MALADIES OF BEES. 



Dysentery is the malady which is at once the most dreaded by 

 bee-owner, and the most easy to be prevented. It is always due 

 to damp or to bad diet, such as impure honey and indigestible 

 syrups. The remedies are consequently to place the hives in a 

 dry situation, and to supply the insects with wholesome food, such 

 as good honey mixed with a little generous wine. The greatest 

 care should also be taken to remove such combs as may be 

 rendered foul by excrement, and to clean the shelves in the 

 bee-houses. 



Among other maladies may be mentioned, diseases of the 

 antennae, vertigo, and abortive broods of eggs. These are gene- 

 rally produced by bad food, damp, and drafts of cold air. On 

 that account some bee- cultivators reject the forms of hive or bee- 

 houses having two doors on opposite sides, thus placed for the 

 purpose of ventilation. This arrangement is never seen in the 

 natural habitations of the insect. 



207. Dr. Bevan mentions a case of abortive brood which occur- 

 red in one of Mr. Dunbar's hives. The colony had been very 

 strong in the previous autumn, and possessed a fertile queen, but 

 in the spring it failed, and did not swarm. On examination, he 

 found the four central leaves of the hive (which was one of Huber's, 

 fig. 73), full of abortive brood, by the presence of which the queen 

 seemed to t be paralysed, though she still laid a few eggs at the 

 edge of the combs. As the population seemed gradually dimi- 

 nishing, Mr. Dunbar cut out the whole of the abortive brood, 

 removed the old queen, and added an after swarm to the family. 

 The conjoined bees soon betook themselves to work, replaced the 

 old combs by new ones, and laid in an ample store of honey. This 

 is an operation called castration by French apiculturists ; and in 

 all such cases it is prudent, in order to prevent contagion, to have 

 the infected combs burnt or buried. 



208. Butler, in his " Female Monarchy," relates a story of a 

 credulous lady who devoted herself to the cultivation of bees. 

 This person having gone to receive the sacrament, retained the 

 consecrated wafer ; and at the suggestion of a friend, more simple 

 than herself, placed it . in one of her diseased hives. The bee 

 plague, according to her report, immediately .ceased ; honey accu- 

 mulated ; and, on examining the inside of the hive, she found 

 there, to her astonishment and admiration, a waxen chapel, of 

 wondrous architecture, supplied with an altar, and even with a 

 steeple, and a set of bells, all constructed of the same material. 



209. The most dangerous enemies of the bees are the larvae of 

 certain moths, which when once they take possession of a hive can- 

 not be extirpated, and no remedy remains but to transport the 

 entire population of the insect colony to a new habitation. 



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