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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



remarkable thing was, that the hive last men- 

 tioned had, when a year old, scut out a large 

 swarm, which I placed about three yards from 

 its parent stock. Just at the time that the bees 

 Of the latter were dying off, those of the swarm 

 began to die also. 



This season, (18G7-8), I have two stocks fast 

 dying, and one more appearing to be affected. 

 1 have at the present time some old stocks which 

 are quite healthy, as are als3 the swarms which 

 have come from them. How can this be ac- 

 counted for, these hives being kept under ex- 

 actly similar conditions to the affected hives ? 



If no remedy can be found for the disease, I 

 propose to destroy every stock in which it 

 makes its appearance, sparing none, with the 

 hope of destroying all traces of it. 



R. Mower. 



[The disease which has attacked your apiary 

 appears, from your description, to be a kind of 

 dysentery, but somewhat allied to dropsy. We 

 have known an apiary almost completely de- 

 populated by it. A cure was effected by driving 

 out or brushing off the combs all the bees of a 

 hive and knocking them down on a cloth at some 

 distance from their stand. All that were not 

 affected by the malady, rising on the wing, re- 

 turned home ; the rest were destroyed. This 

 was repeated so long as there appeared to be 

 any sign of it among them. Of course dry 

 warm days must be chosen for the purpose. 



Have you ever examined the combs of a hive 

 so circumstanced ? If not do so without delay. 

 If you find, as we should not be at all surprised 

 to hear, that the combs contain patches of abor- 

 tive, dead or dried up brood, many of the cells 

 having a small hole in their sealed covering, ac- 

 companied with a more or less offensive odor, 

 you may at once conclude that your apiary has 

 become infected with that terrible scourge, 

 Foulbrood. If this be the case, you can 

 hardly hope to effect its eradication, unless you 

 make up your mind to destroy every stock, 

 burying the bees and burning the combs. 

 Taking every possible precaution to prevent 

 the bees of your other hives gaining access to 

 any of the honey. Scald out and well scrape 

 out your hives, saturating them, inside and out, 

 with a very strong solution of chloride of lime. 

 If the hives are not used again for a year or two, 

 all the better. We know an instance where, 

 last year, nearly twenty hives died or were de- 

 stroyed, in consequence of FoulbrT>od. 



When you have examined your stocks report 

 the result, and we shall then be better able to 

 advise you as to the best means of affecting a 

 cure.] 



March 21, 1868. 



DISEASE AMONG BEES. 



Within a few days after the publication of the 

 letter of your correspondent, R. Mower, giving 

 an account of a peculiar disease which has for 

 some four years caused consideiable havoc 

 among his hives, I have had the opportunity 

 of witnessing, in a friend's apiary, an instance 

 of what I consider to be the identical malady 

 described by Mr. Mower so graphically. My 

 atention was drawn to one hive in a garden 



containing perhaps twenty stocks, all with this 

 exception being perfectly healthy and prosper- 

 ous. Bees, dark colored and more or ies ; dis- 

 tended or swollen, had crawled out. of the en- 

 trance and lay dead or dying on the alighting 

 hoard or on the ground below. The box was 

 lifted off the floor-board, which was removed, 

 and a clean board substituted. There were 

 lying on it many — perhaps fifty — dead bees, all 

 presenting the appearance so peculiar to this 

 disease. The owner had followed this course 

 of proceeding everyday for a considerable time, 

 always finding a fresh batch of dead or dying. 



As far as I could judge, the bees had not 

 been affected with that type of disease generally 

 known as "dysentery." The floor-boards, as 

 they were removed each day, exhibited little or 

 no sign of the noisome excretion voided by bees 

 suffering from dysentery. Should the plan 

 hitherto followed tail in restoring health to the 

 bees of this hive, my friend intends to secure 

 the person of the queen, and establish her at the 

 head of another colony, and destroy all the re- 

 maining bees. 



If the plan recommended in your reply to R. 

 Mower, be adopted, it should be borne in mind 

 that the queen must, if possible, be captured 

 and replaced in the hive standing in the accus- 

 tomed position, prior to the knocking out 

 of the bees on the ground. This, though 

 very easily accomplished with movable frame 

 hives, is a much more difficult process with 

 ordinary hives. If the operator shall fail in 

 his attempt to capture the queen, he must care- 

 fully renew his search, when the bees are 

 shaken or brushed cut on the cloth. I may add 

 that in}' friend's apiary has on a former occa- 

 tion suffered considerably from this disease, 

 and that he does not believe that the infection 

 is carried from one hive to another. The op- 

 portunity of observation I have had with re- 

 gard to it, will not allow my giving any deci- 

 ded opinion on that point at the present 

 moment. I hardly think from the description 

 given by R. Mower, that the malady which has 

 affected his stocks can be attributed to foul- 

 brood, as under such circumstances the adult 

 bees do not seem to be in any wise the worse 

 for its presence in their hive, the destruction of 

 which is simply owing to there being an insuffi- 

 cient number of bees matured to supply the loss 

 of life from natural causes. 



S. Bevan Fox. 



The eggs from which workers and queens are 

 developed, are perfectly identical. This has 

 become an axiom in the theory of bee-culture. 

 Nor could it be otherwise, for then it would be 

 impossible to rear queens from worker eggs, as 

 is done frequently every summer, and of which 

 any one may readily assure himself, by insert- 

 ing a piece of worker comb containing eggs and 

 larva in a queenless colony. — Scnoi/risz. 



A bee, if undisturbed after stinging, but left 

 entirely to its own instinct, will endeavor to 

 extract the sting by whirling around rapidly, 

 and usually succeeds in getting away uninjured. 



