140 DISEASES AND ENEMIES OF BEES. 



get into a bad state, then inserted a comb of store in the center of the 

 brood-nest, and treated one side, from which the disease disappeared, 

 but raged, although with abated fury, in the other half. Having, by 

 these and many similar experiments, made the curability of Bacillus 

 al.vei a certitude, and having ascertained that T J- ff of phenol could be 

 given to the bees without limiting the queen in breeding, or touching 

 her health, while ^J dispatched the bacillus quickly when the honey 

 was coming in, and T ^ when it was not, I, in the interest of apicul- 

 ture, requested the British Bee-keepers' Association to provide me 

 with a bad case, fully attested. 



"It arrived late, June 21, 1884, with seven combs, about half a pint 

 of bees, and a queen cell which I saw at once contained a dead larva 

 only. Amidst crowds of bad cells, scarcely any living brood was visi- 

 ble. A casual counting of one of the best frames gave 371 dead larvae 

 on one side. The odor was pronounced. The case needed confidence ; 

 it was bad indeed. With me, queenlessness presents the worst of all 

 obstacles. No grubs, no physic, no cure ! I had stipulated that the 

 stock should have a queen, and so the difficulty was greater than I 

 had anticipated. Early next morning, seeing the utterly disheartened 

 condition of the poor bees, I went to a nucleus, took out a very fine 

 Italian mother, just proved as purely fecundated, and putting her 

 under a dome cage on a card, placed the card over the frames. The 

 bees came up and seemed to see in her a new hope. The cage was 

 lifted and she was welcomed immediately. I waited three days, till 

 she was regularly laying, giving syrup phenolated 1 in 500 ; and 

 now, since I could not create bees, added two combs of brood. This 

 step was made necessary by the fact that I required a strong hive by 

 the time of the congress. The bees were now shut up by a division 

 boa'd ; but the combs put behind it, waiting introduction as the bees 

 multiplied, smelt so badly the weather being hot that I several 

 times sprayed them with water 200, phenol 1. Now, I should com- 

 press the bees as much as possible, and spray the removed combs 

 freely with water 50, phenol 1. 



"Every evening the medicated syrup was given, by pouring around 

 the brood-nest ; but only so much as would be likely to be used, the ob- 

 ject not being to fill the cells, but to get the food converted into bees. 

 The smell vanished ; the bees became active and earnest. The comb 

 with 371 dead larvae on one side was last added, and in six days I 

 could only find five sunken caps in the whole of it. Now and again 

 a grub took disease, but quickly perfect immunity was the issue. No 

 cell was uncapped, 110 diseased grub removed, nor hive touched, except 

 as described. The bees cleaned their floor and their combs ; while, in 

 four weeks and two or three days, every frame became filled with 



