DISEASES OF BEES. 257 



tain parts of the combs. In the moist, the brood, instead 

 of drying up, decays, and produces a noisome stench, 

 which may be perceived at some distance from the 

 hive.* 



In the Spring or Summer, when the weather is fine 

 and pasturage abounds, the following cure for foul-brood 

 is recommended by a German Apiarian : " Drive out 

 the bees into any clean hive, and shut them up in a dark 

 place without food for twenty-four hours; prepare for 

 them a clean hive, properly fitted up with comb from 

 healthy colonies, transfer the bees into it, and confine 

 them two days longer, feeding them with pure honey." 



My readers are indebted to Mr. Samuel Wagner for 

 a translation of Dzierzon's mode of treating foul-brood : 



" I admit that I can furnish no prescriptions by ifiuch a 

 diseased colony may be forthwith cured. Nay, I consider 

 it highly improbable that a colony, in which the disease 

 has made marked progress, can be cured by any medica- 

 ments. The removal of the putrid and infectious matter, 

 already so abundant in the cells, must at least be simul- 

 taneously effected and this seems to be altogether 

 impracticable. Nevertheless, there would be much gained 

 if we could neutralize or destroy the virus in the bees, 

 themselves, and also render the infected honey harmless. 

 A bee-keeping friend recently informed me that, if such 

 honey be somewhat diluted with water, and then well 

 boiled and skimmed, it maybe safely used in feeding bees. 

 Suspected honey should invariably be boiled and skimmed 

 before it is fed to bees. For the hive itself, chloride of 

 lime might prove an efficient disinfectant. J simply let 

 the hives, which contained diseased colonies, stand exposed 



* As Aristotle (History of Animals, Book IX., Chap. 40) speaks of a disease 

 which is accompanied by a disgusting smell of the hive, there is reason to believe 

 that foul-brood was common more than two thousand -years ago. 



