DISEASES AND ENEMIES OF BEES. 139 



DISEASES AND ENEMIES OF BEES. 



FOUL-BROOD (Bacillus alvei) is a germ disease which may be 

 found in all stages, from the egg to the adult bee. Owing to the fact 

 that the bacilli, very minute organisms, multiply very rapidly, the 

 disease spreads incredibly fast, and is therefore the most-dreaded 

 malady of the hive. 



Its presence among the larvae may be very certainly detected by 

 examining a comb of honey containing the growing larva?. If these, 

 instead of being plump and of a pearly whiteness, are yellowish or 

 brown or shriveled, foul-brood may be suspected. The larva soon 

 dies, and shrivels into a flattish black scale. If cells having sunken 

 caps are opened and a dark brown, stringy, putrid mass is found, and 

 if there is an odor similar to the oppressive odor given off from some 

 varieties of liquid glue, foul-brood may be considered the cause of the 

 unnatural condition. 



In larvae, the disease is very acute, embracing all parts of the body, 

 probably on account of the thinness of the membrane. In the adult 

 it may be more localized, and consequently will be longer in running 

 its course. Bees which are nearly dead are almost bloodless, while the 

 air sacs expand as the muscles decrease, and nearly fill the whole body. 

 Workers, drones and queens are liable to attack. If the queen is 

 inflicted with the disease, she will transmit it to the egg. Hence the 

 very rapid destruction of the colonies when once attacked. 



Remedial treatment, to be effective, must be heroic. Those who 

 cannot for a time devote themselves entirely to the work of stamping 

 out the disease had far better destroy the affected colonies. For 

 others of their own apiary will soon be infected and the colonies of 

 the neighborhood are endangered. 



Culling out infected brood-comb, removing bees to new hive, 

 dequeening in order to get rid of a probably diseased queen, adding a 

 new queen, then starving the colony until some of the bees fall from 

 exhaustion, is a method frequently effective. Many other methods 

 are to be found in the various works upon apiculture. The Cheshire 

 plan, however, has proven itself of great value, and is herewith given : 



"To place the food, with added phenol, on 'the hive, will, however, 

 do nothing in the greater number of cases. If honey be coming in, 

 the bees will not touch it ; but open the stocks, remove the brood- 

 combs and pour the medicated syrup into those cells immediately 

 around and over the brood, and the bees will use a curative quantity of 

 phenol. In my experiments I inoculated a stock, and allowed it to 



