THE SMERICSK BEE JOURlMat. 



647 



The Baltle-Bees. 



Were you there when the columns swirled about, 



Did you hear ihe ounnong' rattle ? 

 Dirt you hear the recin^ents' luoty shout, 



And the hum of the Bees of Battle ? 



The bees that hummed in the air were of lend ; 



How they sanj; thrtniph the leafy bowers ! 

 And the juice of the flowers which they drank was 

 red— 



How the Battle-Bees fed on flowers ! 



Were you there when the bees came humming 

 throueh. 



Were you there when they so beset us. 

 When the honey they made with so much ado 



Was sweeter than that of Hymettus ? 



Was it sweet? Ah. it was ! 80 I say a^ain : 



lis BweetnesB is told in story- 

 It was deadly sweet to the armies twain— 



But the honey was only gtory. 



—Selected. 



BEE-DIARRHEA. 



The Result of Experiiiieii(!« made 

 to Diseover the Cause of It. 



Written for theAmeriean Bee Journal 

 BY G. E. riEKCE. 



Query 564 reads thus : " During De- 

 cember, January and February of the 

 winter of 1884-85 I lost 700 full colonies 



out of 900 located in Ave apiaries 



The frames and combs were badly 

 smeared with excreta where there were 

 a few bees and queen left The win- 

 ter of 1885-86 was the same with 600 

 colonies. The winter of 1886-87 all of 

 400 colonies came through to February. 

 They commenced dwindling then, and 

 went down one-third The past win- 

 ter has been the same. I have some 15 

 or 20 colonies that have withstood all 

 these winters, and have come out good 

 every time under the same conditions. 

 1. Have you had this experience V 2. 

 What is it y 3. How can I stop it ?— 

 Illinois." 



The above is the substance of Query 

 564, on page 502. It was accompanied 

 by the opinions of some twelve experi- 

 enced apiarists as to the cause of the 

 disease in question, and how to prevent 

 it — a few to whom the query had evi- 

 dently been submitted, not expressing 

 any decided view on the subject. All 

 who expressed any opinion were united 

 in referring the trouble to bee-diarrhea, 

 and the cause to improper food, but 

 disagreed as to the manner of preven- 

 tion. Some advise " Illinois " to feed 

 pure cane-sugar ; some to keep the bees 

 in a warm cellar ; to deprive them of 

 pollen, etc. 



Donbtful Cause of Bee-Diarrliea. 



I believe but very few persons who 

 have kept bees in the Northern States 

 will hesitate in naming the disease re- 

 ferred to in the Query as bee-diarrhea ; 

 but as to the cause— that is the rub ! 

 That is the winter problem which has 

 been discoursed upon in all the bee- 

 periodicals of the land during the past 

 twenty years, and if there has ever 

 been a clear, rational explanation given 

 of the cause of this disease— the dread 

 of the Northern bee-keeper— it is not' 



yet manifest to the mental vision of the 

 fraternity. The hypothesis of today 

 does not become a theory to-morrow, 

 but is kicked out to give place to the 

 next plausible explanation that may be 

 offered ; in the meantime, the disease 

 " gets there just the same," as sure as 

 the winters come on— at least it does 

 with the majority of bee-keepers. 



Facts Discovered in Experlnieiitlng. 



I do not propose, in this article, to 

 advance any explanation as to the cause 

 of the trouble under consideration — 

 this would require more time than I 

 have at present at my command — but 

 rather to bring forward some facts 

 which I think have escaped the atten- 

 tion of some of the prominent writers 

 on this question. I have indeed an 

 hypothesis— as every bee-keeper must 

 have— to explain the cause of winter 

 losses in the apiary, but for the present 

 I must try to confine my remarks to 

 certain facts which I have noticed 

 while conducting a series of experi- 

 ments undertaken with a view to dis- 

 cover some practical method by which 

 bees could be carried through the win- 

 ter with as little risk as is incurred by 

 the stockman in wintering his horses, 

 cattle, sheep or hogs. 



We may boast to our heart's content 

 of the great advance made in bee-keep- 

 ing ; of our extractors, comb founda- 

 tion machines, and the superiority of 

 the improved hives now in use, over 

 the bee gums of our daddies, but after 

 all the fact remains that the average 

 winter mortality among bees is quite 

 as high now as it was 25 years ago. 



The winter of 1879-80 was very cold, 

 all through the northwest, and the 

 losses among bee-keepers were very ex- 

 tensive, especially among those wlio 

 practiced out door wintering. My own 

 losses were so severe that I resolved to 

 conduct a series of experiments with a 

 view to arrive at some definite idea as 

 to what was the cause of winter mor- 

 tality among bees. I had for years 

 taken much interest in this question; 

 had read everything available on the 

 subject ; had tried nearly all methods 

 and devices recommended in the bee- 

 papers and books devoted to the in- 

 dustry ; and had seen more or less of 

 my bees die every winter and spring 

 without being able to afford them any 

 relief. I do not mean by saying this, 

 that my losses were more than that of 

 the average of bee-keepers in the North 

 —I do not think they were as high as 

 the average ; but I was losing more 

 bees than I thought necessary to lose 

 if the proper conditions of wintering 

 were understood. 



Different Pliases of Bee-Diarrhea. 



The solution of the subject under 

 consideration naturally leads along 

 three lines of thought, viz : 



1. What is it? 



2. What causes it ? 



3. What will prevent it ? 

 It might be supposed that the first 



question was known from the start, 

 but this idea is an error, arising from 

 the notion that diarrhea is a specific 

 disease, whereas it may be simply a 

 corroborative symptom of some organic 

 or constitutional derangement. Simple 



diarrhea is (jenerally caused by a sud- 

 den change in food or drink, or by the 

 introduction of improper or vitiated 

 alimentary substances ; but it often 

 occurs when the cause has not the re- 

 motest relation to food or drink Medi- 

 cal writers recognize this distinction 

 by treating of the subject under dif- 

 ferent heads— usually three— but as my 

 education has been confined mainly to 

 chemistry and Materia Mcdica, I shall 

 not attempt to explain all the different 

 phases of ilie disease. 



Tlie Quality of Winter Bee-Food. 



Now to return to the Query, the 

 question arises, did those bees have the 

 diarrhea in its simplest form, or was it 

 exhibited in connection with some de- 

 rangement of the bee-system '{ If the 

 former supposition is correct, then we 

 may properly look to the food for the 

 cause. If the latter, then tlie cause 

 must be sought elsewhere. My opin- 

 ion is that the disease, which is usually 

 termed bee-diarrhea, is the out-growth 

 of another disorder, and the cause of 

 this is seldom, if ever, to be referred to 

 the qualitij of the food. I do not wish 

 to be understood as saying, that if bees 

 were fed impure food they would not 

 have the diarrhea, for they probably 

 would. What I mean to assert is. that 

 the quality of honey has nothing to do, 

 in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, 

 with the bringing about of the disease 

 in question. I am forced to this con- 

 clusion not only from experimental ex- 

 perience—which I have not time to set 

 forth— but also from the following 

 reasons : 



First, when animals are afflicted with 

 simple diarrhea, the organs of the sys- 

 tem are in a relaxed condition ; there is 

 no distention or intiammation. In bee- 

 diarrhea— so-calUed — there is unmis- 

 takable evidence of congestion aijd in- 

 flammation. The bloated appearance 

 evidently does not result from the 

 accumulatiou of fecal matter, for it 

 does not disappear after evacua- 

 tion. It might be urged that the 

 retention of the feces in the intestines 

 for an unusual time would cause irrita- 

 tion which would evidently produce in- 

 flammation in the surrounding mem- 

 branes. This argument seems very 

 reasonable, but I am disposed to be- 

 lieve that it is not applicable to this 

 case for the following reasons : 



1. It has been proven repeatedly by 

 direct experiment, that bees can be 

 kept housed for six months or more, on 

 stores of honey and pollen, without 

 any injurious effect. 2. Bees often be- 

 come diseased within two or three days 

 after having had a cleansing flight. 3. 

 The disease usually makes itself mani- 

 fest within a short period of time. I 

 have repeatedly seen colonies become 

 badly sickened within 10 or 12 hours 

 after a previous examination, when, to 

 all outward appearance, they were in 

 perfect health. The second and third 

 reasons, by themselves, prove nothing, 

 but when taken together, tend to dis- 

 prove the hypothesis that the disease 

 is caused by fecal accumulation. 



Tlie Impure-Food Theorr- 



Second, I disbelieve in the " impure 

 food " theory bacause, when improper 

 substances are taken into the animal 



