•90 PEACTICAL BEE-KEEPING. 



fine shower. The bottom of the hive should be well cleaned, and the 

 salycyHo acid solution applied. By great watchfulness and cleanliness 

 the malady may be eradicated, but it is usually wise, always so in severe 

 cases, to remove the queen, either with a swarm or not, according to the 

 strength of the hive (the queen does not carry the infection), so as to 

 give the disease less hold by reducing the brood. About nine or ten 

 days after inserting a ripe queen obU, so that by the time the queen 

 resulting commences to lay, all the Kving brood will have hatched out. 

 A forced swarm should now be made of the whole of them, their combs 

 destroyed, and the hive disinfected. Let the bees work in a box or skep 

 twenty-four hours, then turn them into a perfectly clean hive without 

 combs, and begin to feed, boiling with the food salycylic acid. No combs 

 are to be given, in order that the foul-broody honey the bees have taken 

 with them, may not be stored, as some of it, would otherwise be, but 

 lU consumed in evolving wax. 



In early spring, bees are occasionally forced so near to each other for 

 mutual warmth when the thermometer takes one of its dips, that the 

 outside brood is neglected, gets ohiQed, and dies in consequence. Such 

 brood assumes an appearance resembling rather closely foul-brood, but 

 differs from it in not being contageous — it is called chilled-brood. 



Dysentery, during an attack of which the bees, usnaEy so cleanly, 

 discharge themselves upon their combs, and die with distended abdomens, 

 sometimes even bursting, may be brought on by wintering bees upon 

 watery food given too late in the year to admit of its proper evaporation 

 and sealing, or by making their homes damp by lack of protection or 

 ventilation, or by long confinement with excitement. The remedy con- 

 sists in removing the cause. Remove the bees if possible, to a clean 

 hive — at least, cleanse and dry the floor board, and exchange any combs 

 containing unsealed honey for others. Give barley sugar as food. 

 Ventilate the hive well ; protect as thoroughly as possible from cold, and 

 subject the patients to no avoidable disturbance. 



The British wax moth Achroia grisella, is but little to be feared. 

 The moth Galleria mellonella, common in Italy, and' sometimes found in 

 the combs accompanying imported queens, is both much larger, and more 

 destructive ; its bad reputation seems to have been by mistake attached 

 i;o our own species, which is consequently dreaded much more than its 

 small power for mischief justifies. Late in the summer evening, this 

 moth may occasionally be seen flitting at the hive door to gain access to 

 the combs on which to lay her eggs ; but if the population be at all 

 numerous, the guards give her but small chance of effecting an entrance ; 

 should she succeed, the eggs deposited on the combs will be at once 

 ejected, unless the bees are so sparse as to leave them nnvisited. Eggs 

 may possibly hatch if deposited in unreachable corners, or in the debris, 

 .collecting from wax plates dropped during comb building, and sealing, 



