PRESENT STATUS OF INVESTIGATION OF BEE DISEASES. 23 
in a paper by Prof. F. C. Harrison, entitled “ Foul Brood of Bees,” 
published as Bulletin 112 of the Ontario Agricultural College: 
In all probability the first definite reference to foul brood is by Aristotle 
(Historia Animalium, Book IX, ch. 27), who mentions an inertness which 
seizes the bees and causes a bad smell in the hive. He also suggests that bees 
are liable to become diseased when the flowers on which they work are 
attacked by blight. Bee dysentery as well as foul brood causes a bad odor ; 
but in the former disease the spotting and consequent smell are usually outside 
the hive. 
Columella (De Re Rustica, Book IX, ch. 18) mentions a bee pestilence and 
an annual distemper which seizes the bees in spring. Pliny (Natural History, 
Book XI, ch. 19, A. D. 79) writes of a disease of bees, but as he uses the same 
term as Aristotle he has probably copied it from the latter author. 
Schirach (Histoire des Abeilles, ch. III, p. 56, La Haye, 1771), in 1769, was 
the first writer to name the disease “foul brood.” He says: 
It is dangerous and a most destructive disorder to the bees, a genuine plague 
when the complaint has reached a certain stage. The cause can be attributed 
to two sources: (1) The putrid (or tainted) food with which the bees feed 
the larvee for lack of haying better. (2) By the mistake of the queen bee in 
misplacing the larvee in their cells, head upside down. In this position the 
young bee, unable to get out of its prison, dies and rots away. 
Further, Schirach clearly distinguishes between foul brood and chilled brood, 
gnd mentions the fact that putrefaction follows the death of the brood from 
frost, but in this case “it is only an accident and not a disease.” 
The remedy Schirach recommended was to remove all diseased combs from 
the infected hives and to keep the bees fasting for two days, after which they 
are furnished with other cakes of wax and a suitable remedy given, “as a 
little hot water mixed with honey, nutmeg, and saffron, or a syrup composed 
of equal parts of sugar and wine seasoned with nutmeg.” Thus, as Cowan 
(Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, Vol. VI, Part IV, 1895) remarks: 
“We had given us nearly one hundred and thirty years ago a method of cure 
almost identical with what is by some claimed as new to-day.” 
Tessier (L’Eneyclopedie Methodique, Abeille, p. 52, 1765) about the same 
time as Schirach says that when the lary die in their cells it Causes an in- 
fection in the hive which makes the bees sick. It is then necessary to drive 
away or sometimes move the bees from the hive, and to take care to fumigate 
the infected hive if it is going to be used again. It is necessary, in order to 
avoid the same inconvenience, to take out the parts of the comb that may be 
moulded by reason of the dampness. Duchet (Culture des Abeilles, p. 315, 
Vevey, 1771), who wrote on bees in 1771, does not mention any disease that 
can be certified as foul brood, but he describes bee dysentery. 
Della Rocea (Traite Complet sur les Abeilles, Vol. III, p. 261, Paris, 1790), 
vieaire-general of Syra, an island in the Levant, relates with much detail the 
history of an epidemic of foul brood, which caused great destruction in the 
island during the years 1777 to 1780. Della Rocca describes very minutely the 
symptoms, destruction, and mistakes that were made in attempting to combat 
the disease. He says: 
The disease manifests its presence by defects in the combs filled with brood, 
and which only contain a putrid mass; instead of the bee pup there is only 
rottenness in the cells, which, however, being capped, always preserve a healthy 
appearance. If these cells are broken open, a blackish liquid flows out, which 
spreads the infection through the hive. This disease only manifests itself 
in cells which contain a nearly mature larva or a capped one. The bees them- 
selves remain in good health, and work with the same activity, but their 
numbers decrease daily. This disease, however, was not so general in a hive 
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