110 DADAXT SYSTEM OF BEEKEEPING 



apiary. No combs should be exposed, no honey allowed to be 

 robbed, no bees permitted to enter other hives, for in each of 

 those instances there is danger of transmitting the disease. Thus 

 foulbrood should be treated at the beginning of a honey crop. 

 If we find ourselves compelled to treat it at other times, it must 

 be done when the bees are quiet, when there are no robbers about. 



When American foulbrood is treated properly, with the 

 greatest care, there is but little danger of its reappearance 

 except from outside of the apiary. Not so with European foul- 

 brood ; for it seems to reappear mysteriously. 



We also met with "sacbrood," a disease of the larvae in 

 which they die and dry up, so that they may be shaken out of 

 the cell. This usually disappears of its own accord, when the 

 good season comes. It may be due to faulty queens. 



We no longer fear bee diseases, though they are unpleasant 

 to meet. Vigilance is necessary, it is true, but in nothing can 

 we expect to reap a reward without labor. It is quite probable 

 that the time will come again when the foulbroods will be as 

 rare as they were 50 years ago. We read in the text books of 

 the first half of the nineteenth century, that some of the leading 

 scientific beekeepers, such as Dzierzon and Berlepsch, had their 

 apiaries well nigh destroyed by the diseases before they found 

 methods of cure. Earlier still, Schirach, in the Eighteenth Cen- 

 tury, discovered that the cure of American foulbrood was to 

 be found in depriving the bees of all honey and compelling them 

 to use that which was contained in their stomachs, because honey 

 is the most active transmitter of what is called "American foul- 

 brood." 



There is a very destructive disease of the adult bees called 

 Isle-of-Wight disease, in the British Isles. But traces of a similar 

 disease have done very little harm in this country. However, 

 a disease called paralysis, vertigo, May disease, etc/, appears 

 from time to time in different parts of the world. We have seen 

 it, but only on a very limited scale, and it usually disappears 

 with the beginning of the honey crop. 



For a more thorough description of all the bee diseases we 

 refer the reader to our larger work "The Hive & Honey Bee." 



