36 HISTOEICAL KOTES ON BEE DISEASES. 



him to be certain. The origin and the means of its transmission, 

 however, were not entirely clear. That the germs of the disease 

 may be carried from apiary to apiary upon the clothmg of the apiarist 

 and in or upon the bodies of bees, that in the same apiaiy these 

 germs may be borne by the winds from one liive to another, and that 

 they may be liberated from the decomposing bodies of other insects 

 and scattered to objects with which the bees come in contact, seemed 

 to McLain to be probable. It appeared to him that foul brood 

 attacked adult bees as well as brood, that live pollen is the medium 

 by wliich the contagion is most commonly and most rapidly spread, 

 and that the disease yields readily to a drug treatment. 



In discussing the idea that the clothing and hands of an individual 

 gomg from one apiary to another might probably be a means by 

 which disease germs are transmitted, he writes : 



That the disease germs may be carried upon the clothing and hands appears probable, 

 from the fact that in one neighborhood the disease appeared in only two apiaries, the 

 owners of which had spent some time working among diseased colonies at some distance 

 from home, while other apiarists in that locality who had kept away from the con- 

 tagion had no trouble from foul brood. 



In support of his supposition that the wind might be considered 

 as a medium by which the germs of the disease may be carried, he 

 writes : 



That the contagion may sometimes be borne from hive to hive by the wind appears 

 to be true, as it was observed in one of the apiaries which I treated for this disease 

 during the past summer that of a large number of diseased colonies in the apiary, with 

 the exception of two colonies, all were located to the northeast of the colony in which 

 the disease first appeared. The prevailing wind had been from the southwest. 



The report covers the work done by McLam in one year on bee 

 diseases. He was conducting at the same time some experiments 

 relative to the control of the mating of the queen. Most of his con- 

 clusions concerning diseases were drawn, apparently, from three 

 experiments performed by an apiarist who reported liis results to 

 McLain. 



The following is a summaiy of his report pertaining to bee diseases : 



1 . He made no pretense at a study of bee diseases bacteriologically . 



2. He included at least three distinct conditions in the disease of 

 adult bees which he referred to as ''quakmg disease." 



3. He probably included in the "quaking disease" the disorder 

 which is now known to many bee keepers as "paralysis." 



4. He recognized the virulence, wide distribution, and, conse- 

 quently, the destructiveness of foul brood. 



5. He probably was not aware that at least two infectious diseases 

 of bees were being referred to as foul brood. 



6. Since American foul brood has been the prevailing disease in 

 the region in which his experiments were made, and since the descrip- 



