new sets of comb before the disease disap- 



E eared, on account of trying to save the 

 oney from a few diseased hives. A single 

 drop, if carried into a healthy colony, will 

 spread the disease if fed to the brood ; at 

 other times it might escape for a while, in 

 case it was extracted soon after the dis- 

 eased drop of honey bad been deposited in 

 the combs, and even then, the minute fun- 

 gus might infect the honey in one cell only, 

 and that honey be used one or two years af- 

 terwards to feed brood and spread the dis- 

 ease. The bees confined in the empty 

 hives should be looked after in 24 hours, 

 and if lively and cross they should be con- 

 fined 12 hours more, and in some cases as 

 long as 48 hours, or until they appear stupid 

 and a portion of them starved to death. 



They should then be allowed to fly, giv- 

 ing them a set of frames, and if possible a 

 comb of healthy honey, or sprinkled with 

 warm sugar syrup to revive them so that 

 they will be able to go out for supplies. A 

 set of frnmes filled with half sheets of comb 

 foundation have been found of great ser- 

 vice ; saving time, allowing the queen to re- 

 sume laying sooner and preventing the col- 

 ony from dwindling. By proceeding from 

 day to day, treating 5 to 10 per day and 

 carefully attending to them, seeing that 

 they build up ; carefully destroying all foul 

 honey, propolis and wax so as to prevent 

 healthy colonies from getting at it, a large 

 apiary may be restored to health in a 

 month. 



In preparing hives that have been occu- 

 pied by foul brood colonies for future use, 

 scrape all wax, propolis and othermatter en- 

 terely off and submerge them in a strong 

 solution of caustic soda or concentrated lye, 

 afterwards drying and sunning them for a 

 day or two. They should remain entirely 

 .covered in this solution at least an hour, al- 

 lowing it to penetrate all cracks and crev- 

 lices. All old rickety hives and those that 

 are too long or too short, so that your frames 

 .do not work well in them, can be soaked in 

 -the solution, dried and split up into kind- 

 ling wood. By following the foregoing di- 

 rections practically, never losing sight of the 

 main features of the treatment and closely 

 .examining through your hives >n the fall 

 and then again in the spring, carefully ex- 

 amining every comb and destroying every 

 • one that has a trace of the disease about it, 

 you can rest assured that you will again be 

 in possession of healthy colonies and open 

 nip and remain strong and healthy as though 

 i no disease had ever existed. 



I was assisted ,in treating my apiary by 

 Mr. Rufus Touchton, a young man with 

 keen eyesight and a good memory, and to 

 these added a firm determination to eradi- 

 . cate the disease. No combs were inter- 

 changed from hive to hive during the sea- 

 son. A second treatment was made after 

 i the honey season, and this spring the few 

 i remaining traces . were destroyed by fire, 

 : and now I can say for the first time in 

 nearly two years, that I have not got a foul 

 .comb to show to those who are fortunate 

 enough to have never seen it. Should this 

 hurriedly written report be of service to the 

 members of your society. I shall be amply 

 paid for the time taken from my daily labor 

 .to prepare it. 



foreign Hxrtts. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



The Theory of Dzierzon. 



M. Vienney has altogether misunderstood 

 me. I never dreamed of raising the least 

 doubt against parthenogenesis. Not a single 

 word in my note can give room for such an 

 interpretation. Above all, it does not con- 

 tain the errors, the absurdities even which 

 M. Vienney gratuitously lends me,— such as 

 parthenogenesis deduced from the color of 

 the males. The criticisms of M. Vienney 

 then altogether miss their mark, and as to 

 the form more than shape, that he has given 

 to them, I shall confine myself to regretting 

 it, without otherwise taking notice of it. 



M. Vienney does not seem to have a very 

 distinct idea of what essentially constitutes 

 the theory of Dzierzon. if he will just 

 take the trouble to read carefully (in the 

 December report of the Bee-Culturist So- 

 ciety of the District of Geronde), the little 

 work of which my letter to the Academy 

 was but a summary, he will see there the 

 distinction that there is occasion to estab- 

 lish between virginal reproduction and the 

 ?art attributed by Dzierzon to fecundation. 

 Ie will see there also that, far from flatter- 

 ing myself that I am the first to point out 

 this fact, I am glad to see that others have 

 made similar observations, which can but 

 give weight to my interpretation of it. It 

 is of little consequence, to speak truly, that 

 the presence of black males in a mongrel 

 hive has been noticed these 16 years, if 

 we do not deduce from that fact the theo- 

 retical consequences that it contains. 



May I be allowed to make some remarks 

 upon that point. Dzierzon has distinctly 

 said that the sons of an Italian queen im- 

 pregnated by a male of another breed are all 

 Italian like their mother. There are many 

 observers who prove undeniably that they 

 are not all Italian, To the examples al- 

 ready known M. Matther has just added 

 another. It is certain that the cases which 

 we know of are not the only ones that have 

 been noticed, and we can foresee that the 

 coming year will yet bring many cases to 

 light, so that the pretended exceptions may 

 very easily become the rule. 



Why then persist, out of an exaggerated 

 regard for a seductive theory, in not recog- 

 nizing the fact that the proposition laid 

 down by the celebrated German bee-cultur- 

 ist is incorrect? Without dreaming of 

 raising a doubt against this dogma of mod- 

 ern bee-culture, we are going to seek in a 

 new hypothesis an argument such as that 

 between some facts and theory. Hitherto 

 it has been supposed that egg-laying work- 

 ers were very rare. To-day it is admitted 

 that they are in every colony ; that every 

 hive may perhaps possess some. But has 

 this supposition been proved by facts ? 

 Not at all. It arises solely from our dislike 

 to attribute to the queen males which do 

 not at all agree with what theory teaches 

 us. In dealing thus with the subject, no 

 notice is taken that there are cases in which 



