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TBE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



eration of the germs of this disease any more 

 than spontaneous generation of the germ of 

 small pox. 



I welcome Mr. Bull's article as a timely 

 one as illustrating the danger of which the 

 bee journals ought to give warning. 



The literature on this subject has lately 

 been enriched by a most interesting article 

 in Gleanings, (March 1) from the pen of 

 Ph. J. Baldensperger, a gentleman who 

 methodically and systematically watched a 

 colony of bees infected with bee paralysis 

 for several months. His experiments led 

 him to the conclusion that the disease " is 

 contagious from adult field bee to adult 

 field bee." If he had taken the queen from 

 the sick colony and introduced her into a 

 healthy one as Mr. Bull did, and as has often 

 been done by others, he would have stated 

 further that it is contagious from queen to 

 adult field bee. 



Dr. J. P. H. Brown's critique of pending 

 theories respecting bee paralysis in the same 

 number of Gleanings, is amusing reading to 

 Messrs. Poppleton, Dayton, Getaz and oth- 

 ers who have seen the disease, as all theoriz- 

 ing must be which ignores known facts. He 

 says : " If the symptoms be carefully studied 

 they point to a poisoned condition of the 

 food taken by the bees * * * rather than 

 to the theory of the bacillus." And then 

 Mr. Brown suggests that in many portions 

 of the South bees are seen swarming on de- 

 caying water melons, sucking the sour and 

 fermenting juice, and then he says : " The 

 efifect of such rottenness on a hive of bees I 

 can only conjecture." (Gleanings, page 178.) 

 Now the trouble with this theory, if offered 

 in explanation of the origin of the disease, 

 is, that bee paralysis shows itself in its ma 

 lignant form about the time water melons 

 are usually planted, and by the time they are 

 ripe, it is usually gone. And another ob- 

 jection to the impure food theory is, that 

 apiaries close by the one infected, where the 

 bees have the same opportunities to consume 

 the poisoned good, show none of these 

 symptoms. Only two of Mr. Bull's colonies 

 showed the symptoms. And so it always is, 

 until the disease has gradually spread so as 

 to infect all the bees in the neighborhood. 

 Mr. Baldensperger abandoned the poisoned 

 food hypothesis, when he saw the disease 

 showing itself in a single hive, surrounded 

 by others in the normal condition. Dr. 

 Brown further takes occasion to pronounce 

 absurd the idea advanced by me in a former 



paper, that it might be supposed that the bee 

 was created with instincts that would lead it 

 to reject food evolved in the economy of 

 nature, such as poisonous pollen, nectar, the 

 juice of fruits and the like, and that it is in- 

 credible that the bee from such sources 

 would select food that would carry death and 

 destruction to the young bees. He remarks 

 that bees are not all squeamish in their hab- 

 its ; that he has seen them in very filthy 

 places. Well we have all noticed their hab- 

 its in this respect, but that the salts of 

 animal matter gathered in this way is poi- 

 sonous to the young bee, does not appear. It 

 probably supplies some need of the brood, 

 that we know nothing about. What is un- 

 wholesome for mankind is not necessarily 

 so to the bee. Xenophon narrated a remark- 

 able instance where an army was poisoned 

 by eating honey. Dr. Brown further under- 

 takes to criticise and call in question the ac- 

 curacy of the statement of Messrs. Dayton 

 and Poppleton to the efifect that very often 

 the queen of a colony affected by the bee 

 paralysis is an unusually prolific layer. Dr. 

 Brown's idea seems to be, that a sick queen 

 could not possibly be a prolific one. It does 

 seem a little strange, and on this point there 

 is some reason in the Doctor's criticism. 

 But after all, the truth is, that these gentle- 

 men have the facts on their side, strange as 

 it may seem. The worst cases that I have 

 seen were in colonies headed by the most 

 prolific layers. 



The discussion in reference to this suVjject 

 that has been going on at intervals for the 

 past year has led me to believe that the dis- 

 ease is not so virulently infectious as I first 

 believed. The rapid spread of the infection 

 through my own apiary may have been due 

 to tlie fact that my hives were all under one 

 shelter, and not over a foot apart. Doubt- 

 less it is a daily occurrance for bees to enter 

 the wrong hive by mistake and in this way 

 diseased bees could infect a healthy colony. 

 And if it spreads by contact as Baldensper- 

 ger thinks, robber bees in the act of clean- 

 ing out a diseased colony could get the bacil- 

 lus, and in this way carry home the seeds of 

 the malady. 



Since I commenced this paper, I have re- 

 read the articles in Gleanings for March and 

 noticed for the first time that the editor 

 headed my paper " Bee Paralysis Heredita- 

 ry." This is a mistake of the editor, to 

 which I have written calling his attention. 

 The head line was furnished by the editor, 



