15 



CuEBENT Investigations. 



The Department of Agriculture of the United States of America is 

 taking the lead and carrying out a great work just now in the investiga- 

 tion of bee-diseases. At the latter part of 1906 the Department issued 

 a pamphlet of some forty - five pages, entitled "The Bacteria of the 

 Apiary," in which some startling announcements were made, quite up- 

 setting the results of many previous investigations. The statements 

 were challenged by some able men, and this has put the American 

 authorities on their mettle, with the good result that they are now pro- 

 secuting their investigations more thoroughly than ever, and, whatever 

 may be the outcome of them, the beekeeping world must benefit more or 

 less. 



State Legislation. 



The economic value of the beekeeping industry is being generally 

 recognised in all countries, and the knowledge of the losses sustained 

 through the disease has caused an energetic movement in the direction of 

 stamping it out if possible, or, at all events, to bring it more under con- 

 trol. The good resulting from the action of the Canadian Government in 

 this respect has given a great impetus to legislation on the same lines in 

 other countries. The necessity for forcing careless beekeepers to either 

 stamp out the disease from their apiaries or give up beekeeping is now 

 recognised everywhere, including New Zealand, where foul-brood in the 

 past has caused incalculable loss from one end of the oolonj' tc the other. 



Symptoms op Foul-brood. 

 As the treatment is the same in either case, we need not feel concerned 

 as to any distinction of germs, or whether we have in New Zealand the 

 European or the American foul-brood. Experienced beekeepers know 

 our own disease when they see it, and that is sufficient at present. The 

 following description of the symptoms is given for the benefit of be- 

 ginners :— 



Healthy brood in the larva stage — that is, before it is sealed or 

 capped — presents a clear pearly whiteness, but when attacked by foul- 

 brood it rapidly changes to light bufi, then to brown, coffee-and-milk 

 colour, and finally to black, at which stage nothing is to be seen in the 

 cell but a flattish scale-like substance when examined closely. It is, 

 however, when the brood has been attacked after it has advanced to the 

 pupa period of its existence — that is, when it has been capped over — 

 that the novice is better able to detect the presence of foul-brood. 



In the early stage of an attack a capped cell here and there will 

 appear somewhat different from the surrounding healthy brood. Instead 

 of the cappings or seals being bright, full, and of convex form, charac- 

 teristic of healthy brood, they will be of a dull blackish-brown colour, and 

 flat or sunken (see Plate II), an indication that the cells contain dead pupae. 

 The disease rapidly spreads to surrounding cells and combs, if allowed to 

 take its course, till finally no brood can hatch, and the colony succumbs. 

 On opening some of the cells a thin glue-like coffee-coloured mass will be 



