AUSTRALASIAN BEE MANUAL 141 



queens, and in nine days go over them carefully and 

 destroy all queen cells ; or virgin queens, if hatched. 

 Then start queen rearing from newly hatched larva 

 from your choicest queen (which should be an Italian). 

 On the twentieth day after the old queen was removed, 

 and not one hour sooner, for upon this success depends, 

 a ripe queen should be given to each colony from those 

 you have raised. The young queen, in the ordinary 

 course of things, will commence to lay about the twenty- 

 seventh day, or three or four days after the last brood 

 has emerged. The bees in the meantime having cleaned 

 out all the infected cells, the disease is not likely to 

 reappear. 



OTHER DISEASES. 



So little is known concerning the cause and cure of 

 what we know as " Pickle Brood " and " Bee Para- 

 lysis," and which are now being investigated that it is 

 needless to dwell upon them here especially as they are 

 not very troublesome so far in this part of the world. 



" MALIGNANT AND INFECTIOUS DYSENTERY." 



Dr. Zander, of Erlangen, Bavaria, has recently been 

 investigating a disease which he refers to as '* Malig- 

 nant and Infectious Dysentery " ; it is also frequently 

 spoken of as the " New Disease." He says that it is 

 altogether different to ordinary dysentery, which is 

 harmless in comparison, and that it is the worst bee 

 disease known. It is caused by a parasite germ attack- 

 ing and destroying the intestinal wall of the bee, which 

 he has named Nosema apis. According to Dr. Zander, 

 it belongs to the same family and is closely related to 

 the germ which caused the direful disease among silk- 

 worms know^n as " Pebrine." 



For the past few seasons Victoria (Australia) bee- 

 keepers have suffered from a disease among their bees, 

 the symptoms of which more or less coincide with those 

 described by Dr. Zander, and from scientific investiga- 

 tions carried out by two Government officers indepen- 



