38 HISTOEICAL NOTES ON BEE DISEASES. 



expressed his convictions that there was but little doubt that pollen 

 is the medium by which the contagion is most commonly introduced, 

 most rapidly spread, and most persistently perpetuated. 



McLain also includes in his report some remarks on starved brood, 

 and in referring to the symptoms states that in this condition the 

 brood is frequently found to be only partially capped, giving the 

 appearance commonly designated by the term "baldheaded brood." 



In estimating the value of this work by McLain, it must be borne 

 in mind that McLain had evidently a very indefinite conception of 

 the phenomena which are encountered and must be dealt with in the 

 study of disease; that he devoted but little time to the study of the 

 disease he referred to as foul brood, and that he was probably unduly 

 influenced by the writings of Cheshire. For these reasons it is 

 advised that his reports be not taken too seriously. 



LoETET, February, 1890. 



A paper ^ by Dr. Lortet concerning some of the bacteria encoun- 

 tered in the study of foul brood appeared in 1890. He found two 

 species always present in the digestive tract of healthy adult bees as 

 well as in those diseased. These species were reported to be present 

 also in the digestive tract of both healthy and diseased brood. The 

 fact was pointed out that these bacteria had probably led some authors 

 into error m their w^ork. The two species were not named nor suf- 

 ficiently described to make their identification possible. He en- 

 countered also, in the digestive tube of brood diseased and dead of 

 foul brood, another species which he supposed was Bacillus alvei and 

 which was the cause of the rapid death of the larvae. Lortet records 

 no difficulty in cultivating this species on the ordinary media. 



It was his belief that adult bees suffered from the disease, but that 

 they resisted the infection more than the larv^, and finally died as a 

 result of the infection. Experimentally, he claims to have obtained 

 positive results in support of his views. He exammed one queen 

 taken from an infected colony and from a study of her he leported 

 that she was perfectly healthy and that her eggs were free from 

 bacteria. It was his opinion that food was the source of infection of 

 the digestive tube of the nurse bees and that the nurse bees became in 

 turn the source of infection for the brood. 



From his work he drew the following three conclusions: (1) That 

 Cheshire had found the true exciting cause of foul brood and declared 

 that the fact had been verified by numerous laboratory experiments; 



(2) that it is useless to attempt to save larvoe already infected, and 



(3) that adult bees which become infected may live a long time, and 

 some may even resist the attack completely. 



1 Lortet, Dr., February, 1890. La bacterie loqueuse. Traitement de la loque par le naphtol |3. Revue 

 Internationale d'Apiculture, Tome XII, No. 2, pp. 50-54. 



