BEES AND BEE CULT URE. 1169 



ature. Our cellar has a stream of water passing through it, and 

 has been used with entire satisfaction. 



If every thing is arranged as described above, the bees will 

 continue quiet in the cellar from November till April. If, how- 

 ever, the bees become uneasy in winter, they need to empty 

 their distended intestines, and should be carried from the cellar 

 the first warm day suitable for a flight. After the cleansing 

 flight they should be returned to the cellar. Cooling off the 

 cellar or enlarging the opening of the hive will often quiet the 

 bees. If the bees have not sufficient food for winter they should 

 be fed good honey or syrup made of granulated sugar, which is 

 equally good. If destitute of food in mid-winter, which ought 

 never to occur, they should be fed common or the "Good candy." 

 SPRING DWINDLING. By this is meant the dying off of the 

 bees in spring. It is often the source of terrible loss. The 

 cause is poor wintering, and few and feeble bees in spring. The 

 remedy is care to winter well, protection from cold in spring, 

 and crowding by use of the division board, so that the bees shall 

 have only so many frames as they can cover. I have never 

 lost a colony by this malady. I think I have escaped by crowd- 

 ing the brood-chamber and by use of warm covering. 



DISEASES OF BEES. Common " Dysentery," caused by unfav- 

 orable wintering, arises from improper food or too changeable 

 temperature. Care to observe the rules already given as to 

 wintering will prevent this dreaded malady. 



" Foul Brood," the terrible scourge of the apiarist, is a fun- 

 goid disease, the germs of which are contained in the honey of 

 all the diseased colonies, and so are easily carried to other col- 

 onies ; thus the disease is as contagious as it is deadly. In this 

 disease the mature bees are not affected, but the brood becomes 

 rotten. The symptoms are terrible stench from the decaying 

 brood ; rotting brood, which if pulled from the hive, comes out 

 as a brown, stringy mass. Concave caps to the cells containing 

 the rotting brood, and often a small hole through the center of 

 these caps. The best remedy for the most of us to practice is 

 to bury or burn all affected colonies as soon as the disease is 

 discovered. Two remedies, one by salicylic acid, the other by 



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