GENUS BACILLUS 347 



tion takes place. This can be observed best in the different 

 stages of the disease and decay of the larvae. 



Staining. It stains with the usual aniline dyes. 



Cultivation. It does not grow on any of the ordinary 

 media made from meat infusion or peptone or in milk or on 

 potato. It was discovered by "White that it would grow on 

 media prepared as follows : 



Larvae are picked from the brood combs of a number of 

 frames of a healthy brood and a bouillon (bee-larvae bouillon) 

 is made from them following the same directions as when 

 bouillon is made from meat. The first growth from these 

 spores was secured in an agar (bee-larvae agar) made from 

 this special bouillon when Liborius's method for cultivating 

 anaerobes was used. Cultures are made from the dead larvae. 



Agar. The inoculations must be made with the medium 

 liquefied. The growth takes place near to but rarely on the 

 surface. Cultures must pass through a few generations be- 

 fore a satisfactory surface growth can be secured. 



Bee-larvae agar slant. On the surface of this medium a 

 thin, gray, non-viscid growth develops. 



Life conditions and properties. B. larvae is an anaerobe 

 when first isolated but after a few generations it will grow in 

 the presence of atmospheric oxygen. Indol has not been de- 

 tected. White found in his study of the bacterial flora of the 

 intestine of the honey bee the following bacteria which he 

 isolated and studied :* Bacillus cloacae, Bacillus coli communis, 

 Bacillus suipestifer, Bacillus subgastricus, Bacterium my- 

 coides, Pseudomonas fluorescens liquefaciens, and two organ- 

 isms referred to as Bacillus E, and Saccharomyces F. 



* Ford has made an extensive study of the intestinal bacteria in 

 man and reported their classification and distribution in the intes- 

 tine. (Studies from the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal, Vol. I, 

 No. 5, 1903.) 



Dyar and Keith have published instructive notes on the normal 

 intestinal bacilli of the horse and of other domesticated animals. 

 Technological Quarterly, Vol. VI, No. 3, 1893. 



