312 



JODBNAL OF HOKTICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GABDENEB. 



t October 22, 1868. 



in which case nothing can be seen but a chaotic mass. It was 

 against this error that my respected and highly-honoured pre- 

 ceptor, Ehrenberg, of Berlin, warned his scholars the most. 



When the microscope is properly adjusted, we dip the end of 

 a clean and very sUght rod, either of glass or wood, into a foul- 

 broody cell, and by this means deposit a particle of the matter 

 about the size of a grain of sand (a portion even of the size of 

 B millet grain would be too large), upon a very perfect glass 

 slide scrupulously cleaned by means of wash-leather. We 

 then dip another fine rod in freshly-distilled water, or in fresh 

 rain water caught in a clean porcelain vessel (if the water be 

 not quite fresh it becomes impregnated with organic matter, 

 whilst spring water would deposit crystals and thus vitiate the 

 operation), and by means of this perfectly clean rod dipped in 

 absolutely pure water, we deposit a drop of the size of a millet 

 grain, and no more, on the particle of foul brood of the size of 

 a grain of sanci, which by this means diffuses itself a little in 

 the water. The whole being covered with a thin glass about 

 the substance of a poppy-leaf, wo have a preparation by means 

 of which long and careful studies can be made. If we place it 

 under the microscope we see a thousand dust-like bodies which 

 are known to the microseopist as fungi, and which belong to 

 the species Cryptococcus (Kiitzing). These are best seen at the 

 edges of the mass where they are scattered singly ; but if the 

 observer has neglected the precautions before indicated he will 

 not be able to detect the fungi singly, nor will he indeed see 

 anything of which he can undertake the examination. It wa 

 find different-sized bodies, the larger are fatty particles, the 

 remains of the bee chrysalis, and those which are smallest of 

 all and dust like are the fungi. 



The foul-brood fungus, which I have named Cnjptococcus al- 

 vearis, belongs to the smallest of fungoid forms. It is round 

 and dust-shaped, and has a diameter of l-oOOth millimetre, or 

 l-1095th line. Consequently lOilo can lie side by side within 

 a Rhenish line, but within a square line 1095 x 1095 — that is, 

 1,199,825, or in round numbers, 1,200,000. The cubic line 

 according to this would contain 1,440,000,000,000 fungi ; and 

 a cubic inch of foul brood, which consists of 1728 lines, would 

 contain 2,488,320,000,000,000. If we reckon further that a 

 cubic inch of comb contains 50 cells, the contents of each cell 

 would be 49,760,400,000,000— in round numbers, fifty biUions, 

 or, deducting one-fifth for wax, forty billions of fungi. 



It is only this enormous capability of increase which renders 

 foul brood so dangerous, as is, indeed, the case with the cholera, 

 typhus, and small-pox fungi, &c. 



Foul brood is no more a poison than is any strong rank- 

 growing weed : it merely supplants that which otherwise would 

 live and thrive. It is closely allied to the fermentive fungus 

 Cryptococcus fermentum, which by its rapid increase in fluids 

 capable of fermentation, transmutes them, and, after it has 

 consumed all the elements which are capable of serving for its 

 reproduction, precipitates itself in the form of lees. Beer and 

 wine lees are in like manner a conglomeration of microscopic 

 fungi. 



The actual nature of foul brood being clearly defined, every- 

 thing else follows of itself. The extraordinary facility with 

 which it may be communicated must be indubitable ; so long as 

 it lies jelly-like and covered in the cells it is perhaps the 

 least dangerous ; but when it rests dry, and like a black crust 

 on the edges of the cells, or falling down within the hive is 

 scattered abroad like dust, then billions of sporules are sown 

 broadcast. They adhere to the feet of the bees, enter the cells 

 filled with young brood, become transferred to other hives 

 through resting on flowers, &o., and thus the disease may be 

 spread in a thousandfold manner. 



It is well known that it is not the larva, but the sealed 

 chrysalis that first dies of foul brood and is then consumed by 

 it. The fungus, however, first attaches itself to the larva, but 

 in trifling quantity, for some thousand sporules cannot injure 

 it ; BO pass the six days of its larval life. It has within itself the 

 germ of death, but yet it lives. When in the nymphoid state it 

 is killed by the fungus multiph ing prodigiously in geometrical 

 progression, which also continues to increase after the death 

 and at the expense of the chrysalis, which it ultimately changes 

 entirely into itself. 



I should define the distinction made by Czierzon between 

 non-contagious and virulent foul brood as consisting in this — 

 that non-contagious foul brood means the death of the larva 

 from other causes, and virulent foul brood the death of the 

 larva from foul brood fungus. 



With respect to the origin of foul brood independently ol 

 infection, we have Been above that the foul brood and fermen- 



tive fungi are of the same species, and it is also known that 

 fungi, especially the microscopic kinds, change and transform 

 one into the other, according to the different substances upon 

 which they alight. 



It is in this way highly probable that the fermentive fungus, 

 Cryptococcus fermentum, may, when it comes in contact with, or 

 when as food it enters the body of, the bee larva, change itself, 

 under peculiar conditions of temperature and moisture, into 

 Cryptococcus alvearis, or foul brood fungus. 



All practical bee-keepers complain of feeding with ferment- 

 ing honey as the principal cause of foul brood ; and fer- 

 menting honey arises in the first instance if, when the honey 

 is taken possession of, the sealed or open combs containing 

 brood are not carefully separated from the honeycombs, in 

 which case the honey becomes mingled with albumen, and is 

 useless for feeding. We cannot, therefore, be too careful in 

 using honey for bee food. 



Mr. Wannow, of Giitland, a very assiduouB and intelligent 

 apiarian, always asserted, long before I had begun my micro- 

 scopical investigations, his conviction that foul brood had 

 arisen with him through giving his bees meal as food, or that 

 it had at any rate been greatly increased by it. Although no 

 other similar observation has reached me, I yet esteem this 

 experience of a thoroughly practical man as well worth notice. 

 Meal is an exceedingly favourable soil for the propagation of 

 the fermentive fungus, as is proved by the abundant fermenta- 

 tion which follows the addition of yeast to dough. It may, 

 therefore, be advisable, at least in hives which are already 

 diseased, to eschew the use of meal as food. 



As the fermentive fungus is very much diffused throughout 

 nature, and as countless multitudes of its sporules float in the 

 atmosphere, so they, without being greatly assisted in their 

 increase by fermenting liquors, when they have the opportu- 

 nity of establiehining themselves on a soil which agrees with 

 them, contrive to carry out their propensity for multiplication. 

 A particularly favourable soil is found in dead and mouldering 

 larvaD or ehrysalids ; and for this reason, if brood which has 

 died from cold or other causes be permitted to remain in the 

 hive, it may occasion virulent foul brood without feeding with 

 deleterious honey or such like. 



The removal of a hive, by which too many bees are lost, and 

 those remaining are unable to foster the brood, may promote 

 foul brood. The multiplication of stocks by artificial means, 

 by which, when the proportion of bees to the brood is too 

 small, the latter may readily be chilled to death, is more favour- 

 able to the outbreak of foul brood than natural swarming. I 

 have on a former occasion advised for the prevention of chill, 

 the warming of artificial swarms by means of corked bottles 

 filled with hot water — a practice which I have found very bene- 

 ficial. We are, therefore, very careful that dead brood, especi- 

 ally such as is sealed over, should be removed as soon as 

 possible from the hive and buried deep underground, since the 

 fungus, which may perhaps be aheady on it, readily grows 

 luxuriantly in the open air. We should never throw out dead 

 bees near an apiary, but bury them, as the dead bodies of bees 

 are also soil in which fungi will thrive. As a corpse, if per- 

 mitted to lie unburied, might infect a whole town and engender 

 within it a fatal epidemic disease, so may a few putrefying 

 maggots poison a whole apiary. 



Should the disease have already broken out, it may be asked, 

 What farther is to be done ? In the first place, let us not take 

 it easily, but view it with the same serious attention as is 

 wont to be bestowed upon glanders among horses. That we 

 must avoid all the before-mentioned food, either fermenting or 

 capable of fermentation (among which meal should be reckoned) 

 is, of course, self-evident. Medicaments for the extirpation of 

 foul brood there are none. It is, as with the diseases of men, 

 important to know this, lest time should be wasted in useless 

 quackery. But as there are no medicaments for the disease, 

 the maxim of Hippocrates must needs be valuable : — Quib 

 viedicamenta non sanaut, femaii sanat; quic ferrum non sanat^ 

 ignis sanat. We also pass quickly to the iron — i.e., we ex- 

 amine the hives diligently, and as soon as foul brood appears 

 in the apiary, cut out every comb in which are foul-broody cells. 

 If this is of no avail, tiae court of third instance — the fire, 

 comes in its turn. We do not spare our apiary, but remove 

 each foul-broody comb, disdaining to take from it either honey 

 or wax, with which we should reap billions of foul-brood fungi, 

 but throw it into the fire, wherein the fungi are effectually 

 disposed of, and hang the healthy combs in pure hives. We 

 lo not deem it necessary to burn the infected hives, but wash 

 them inside and out with diluted sulphuric acid (one part acid 



