160 HANDY BOOK OF BEES. 



before it is so fully developed as to make the bees forsake 

 it, and be •vvlU not hesitate to give the bees suffering from 

 it a fresh clean hive as soon as he wisely can. A poor 

 collier in applying for work was asked by the master of 

 the colliery if he were acquainted with " foul air." He 

 replied that he " was so well acquainted with it that he 

 would not venture to have anything to do with it." 

 Foul brood is as dangerous and destructive of health and 

 life in a bee-hive, as " foul air'' or foul damp is in a coal- 

 pit. We are not going to waste time and space in 

 theorising as to the cause of this distemper in bee-hives, 

 which is not understood. Long and elaborate essays on 

 foul brood have been printed from the pens of great and 

 distinguished apiarians of both Europe and America, dar- 

 ing the last few years ; a careful perusal of which will 

 convince any man of ordinary intelligence that the 

 writers themselves are not quite certain as to the correct- 

 ness of their opinions. The last, and every attempt made 

 to clear up the mystery of foul brood, indicates that the 

 person who makes it thinks that all who have gone before 

 him have failed to a certain extent in their attempts. 

 Some think that this disease is infectious, and spreads like 

 leaven in meal, or spawn in a mushroom-bed, or itch on 

 the human skin ; and some go so far as to say that honey 

 stolen from an infected hive will carry the disease to the 

 hive of the bees that stole it. Though we are as unable 

 to speak with authority or certainty on this subject as 

 others, we may be excused for saying that we are yet to 

 be convinced that it is in its nature infectious or self-com- 

 municating, or that it is ever carried in honey from one 

 hive to another. That it spreads in an infected hive of 

 living bees, all will admit ; but a satisfactory explanation 

 of the law or process by which it spreads we have never 

 seen. Many single cells of foul brood, far asunder, in' a 



