DISEASES OF BEES. 259 



than it is desired to winter, it is judicious to. take the 

 honey from the colonies deprived of their queens, imme- 

 diately after all the brood has emerged, as they usually 

 contain the greatest quantity of stores at that time. If 

 the disease be not malignant foul-brood, the colony may 

 be alloAved to remain undisturbed after it has bred a new 

 queen, and, in most instances, such colonies will subse- 

 quently be found free from disease. I have, indeed, ascer- 

 tained the singular fact that, if both bees and combs be 

 removed from an infected hive, and healthy bees and pure 

 comb be placed therein, these will speedily be infected 

 with foul-brood ; whereas, when the queen of an incipiently 

 infected colony is removed, or simply confined in a cage, 

 and the workers are still sufficiently numerous to remove 

 all impurities, the colony will speedily be restored to a 

 healthy condition. It thus seems as though the bees can 

 become accustomed to the virus which usually adheres so 

 pertinaciously to the hive. 



" Foul-brood, indeed, is a disease exclusively of the 

 larvce, and not of the emerged bees, or of brood suffi- 

 ciently advanced to be nearly ready to emerge. Hence, 

 the cause of the disease may exist already in the food 

 provided for the larvae, and have its seat in the chyle- 

 stomach of the nursing bees, though these latter may not 

 themselves be injuriously affected thereby. 



" Though the colonies treated in this manner generally 

 appear to be free from infection during the ensuing 

 season, and the brood proceeding from the eggs of a 

 queen subsequently given to them, or from those of one 

 reared by themselves, is healthy, maturing and emerging 

 in due time, still, the disease, in most instances, re-appears 

 in the following Summer. It is, indeed, possible that the 

 bees may have re-introduced it from foreign sources, but 

 it is not unlikely, also, that the infectious matter really 



