IS2 



Two dead bees from the alighting board were examined : one was 

 found infected, the other yielded a negative result. 



On the 26th February the bees, which were now much reduced 

 in numbers, were placed along with the queen in a small cage. 

 These survived till the 27th. The queen was found to contain 

 Nosema spores in very large numbers, and had thus reached this 

 stiige of infection within the period or 22 days, assuming that she 

 was not previously infected. The djsentery which was present, 

 and which we believe was due to secondary causes, such as over- 

 heatin<T in confinement with resulting excitement, had practically 

 disappeared in the later stages of the experiment. 



The foregoing experiment was designed along with another 

 following to show the distinct character of Nosema disease and of 

 Isle-of- Wight disease. The Board of Agriculture investigators in 

 their report concluded that Isle-of-Wight disease is caused by 

 Nosema apis, and have explained the failure of observers to find 

 Nosema in many cases of the disease as due to the extreme 

 virulence of the parasite in killing off the bees while it is still in 

 the trophic stage. This experiment shows that by definitely 

 introducing Nosema into an Isle-of-Wight diseased stock in which 

 we had previously failed to find Nosema, we without difficulty 

 obtained it within the period of 17 days from the majority of bees 

 present and from the queen in three weeks. 



No. II. Another frame of bees taken from the same stock as 

 that utilised in the previous experiment was placed on the same 

 day in an adjacent observation hive. The two had a common 

 alighting board. The bees were showing marked Isle-of-Wight 

 disease symptoms. They were feeble, many were frequently 

 falling off the frame and very few could fly. During the first ten 

 days the bees under the new conditions improved in appearance 

 and became more active. The mortality was not excessive. The 

 weather on the whole was rather cold. 



On the 1 2th February a queen which had already been the 

 subject of an experiment with Isle-of-Wight diseased bees was 

 introduced to these bees. 



On the 22nd February bees from this lot were taken and 

 examined — the first six were all found infected with Nosema in the 

 spore stage, notwithstanding, as explained in the previous experi- 

 ment, the fact that Nosema could not be found in bees of this stock 

 prior to the initiation of this experiment. This result is of special 

 interest and the infection is readily understood. The common 

 alighting board, which is really a full sized window sill, in which 

 the two observation stocks were placed had been previously used 

 by a stock suffering from Nosema infection, and was further at this 

 time in use by the bees in the previous experiment. As both lots 

 of bees belonged to the same stock originally it is highly probable 

 that mixing occurred, and that bees from the infection experiment 

 entered the adjacent hive. At all events the infection with Nosema 

 in both lots was very complete, and subsequent examination showed 

 the majority of the bees to contain Nosema spores in large numbers. 



In this experiment we have thus been able not only to adduce 

 evidence of the separate nature of these two diseases, but also to 



