256 THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 



ment, which, instead of a reddish yellow, exhibits a 

 muddy black color, and has an intolerably offensive smell. 

 Also, by its being voided upon the floors and at the 

 entrance of the hives, which bees, in a healthy state, are 

 particularly careful to keep clean."* 



Various opinions have prevailed as to the causes of this 

 disease. All Apiarians are agreed that dampness in the 

 hives, especially if the bees are long confined, is sure to 

 produce it. Feeding bees late in the Fall on liquid honey 

 which they have not time to seal over, and which sours 

 by attracting moisture should be avoided ; also, all unne- 

 cessary disturbance of colonies in the "Winter, which, by 

 exciting them, causes an excessive consumption of food. 

 Populous stocks, well stored with honey, in hives so venti- 

 lated as to keep the combs dry, will seldom suffer severely 

 from this disease. 



The disease called by the Germans ''foul brood," is of 

 all others the most fatal (p. 19) to bees. The sealed 

 brood die in the cells, and the stench from their decaying 

 bodies seems to paralyze the bees.f 



There are two species of foul-brood, one of which the 

 Germans call the dry, and the other, the moist or foetid. 

 The dry appears to be only partial in its effects, and not 

 contagious, the brood simply dying and drying up in cer- 



* I have discovered a kind of dysentery which confines its ravages to a few bees 

 in a colony. Those attacked are at first excessively irritable, and sting without 

 any provocation. In the latter stages of this complaint, they may often be seen on 

 the ground, stupid and unable to fly, their abdomens unnaturally distended with an 

 offensive yellow matter. I can assign neither cause nor cure for this disease. 



t Dzierzon thinks that this disease was produced in his Apiary by feeding bees 

 on " American honey" (honey from the West India Islands). As this honey does 

 not ordinarily produce it, he probably used some taken from colonies having the 

 disease. Such honey is always infectious. 



Mr. Quinby informs me that he has lost as many as 100 colonies in a year from 

 this pestilence. It has never made its appearance in my Apiaries, and I should 

 regard its general dissemination through our country as the greatest possible 

 calamity to bee-keeping. 



