38 BEES. 
The hives may be piled one on top of the other, the lower tier 
raised a little from the floor. The entrances should not be con- 
tracted unless the colony is comparatively weak. It is usually not 
considered good policy to close the entrances with wire cloth, as the 
dead bees which accumulate more or less on the bottom board may 
cut off ventilation, and the entrance should be free so that these 
may be cleaned out. 
The time of removing bees from the cellar is less easily deter- 
mined than that of putting them in. The colonies may be removed 
early and wrapped in black tar paper or left until the weather is 
settled. If the weather is very warm and the bees become fretful, 
the cellar must either be cooled or the bees removed. Some bee 
keepers prefer to remove bees at night, so that they can recover 
from the excitement and fly from the hive normally in the morning. 
One of the chief difficulties is to prevent the bees from getting into 
the wrong hives after their first flights. They often ‘‘drift” badly 
with the wind, and sometimes an outside row will become abnor- 
mally strong, leaving other colonies weak. 
DISEASES AND ENEMIES. 
There are two infectious diseases of the brood of bees which cause 
great losses to the bee-keeping industry of the United States. These 
are known as American foul brood and European foul brood. Both 
of these diseases destroy colonies by killing the brood, so that there 
are not enough young bees emerging to take the place of the old 
adult bees as these die from natural causes. The adult bees are 
not attacked by either disease. In the hands of careful bee keepers 
both diseases may be controlled, and this requires careful study and 
constant watching. In view of the fact that these diseases are 
now widely distributed throughout the United States, every bee 
keeper should read the available literature on the subject, so that 
if disease enters his apiary he may be able to recognize it before it 
gets a start. The symptoms and the treatment recommended by 
this Department are given in another publication which will be sent 
free on request.? 
It is difficult for a bee keeper to keep his apiary free from disease 
if others about him have diseased colonies which are not properly 
treated. The only way to keep disease under control is for the 
bee keepers in the neighborhood to cooperate in doing everything 
possible to stamp out disease as soon as it appears in a single colony. 
The progressive bee keeper who learns of disease in his neighborhood 
should see to it that the other bee keepers around him are supplied 
a Circular 79, Bureau of Entomology, U. 8. Dept. of Agriculture. The Brood Dis- 
eases of Bees. 
397 
