THE AMEBIC AN APICULTURIST. 



adhere to the bees." This is not 

 so. Schonfeld, in Germany, in 

 1877, and perhaps, prior to that, 

 washed with distilled water some 

 bees taken from a foul-broody col- 

 ony, and found that this water con- 

 tained mouldy pieces of the rotten 

 brood. Further, the intestines of 

 such bees, from the chylous stomach 

 to the rectum, were filled with moul- 

 dy substance and bacteria. In the 

 rectum were found only developed 

 bacteria and no spores. Thence, 

 it follows that a fasting method 

 alone cannot lead to the cure of 

 foul brood, but necessarily must be 

 connected with inner and outer dis- 

 infection, if a certain cure is to be 

 obtained. Yes, if a simple fasting 

 cure would lead to the desired result, 

 thebacterian theory, now generally 

 acknowledged as correct, would 

 thereby be contradicted. 



The brood food produced by such 

 bees will not, in the beginning, by 

 reason of the fasting cure, contain 

 bacteria or spores, and therefore 

 the foul brood will not for some 

 time come to light ; but, as soon as 

 the spores, which retain vitality for 

 years, find again in the larva ground 

 for their unfolding, the disease will 

 break out again and most always 

 with more violence than before. 



Von Berlepsch, certainly a thor- 

 ough bee-master, in the summers 

 of 1865 and 1867 treated four such 

 colonies in this manner and, as is 

 to be expected, and he himself as- 

 sures us, even with the utmost 

 precaution, all four colonies be- 

 came again infected with foul 

 brood. 



Von Dzierzon, also, in 1848, 



tried the fasting cure but it proved 

 insufficient. 



I would mention here that there 

 have been cases in which the real 

 malignant foul brood has disap- 

 peared spontaneously. In warm 

 climates, this seems to be almost 

 invariably the case. 



It has lately been discovered in 

 Germany, by thorough investiga- 

 tion that bee poison is a powerful 

 antiseptic, and that the bees also 

 use this property to preserve honey. 



It is therefore very likely that 

 this acid, under favorable circum- 

 stances is sufficient to destroy the 

 foul-brood bacteria. If we have to 

 consent to this, and also that the 

 probability cannot be denied that 

 under especially favorable circum- 

 stances the fasting cure can be car- 

 ried through with success, so also 

 it is shown in the theory of the 

 foul brood, as given by Prof. Cook 

 in such an excellent manner, that 

 this cure alone is a very uncertain 

 one. On account of the danger, 

 which is connected with it, it should 

 therefore yiever be used ; more es- 

 pecially, as I shall presently relate, 

 that we now know of a more simple 

 and speedier method of cure. 



2. Prof. Cook states that the 

 spores of the foul brood fungus are 

 especially to be found in the honey 

 of a foul brood hive. But these 

 spores keep the vitality also in the 

 chjdous stomach of the bees and 

 Schonfeld has proved that the food 

 which is given to the young larva 

 contains, in a foul broody hive, a 

 large quantity of such spores ; that, 

 consequently, this transplants the 

 seeds of the disease into the young 



