FOUL BROOD. 89 



' w' 



in the fall of 1851 his stock consisted of nearly four 

 hundred colonies." 



" Mr. Quinby informs me that he has lost as many 

 as one hundred colonies in a year from this pesti- 

 lence. It has never made its appearance in my 

 apiaries, and I should regard its general dissemina- 

 tion through our country as the greatest possible 

 calamity to bee-keepers." -Langstroth. 



Mr. Quinby says, in the " Mysteries of Bee-keeping 

 Explained," that this disease is probably of recent 

 origin ; that Mr. Miner knew nothing of it until he 

 moved from Long Island to Ontario county, New York. 

 Mr. Weeks, in a communication to the N. E. Farmer, 

 says : " Since the potato rot commenced, I have lost 

 one-fourth of my stocks annually by this disease ;" 

 at the same time adding his fear that this race of 

 insects will become extinct from this cause, if not 

 arrested. He says " it attacks the chrysalis (pupa) 

 instead of the larva." 



He (Quinby) claims that his experience " goes 

 back to a date beyond many others ; it is almost 

 twenty years since the first case was noticed." (" Mys- 

 teries of Bee-keeping Explained" was copy-righted 

 in 1853 ; hence we infer the above was written about 

 that time.) " I had kept bees but four or five years, 

 when I discovered it in one of my best stocks." 



" A post-mortem examination revealed the follow- 

 ing circumstances: Nine-tenths of the breeding 

 cells were found to contain young bees in the larva 

 state, stretched out at full length, sealed over, dead, 



