176 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 1. 



communicate the disease to neigliboring hives. 

 The only thing I can suppose likely to have 

 produced the malady is that the hives in ques- 

 tion were too well protected against the cold — 

 no airing on top, the sweat causing the mis- 

 chief, the disease being communicated to only 

 such bees as receive food from diseased bees, or 

 such as pick up the f;eces dropped inside the 

 hive by diseased bees, thus acting like cholera, 

 but only on such individual bees as touch the 

 excrements. 



I should be very glad lo hear from our scien- 

 tists. This is what I myself believe; but I may 

 be altogether wrong. I have here given the 

 facts picked up daily, and my thoughts thereon. 



Nice, France. Jan. .">. 



[In many respects the symptoms above given 

 correspond with those of the same disease in 

 this country; but it is a noticeable fact that 

 they seem to vary under different conditions 

 and in different localities. Mr. Baldensperger 

 thinks the queen has nothing to do with it. The 

 majority of testimony so far received seems to 

 show pretty decidedly that she does.— En.] 



BEE PARALYSIS HEREDITARY. 



A REPLY TO S. A. SHUCK. 



liU T. S. Fdid. 



I read Mr. Shuck's article on p. .">4, and write 

 to say that I am quite sure he is mistaken in his 

 conclusion that bee-paralysis is not infectious; 

 and I hope that you will adhere to the policy 

 lately pursued by you in Gleanings, intended 

 to induce queen -breeders to destroy all infected 

 colonies. It is a step in the right din-ction. All 

 the writers on this subject that I have noticed, 

 who live in the South, like Mr. (retaz. of Ten- 

 nessee, agree that it is a very serious disease. 

 You know my reasons for concluding that it is 

 infectious. It spread from a single diseased 

 colony, purchased by me. to every colony that I 

 had except two, in one season, assailing those 

 nearest first, and then it extended from hive to 

 hive as they we.e arranged in order on the 

 benches; and to put the matter beyond perad- 

 venture, when I introduced a queen from one of 

 my hives to a colony of blacks in my brother's 

 apiary, bee-paralysis promptly developed with 

 the appearance of her progeny, and this though 

 she was, to all appearances, perfectly healthy 

 when introduced, and the colony shi- came from 

 had apparently ma le a perfect recovery from 

 the disease. Following this, and after the rob- 

 ber-bees had cleaned out this hive, my brother 

 had a well-marked case of the malady among 

 his blacks; and, acting on my suggestion, he 

 promptly got rid of the disease in his apiary by 

 brimstoning the whole colony, since which he 

 has had no more of it. 



Mr. Shuck's article was very interesting to 

 me, though I can not agree with his deductions. 

 The truth is, so far as actual knowledge is con- 

 cerned we are just where Miss Gayton and Mr. 



Cheshire left us. We know that, back of the 

 symptoms of the disease, as in the case of chol- 

 era, consumption, erysipelas, and other diseases 

 of the human subject, there is a bacillus; but 

 how this germ gets from one bee to another, we 

 don't know. It is a matter for the microsco- 

 pist. It is true, that the infection does not 

 seem to spread readily from using, in a healthy 

 colony, the combs from an infected one. My 

 own observation in this respect is in unison with 

 those of others as reported, with the exception 

 that, finally, all of my colonies got the disease 

 at last; but whether from infection communi- 

 cated from the combs, or through diseased bees 

 entering the wrong colony by mistake, or by 

 means of robber- bees, can not be told. Consid- 

 ering the crowded state of the hive, and the 

 close intercourse of its inmates, it is rather 

 strange that the contagion does not sweep away 

 the whole population at once. It is a fact, how- 

 ever, that many hives show a few bees having 

 the first symptoms of the disease, that do not 

 reach the worst stage. In many colonies, bees 

 that are hairless and shiny can be seen with 

 (luivering wing's, staggering about, that go all 

 through the season without any great mortali- 

 ty. At this stage the guard -bees are still on 

 the lookout for sick individuals, and they pull 

 and haul them about and pluck their hair off 

 until they are at last ejected from the hive and 

 are too weak to return. But there comes a time 

 when the diseas-^ Ijecomes epidemic, so to speak, 

 when the guards cease to hustle the sick, and 

 the swollen, bloated bees begin to appear, and 

 the guards have plenty to do to carry out the 

 dead, who are normal as to color, but most of 

 them enormously distended. At this stage the 

 bottom-board is sometimes splotched with the 

 yellow f;eces of the sick. In cholera, typhoid 

 f 'ver, and other infectious or contagious mala- 

 dies, the chief source from which the contagion 

 spreads is the dejections. May it not be true of 

 this also? The colony has invariably perished 

 when this splotched condition of the bottom- 

 board has manifested itself. 



Mr. Shuck thinks that sour honey may have 

 something to do with the production of the dis- 

 ease. It may aggravate it, but the real cause 

 is the specific germ that can be derived only 

 from some other infected individual. Harvey's 

 maxim was, nmiir vivKm^ e.r oro ^all life is from 

 the egg); and the same principle underlies the 

 propagation of disease-germs. They do not 

 generate spontaneously. Bees have been kept 

 in this county since its first settlement, and 

 there was never a case of bee-paralysis until 

 my unlucky importation. Yet if there is any 

 sour honey now produced in a natural way. it 

 certainly was here before; but it never made 

 bee-paralysis before. I hope you will stand fast 

 in your position, and do what you can to protect 

 the inexperienced from being the victims of 

 some careless (lueen-breeder who thinks the 

 disease a trifling one. 



