i82 A MANUAL OF BEE-KEEPING. 



from germs of a fungus, millions of which are floating in 

 the atmosphere, and which, when finding an appropriate 

 habitat, germinate and produce the disease : probably 

 the foulness of dead larvae provides this condition, and 

 the fungi spores there find the essential condition, as in 

 like manner typhus finds it in squalor and dirt. . 



Dr. Schonfeld of Germany has made a variety of ex- 

 periments, which tend to prove the correctness of this 

 theory. 



As an example of the destructive effects of this 

 disease, I may cite the case of Dzierzon, the great 

 German Bee-master, who in 1848 had this plague break 

 out in his Apiary with such virulence that he lost more 

 than 500 stocks, only ten having escaped the malady. 

 About 1865, a friend of mine, who had twenty stocks, 

 complained of them not being profitable, and I purchased 

 the whole of him, and removed them to my garden. 

 Alas ! they were foul-broody, and I lost them all, and 

 my original stocks in addition, as well as ha^jing two 

 or three years of trouble and vexation. 



Again in 1876-7 my Bees were attacked with the 

 same disease in a most vfrulent form ; and once more, 

 in spite of endless trouble, and far more attention. than 

 most people could devote to their Apiary, I lost them all. 

 Many times I cut out the plague spots from the combs, 

 sometimes destroying all the brood combs. .For a time 

 all appeared to go well, but most surely the evil day came 

 again. While the warm weather lasted the combs were 

 examined almost daily; a single foul cell scarcely escaped 

 attention ; but when the quiet of winter arrived, the 

 disease spread apace, and in the end I made a clean 

 sweep, by destroying the frames and the whole of my 

 beautiful straight combs that I was so proud of. The 

 hives I had scalded inside and out, washed with a 



