128 A Modern Bee-Farm 
My early experience was such a very severe lesson, that 
I cannot overhaul any hive, however crowded with bees, 
or combs crammed with brood, without catching sight of 
the merest speck of dead or diseased brood, and the value 
of the experience thus gained can well be imagined. My 
apiary at the time referred to was in a perfectly healthy 
district, and I was so careful during the prevalence of the 
malady among my own bees that it did not extend to the 
neighbourhood. I was in the habit of driving and otherwise 
manipulating the bees within a radius of three to four 
miles, and in no case did I find the least evidence of the 
complaint. 
How then did the plague find its way to my own 
apiary ? How indeed! Well, I was engaged in a 
business which did not permit me to give any of the usual 
hours of the working day to the bees. Honey had been 
coming in rapidly, and I thought to relieve the brood 
combs of the new honey, just as many another enthusiast 
with the wonderful honey extractor liked to do in those 
days; but unfortunately my operation was carried out 
with the rising sun just beginning to smile upon me, and 
if I had not been so preoccupied it is just possible I 
should have noticed him giving an approving nod at my 
industry, and a smiling whisper that “the early bird 
catches the worms.” 
Anyhow my catch was something of quite an unexpected 
nature, and ultimately most industrious labor indeed was 
required to undo that early morning’s work. I can see 
now, those beautiful combs of healthy brood, and I can also 
see how utterly impossible it was for it to remain alive 
after those incautiously induced revolutions during the 
chilly morning air. At the time, however, and for months 
after I did not consider the harm that might result, 
and was otherwise too much occupied to examine the 
