THE DISEASES OF BEES. 81 



syrup : by ivarm syrup I do not at all mean so hot as to scald 

 the bees, 98° or 100° Fahr. being quite sufficiently warm ; it 

 should, in fact, not be so hot that the finger will be at all 

 scalded or burnt when dipped in it. 



Foul Brood. 



Foul brood, or Bacillus alvei, as it is generally known in 

 England, is one of the most dreaded diseases to which bees 

 are subject, and, as it is highly infectious, unless measures 

 are taken to stamp it out immediately whenever and wherever 

 it makes its appearance, there is great danger of the bee- 

 keeper losing all his hives. 



As its name implies, it is principally a disease of the brood, 

 though adult bees are occasionally attacked by it. 



The signs of foul brood are these : In the first place the 

 young grubs or larvte die and lie stretched out along the sides 

 of the cells. They turn firstly yellowish and afterwards brown 

 (healthy brood is always pearly white in colour), and then 

 become a putrescent, sticky, coffee-coloured, pappy, ropy mass 

 in the cells. Unless checked in the first stages by the remedies 

 shortly to be described, foul brood is so infectious that it 

 rapidly attacks all the rest of the brood in the hive, and gives 

 off a strong and most nauseous smell, something like bad glue. 

 There is another variety of foul brood (generally known as 

 Bacillus burri) which gives off a much less offensive smell, and 

 attacks the larvae when they are a little older — either just 

 before or just after the brood is sealed.* 



When a colony of bees becomes badly affected with foul brood 

 the cappings of the brood become concave instead of convex. 



There is a third variety of foul brood {Streptococcus apis), 

 but as it is seldom met with except in conjunction with Bacillus 

 alvei, and as the treatment of all three forms of foul brood is 

 the same, we need not more specifically deal with it. 



In the earlier stages of foul brood the disease consists of a 

 hacillus which can be destroyed in ways hereafter described, 

 but when the disease has killed the brood and the latter has 

 become a coffee-coloured mass (which later on dries up, forming- 

 thin brownish flakes on the sides and bottoms of the cells), 

 the bacilli turn into spores. These spores, unlike the bacilli, 

 cannot be destroyed by disinfectants unless the disinfectants 



* There is a certain school of bee-keepers in America who hold that the two best known 

 forms of foul brood are caused by Bacillus larvce and Bacillus pluton respectively. 



