DISEASES. 147 



At the same time a little warm syrup and a cake of 

 soft candy should be given. If the weather be mild 

 the changing of quarters might be quickly performed 

 in the open air, the warm syrup would then have the 

 effect of sending the bees out for the cleansing flight 

 they so much need. 



Foul Bkood (Bacillus alvei). 



This is indeed a disease that bee-keepers may well 

 dread, when they read of the sad havoc it has played 

 in apiaries at home and abroad; but thanks to the 

 untiring energy of scientists who love the hobby, the 

 ravages of the bacillus may be stopped. It is only 

 within recent years that this disease has become so 

 widespread, but this cannot be surprising seeing to 

 what extent stocks, swarms, and queens have been 

 conveyed from one part of the country to the other, 

 and to this country from various parts of the con- 

 tinent, where the disease has long been known to 

 exist. There appears to be no definite record of the 

 disease being in existence in Britain until foreign bees 

 were introduced. Before the traf&c in bees became so 

 general, if the disease existed it remained in a confined 

 area and the stocks died out. Mr. Woodbury and 

 other bee-keepers attributed the advent of the disease 

 in their apiaries to feeding with foreign honey supposed 

 to contain germs of the disease. On this point it is 

 satisfactory to learn that Mr. Cowan, a very eminent 

 authority, has not discovered germs of the disease in 

 any sample of honey when examining it under micro- 

 scopes of very high power. But at the same time it 



