THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



741 



All tills would lead to the supposition that weakness and 

 loss of vital energy would tend to premature baldness, if 

 I may be allowed the use of such an expression. This 

 bacillus, undoubtedly, produces this effect, and so again I 

 claim the right of giving a name, and so suggest Bacilhis 

 depilis, or the bacillus of hairlessness, as a (itting one. 



The bees are, undoubtedly, reared in the hive from 

 which they are ejected ; but having in some way taken 

 the disorder (Miss Gavton thinks probably from the 

 queen ; I have, as yet, no ground for an opinion), they are 

 driven out as a danger to the community, for the disease 

 once contracted, there can be but little question that it 

 may be spread from one to another. Very larse numbers 

 of bees sent me from different parts of England and 

 Scotland having the same general peculiarities also con- 

 tain what at present I conclude to be the same bacillus. 



With regard to the other germs found, my knowledge is 

 at present so slender that I must advance nothing beyond 

 the discovery of an enormously large bacillus which takes 

 what is called the zooglea form, two, or possibly three, 

 very minute kinds of bacilli and a micrococcus. The 

 micrococcus will most probably tvu'n out to be a putrefac- 

 tive kind accidentally present. Tlie whole subject is of 

 gi-eat interest, and will, no doubt, hereafter explain, or 

 help to explain, s<ime enigmas in connection with apicul-. 

 ture which cannot be other than useful. Bacillus cUpilis 

 is a very mild offender beside Bacillus alvei, but it will be 

 interesting to note whether it succumbs to the same 

 treatment. The merest beginner will not be likely to 

 suppose that we are here discussing robber-bees pure and 

 simple, but merely the "abnormal bees" or "black 

 robbers." 



That bees are not, or only very slightly, subject to 

 functional or organic disease, is, no doubt, correct. Such 

 disease would forbid increase, and so put a check to their 

 own propagation. By natural and relentless weeding out 

 of the sickly, the survival only of the fittest is secured. 

 I have, however, traced a disorder which seems very rare, 

 in which the liver-tubes degenerate into a thick yellow 

 oil, of which an enormous quantity was collected in the 

 body of one bee I lately examined. 



I must hurry on as I have yet to take up the most 

 important questions. 1. Is foul brood produced by chilled 

 broody Most positively not. Chilled brood, however, 

 furnishes a very favorable resting place for the foul brood 

 germ, and so one is practically often followed by the 

 other. Chilled brood is most absolutely unlike foul brood 

 when microscopically examined. Yet if chilled brood be 

 found, I should begin treating the colonies with medicated 

 syrup at once, as the smallest trace of infection would run 

 not amongst the dead and neglected larvse, and establish 

 a diseased condition as a consequence. 



2. How does bacilhts alvei get into a colony ? I am now 

 morally certain that very many bees of a colony may be 

 diseased for several months with this bacillus, and yet 

 foul brood may not be found. The bees do clear out 

 solitary cases of infection in the grub often, so that the 

 malady may not at all be suspected and yet exist. There 

 is not one single old idea about this disease which is not 

 incorrect, except that it is contagious. Time, I am con- 

 vinced , will fully prove that the old bees almost invariably 

 are the channels of infection. 



3. Is bacillus the cause or result of the disease ? Un- 

 doubtedly the cause. The reasons are numerous. Every 

 attack is marked by their presence, whilst in specimen's 

 from healthy colonies bacilli never appear. The bacilli 

 increase in number during life, and at death pass into the 

 spore condition. The bacillus, during its growth, like 

 other micro-organisms, produces a definite chemical 

 product. By example. Bacterium Hneola produces lactic 

 acid, i. e., it sours milk. Bactenum subtilis produces 

 another decomposition in milk, forming butyric acid. 

 Without these organisms neither can lactic nor butyric 

 acid be evolved in the normal way. In the Biological 

 Laboratory, Mr. Watson Chevne and myself placed ex- 

 ceedingly minute quantities of coffee-colored matter from 

 a diseased cell into tubes containing a mixture of meat 

 broth, gelatine, peptone, and salt, guarded carefully from 

 every kind of germ in the manner known to those who 

 have studied the question. The bacilli multiplied and 

 formed a growth in which were hundreds of thousands 

 of millions of individuals in a peculiar characteristic 

 arrangement somewhat like an inverted fir-tree. The 



tiniest speck was then from this collection inserted into a 

 second tube, and so on until now the seventh is reached. 

 In every case the same characteristic growth appears, a 

 growth never previously seen witli any known germ ; and 

 upon examining the sixth tube, what is found V The 

 meat juice, etc., has been converted into the definite 

 chemical product formed in and giving the characteristic 

 odor of foul-broody hives. For if one of our most accom- 

 plished bee-keepers were blindfolded and asked to smell 

 this tube, he would exclaim, " What an awful case of foul 

 brood this must be ! There's no mistaking it, but it is 

 the very worst I was ever brought into contact with." 

 Can anything more be wanting V Bacillus produces 

 "foul brood," and not "foul brood," bacillus. Our last 

 proof shall be duly reported upon. When twelve tubes 

 have been grown by successive inoculation, the contents 

 of the last will be diffused through water, and some of it 

 blown by a spray-producer overacardof healthy unsealed 

 brood. I will not prophesy, although I foresee the result. 

 In the same manner Bacillus alvei has been cultivated 

 in Japanese isinglass (Agar-agar), and here it quickly 

 forms spores at 98.4'^, the temperature of human blood ; 

 and nothing has given me greater pleasure, in connection 

 with this inquiry, save the curing of the disease, than to 

 watch in this cultivation the conversion of bacilli into 

 spores and spores into bacilli— the ocular and most abso- 

 lute proof of the lines of explanation which J felt to be 

 the only possible one from the outset iu my investigation. 



TREATMENT OF BACILLUS ALVEI (FOUL BROOD.) 



The interest evoked by my discoveries in relation to the 

 most-dreaded malady to wliich bees are subject has, as I 

 imagined it would amongst bee-keepers, principally cen- 

 tred around the method of cure. 



While examining the great number of specimens of 

 infected combs sent me by friends and strangers, two 

 points received, to my mind, demonstration: 1. That 

 Dzierzon is iu error in asserting that there are two kinds 

 of foul brood— one, mild, chiefly affecting the larvte ; the 

 other, malignant, making its main impact upon the 

 chrysalids. There is but one kind of foul brood. The 

 same bacillus causes all, and, contrary to Dzierzon's idea, 

 that form of attack which strikes the larvse early is the 

 more active and the more difficult of treatment, if there 

 be a difference ; and that if this early failing of the brood 

 be caused by disease lurking in the queen, she will, so far 

 as we as yet know, need to be supplanted. 2. That, 

 although all cases are produced by the bacillus which I 

 have called alvei, and so far are identical, yet the spores 

 are at times more robustand virulent than at other times. 

 Those who have given any study to germ diseases know 

 that this has not only been observed, but actually made 

 of practical use. 



Amongst the specimens forwarded, two or three when 

 examined microscopically, indicated, or seemed to indicate 

 great activity, and the apiaries from which they came had 

 in each case been ravaged by the scourge from end to end. 

 In one instance the colonies, running very nearly if not 

 quite to three figures, had not a sound one amongst them: 

 in a second, 19 colonies were dying out in rottenness, and 

 here, also, not one had escaped. 



The colony supplied to me by the kindness of Mr. Mills, 

 came with a sutficiently bad repute ; the malady had in a 

 very short time smitten, in an apiary of about 20, every 

 colony save 3. I regarded it as a fair typical case of 

 advanced foul brood, quite beyond the reach of ordinary 

 curative measures as they have been usually advocated. 

 The manner in which the'disease in this instance died out 

 before my treatment is now matter of history, but I had 

 not, at the time of the Congress, tried conclusions with 

 the malady where it had been most relentless, and where 

 it had worked the most devastating effect. Although I 

 felt confidence that the disease was in all cases alike, and 

 so must in all instances be amenable to the same methods, 

 yet I could not rest until the exiieriment had been tried ; 

 and so, having secured three combs from the larger apiary 

 previously referred to, stipulating that they should be the 

 worst that could be found, and one from the second 

 saturated with disease, and having possessed also for 18 

 days a comb given me by Mr. Mills as a specimen of what 

 the disease could do, which comb had become rotten, 

 mildewed so that half the cells could not be seen, and had 

 little maggots feeding on the bodies of the decaying larvse, 

 I determined with these to make a colony. 



