82 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



the hives on which contained the bees, with very good results. 

 Care should be taken that nothing disturbs them during their 

 long winter nap. A few rats or mice will often disturb a 

 hundred colonies, so that the greater part of them die. 



No bee keeper can claim to be well informed who has not 

 a knowledge of bee diseases, especially European and iVmer- 

 ican foul brood. The former is more to be feared, although, 

 if proper precaution is taken, this need deter no one from 

 taking up the work. If I were to start anew again to-day in 

 a territory threatened with disease, and had to buy my stock, 

 I should buy Italian bees from a diseased territory and from a 

 man who was careful and thorough, and should expect these 

 bees to be troubled but little with disease, which is caused by 

 a germ called Bacillus alvei. I should be on the lookout when 

 handling the brood, to note if any of the unsealed lars'se had 

 a yellow or brown color, instead of being pearly white. If 

 so, I should expect to find others that had dried down to a 

 dark and shapeless mass, which can be readily removed from 

 the comb without destroying the cells. The dead larvse give 

 forth a sour, sickening odor. The time of death is when the 

 brood is ready for capping, usually not afterward. Such is 

 the appearance of European foul brood. It is also spread by 

 robbing, bees of a diseased colony mixing with the adjoining 

 one, especially if they are black bees. If, on the other hand, 

 the race of bees is Italian, there will be little mixing, and 

 consequently very slow spreading of the malady, for the rea- 

 son that the Italian bees are great defenders of their homes, 

 and no bees pass the guards at the entrance without a strict 

 scrutiny. 



It is for this reason that in an apiary containing pure black 

 bees and pure Italian stocks you will find plenty of Italians 

 in the black stock but no blacks among the Italians. 



It took me several years to learn how disease could be com- 

 municated to an apiary two or three miles from the source of 

 infection, but one day, after inspecting the only yard of 

 Golden Italian in that part of the country, and finding them 

 slightly diseased, I found many of these bees in a yard of 

 blacks two or three miles distant, and nearly all of the twenty 



