same time, it is putrified, and the scent 

 from it is very disagreeable. You could not pass within ten 

 feet of the hive without smelling it. It leaves the cell in a 

 dirty-looking state. I dare not carry the malignant type with 

 me, because it is something that scatters easily. 



Question. Can you give any reason why the bees do not 

 clear that out themselves ? 



Mr. Jeffries. They cannot ; the cells are capped over, 

 and they know that there is not a perfect bee there. But they 

 never have been known to clean it out. If you uncapped the 

 cells with a knife and put the comb back again, they would 

 not remove the putrified corpse, but would desert the hive. 



Question. Are we to understand that this is a recent 

 development ? 



Mr. Jeffries. It is something that has been known ever 

 since the year 1796, but it is spreading, through carelessness, 

 I think, through several parts of the State. 



Mr. Augur. Do I understand that it is worse now than it 

 has been for a period of years ? 



Mr, Jeffries. It is worse than I have been able to find 

 out that it has ever been previously. In Woodbury, it has 



