OR, MANUAI, OF THE APIARY. 475 



DISEASE. 



The common dysentery — indicated by the bees soiling 

 their hives, as they void their faeces within instead of without 

 — which so frequently works havoc in our apiaries, is, without 

 doubt, I think, consequent upon wrong management on the 

 part of the apiarist, poor honey, like cider, rotten apple-juice, 

 rank honey-dew, or burnt sugar, or bad wintering, usually the 

 result of severe weather, as already suggested in Chapter 

 XVIII. As the methods to prevent this have already been 

 sufficiently considered, we pass to the terrible 



FOUL BROOD. 



This disease, said to have been known to Aristotle — 

 though this is doubtful, as a stench attends common dysen- 

 tery — though it has occurred in our State as well as in States 

 about us, is not very familiar to me. Of late I receive many 

 samples of this affected brood each season. It is causing sad 

 havoc in many regions of our country. No bee-malady can 

 compare with this in malignancy. By it Dzierzon once lost 

 his whole apiary of 500 cplonies. Mr. E. Rood, first President 

 of the Michigan Association, lost all his bees two or three 

 times by this terrible plague. 



The symptoms are as follows : Decline in the prosperity 

 of the colony, because of failure to rear brood. The brood 

 seems to putrefy, becomes "brown and salvy," and gives off 

 a stench which is by no means agreeable. With a slight 

 attack, the bad smell is not apparent. In a close box very 

 little of the brood gives the characteristic odor. I often detect 

 it in boxes received by mail before I open them. L<ater the 

 caps are concave instead of convex, and many will have little 

 holes through them. Holes will often be found in healthy 

 brood-cells. As the cappings were never completed, such holes 

 are smooth at the margins, while those of foul brood are jag- 

 ged. The most decided symptom is the salvy, elastic mass in 

 the brood-cell. With a pin-head we never draw forth a larva 

 or pupa, but this brown, stringy mass which afterwards dries 

 down in the cell, when it lets go of the pin-head, because of 

 its elasticity, it flies or springs back. This is sometimes less 

 marked. 



