309 



- My bees were contented, so long as 

 the steady cold weather held on. All 

 the hives had live bees in, when winter 

 broke np. Now, April 17th, my loss is 

 26 per cent.; the largest colonies suf- 

 fered first, while the moderate-sized 

 ones generally and some pretty small 

 ones, came out all right. Why? The 

 large colonies gathered more late 

 honey, which kept sweet until mild 

 weather began, then soured. We had 

 a very cool fall, and colonies that had 

 much of this late honey did not have 

 warm weather enough to work it over 

 and thicken it. In February we had a 

 thaw, a few days of quite warm weather, 

 that caused the bees to breed ; many of 

 them starting more brood than they 

 could cover and feed, when the cold 

 weather came, shortly afterwards ; 

 therefore, some of the brood died, but 

 did not do so much harm till mild 

 weather came again, when it caused a 

 foul smell, then consequent disease. 



In this connection, allow me to state 

 a mild doubt, whether there is any such 

 thing as a regular disease of foul brood, 

 except from some such cause. Lang- 

 stroth states foul brood to be catching, 

 only by the use of the honey. Why r 

 The dead bees and decaying brood gen- 

 erate a sickening stench that perme- 

 ates everything it comes in contact 

 with, and has much the same effect on 

 the system of the bees, as the smell of 

 a patient in typhoid fever, in a close 

 room, has upon the human system. 

 Therefore, the bees will die off, even 

 after the mild weather sets in, and the 

 warmer the change at first, the greater 

 the mortality for the time being. Clean 

 out the hive, and disinfect it as soon as 

 the weather becomes warm enough 

 safely do to so. 



Two years ago, we had a very warm 

 spell in February, which caused the 

 queens to lay, and some showed the 

 same symptoms that occurred so fre- 

 quently this spring. 



A friend, in an adjoining county, 

 wrote me that his bees were dying at a 

 fearful rate ; I went over there, and 

 found them in a bad plight. I cleaned 

 them out, but he finally lost 32 out of 

 43 colonies. When I got home, I found 

 some of mine with the same symptoms, 

 scattering dead brood in the combs, a 

 bad smell, and some bees dying. I 

 picked out one of the worst, and 

 sprinkled the bees and combs with a 

 solution of salicylic acid, saleratus and 

 water ; repeating the dose in about a 

 week, when they then appeared much 

 better ; they finally got well, and built 

 up to a good colony again, with no re- 

 turn of the same symptoms last year. 



If foul brood is a separate disease, 



will some one experienced in it, please 

 give the primary cause, and also how 

 much difference there is between that 

 and this year's run of dysentery ? In a 

 back number of the Journal, a pro- 

 fessor in Germany gives the result of 

 some experiments he made with foul- 

 brood combs. He demonstrated that 

 the dry mold gave off spores or parti- 

 cles that float in the air. But I doubt 

 if the proof was conclusive, that those 

 spores" generate the disease. If some 

 lucky (?) brother will send a little of 

 such diseased comb, I will introduce it 

 to a colony, for the sake of what knowl- 

 edge may be derived, and publish the 

 results. Or let some one else experi- 

 ment further, and report in the Bee 

 Journal. 

 New Bichmond, Mich., April 17, 1879. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Primitive Home of the Italian Bee. 



T. L. FRASER. 



In endeavoring to fix the primitive 

 habitat or place of origin of the Italian 

 bee, considered in his wild or indegen- 

 ous state, we could offer only vain or 

 speculative reasoning of little practical 

 utility to the apiculturist, who seeks to 

 attain that purity of type or standard 

 of character upon which the intrinsic 

 value of that variety of the honey bee 

 depends ; but if we can succeed in 

 showing that the honey bee of the 

 Greeks and Bomans, as described by 

 Aristotle, and Virgil, and other Greek 

 and Boman writers, was the one whose 

 description specifies, at the present day, 

 the best samples of that variety now in 

 so much demand with practical honey 

 producers, as well as the bee-breeder 

 whose office it is to seek to elevate the 

 standard of its purity and usefulness,— 

 I shall have gained a point upon which 

 to base its further improvement. In 

 other words, if it could be made appar- 

 ent that the bee cultivated by the Bo- 

 mans, and in common use among that 

 people during the reign of Augustus 

 Caesar, and for an indefinite period an- 

 tecedently ,|is the one that best answers 

 to the description of the purest types 

 or samples of the Italian bee of the 

 present age, a point would be gained in 

 discussion which would at least serve 

 to direct the attention of the bee-cul- 

 turist to the precise locality where the 

 probabilities are in favor of its having 

 existed in its greatest purity, through 

 the successive ages which have inter- 

 vened between that time and the pres- 

 ent. 



The original habitat of this, and the 

 other varieties of the honeybee, as I 



