300 A Modern Bee-Farm 
Pure Oxygen versus Disease.—The time has come 
when bee-keepers dare no longer neglect this important 
question of efficient ventilation. 
Bee-Paralysis can be checked, and in many cases 
cured by unusual, but systematic, ventilation ; while 
on the other hand this disease is greatly encouraged 
by the universal neglect of this First Principle in Bee- 
Management. The complaint continues to-day largely 
because of this deplorable neglect, and the want of 
initiative among all classes of bee-owners. 
CHAPTER XIX. 
THE HANGING CHAMBER HIVE. 
SCIENTIFIC VENTILATION zersus DISEASE. 
or HILE the Plague was not, and bee-keepers slept 
j the Sleep of Folly, in ignorance of the rolling 
stone that had started down the mountain-side to 
crush them, slipshod methods of ventilation seemed not so 
much to matter. 
The enemy was as yet inactive, unknown,* unthought of. 
Cramped entrances and unsuitable hives mattered little, for 
did not the bees themselves ventilate for all they were 
worth when fresh air was necessary? But I assure the 
Reader they do not, as many owners now have found to 
their cost. 
* The majority of British bee-keepers were totally unprepared for 
the visitation of infectious paralysis that spread over the land from 
the year 1904, although it had been known for many years in 
America, Australia, and other countries. The Author had a severe 
experience of this malady in 1878, but was able to effect a permanent 
cure with no loss of stock. 
