THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



199 



food. I do not wish to be uiulerslood as 

 sayiiiiT, that if bees whtc fed impure food 

 they would not have the diarrlKua, for they 

 prol)at)ly would. What I nie^in to assert 

 is, that the qualit;/ of iioiiey has uotiiing 

 to do, in ninety-nine cases out of a hun- 

 dred, witii tlie briuu,in,i; about of the dis- 

 ease in quest ion. I am forced to this con- 

 clusion not only from experimental expe- 

 rience — wincii I have not time to set forth 

 — I)ut also from llie foUowinsr reasons: 



I'irst, wiien animals are afflicted with 

 simple diarrhoea, the orj^ans of the system 

 are in a relaxed condition; there is no dis- 

 tention or iiiflannn:itioH. In bee-diar- 

 rhoea — so called — there is unmistakal)le 

 evidence of cungestion and inflammation. 

 Tlie bloated appearance evidently does not 

 result from tlie accumulation of fecal mat- 

 ter, for it does not disappear after evacu- 

 ation. It iniiiht be nr<red that the reten- 

 tion of the feces in the intestines for an 

 unusual time would eaiiseirritation which 

 wouUl evidently produce inflammation in 

 the surrounding membranes. Tliis argu- 

 ment seems very reasonable, but I am 

 disposed to believe tliat it is not applica- 

 ble to this case for the following reasons : 



1. It has been proven repeatedly by di- 

 rect experiment, that bees can be kept 

 housed for six months or more, on stores 

 of honey and pollen, without any injuri- 

 ous eflect. 2. Bees often become diseased 

 within two or three days after having had 

 a cleansing flight. 3. The disease usually 

 makes itself manifest within a short pe- 

 riod of time. I have repeatedly seen colo- 

 nies become badly sickened within ten or 

 twelve hours after a previous examina- 

 tion, wdien, to all outward appearance, 

 they were in perfect health. The second 

 and third reasons, by themselves, prove 

 nothing, but wlien taken together, tend to 

 disprove the hypothesis that the disease is 

 caused by fecal accumulation. 



The impure-food theory. 



Second, I disbelieve in the "impuie 

 food" theory because, when improper sub- 

 stances are taken into the animal system, 

 nature acts ab initio (from the beginning.) 

 When a young man commences to use to- 

 bacco, he does not smoke a box of cigars 

 before feeling the unpleasant eflects of the 

 weed ; tlie first cigar or pipe generally 

 "lays him out" limp and pale, with his 

 wliole ii>ternal apparatus in open rebellion 

 and spasmodic eruption. The farmer un- 

 derstands that, if iie feeds green food ex- 

 clusively to animals that have been fed 

 upon ha}', they will, for a time "have the 

 scours." These are only a few of the 

 many examples that might be cited to il- 

 lustrate that wise provision of the creative 

 power, by which all animals are warned 



against partaking of substances which 

 would cause the system to become de- 

 ranged, even if the derangement is only 

 temporary, as in the case of a sudden 

 change of feed. 



Tliiril. There is still another objection 

 to the "iuipure food" arguuient. Even 

 when the adult members of a sp<'cies of 

 animals are enabled, by virtue of their su- 

 perior physical power, to eat food which 

 may not be best for them, if the san^e food 

 be consumed by the same species of im- 

 mature growth, the evil efl'ects will very 

 soon become apparent. 



Now in the case of bee-diarrhoea, neither 

 the young bee just emerging from its cell, 

 nor the one that lias nearly completed its 

 course of life, exhibits any indications of 

 disease until nearly the middle of the win- 

 ter, and very often not until the mouth of 

 March. 



To still further show the fallacy of the 

 prevalent idea that winter mortality of 

 bees is caused by improper food, let me il- 

 lustrate by the following facts that have 

 come under my notice while studying this 

 question : 



Experiments in wintering bees. 



Suppose we take ten hives containing 

 colonies of normal strength, both as to 

 bees and honey. Let these colonies be 

 left on the summer stands and protected 

 from the weather in any manner that the 

 experimenter may see tit, proviiled it is so 

 arranged that the clustered bees may be 

 examined from the top, with as little dis- 

 turbance as possible. 



Now if we examine these colonies, say 

 on December 1, we shall And, if the weath- 

 er is cold, the bees closely clustered in the 

 front-centre of the hive, with the top part 

 of the living sphere from three to five 

 inches below the top-bars of tlie brood- 

 frames; the distance below will vary ac- 

 cording to the disposition of the honey 

 stores and the depth of the frame. If the 

 weather continues cold, the motion of the 

 cluster will be upward, and in time the 

 bees at the top will be in close proximity 

 to the honey-board or quilt, whichever 

 may be used to cover the hive. 



Suppose these ten colonies are closely 

 watched, and it is found that on January 

 1, four colonies are so clustered as to reach 

 over the frame tops; this interval of time, 

 December to January, we will designate 

 a. On February 1, two more are in the 

 same position, interval of time called 6; 

 still two more reach this position on Feb- 

 uary 15, interval of time c, and the last 

 two on March 1, interval of time d. 



Now, what I wish to bring to the notice 

 of the reader is, that during the interval 

 of time a, there will be uo danger of any 



