102 BEEKEEPING IN THE SOUTH 



Other Diseases. 



From some parts of the more tropical South come frequent 

 reports of considerable trouble from bee paralysis. This disease 

 is common to hot climates, but there have been few really 

 serious losses from this disease, which unfortunately, does not 

 yield to treatment in all cases. There have been reports of a 

 "Disappearing Disease" but most of these have revealed nothing 

 of import when investigated. 



Just why the South with its great number of colonies of bees 

 should be fairly immune from American foulbrood so far, is 

 unknown. A conjecture which the writer believes a good one is 

 this: There is little honey shipped into the region for human 

 consumption and most of the shipping of bees is out of the 

 South. While the facts are not known, it is reasonable to sus- 

 pect that shipment of honey from apiaries where diseases exist 

 is responsible for much disease spreading, through the robbing 

 of used honey cans, etc. Whether or not much disease is usually 

 shipped with bees is only to be conjectured. However, it is 

 quite unlikely that much disease is ever transmitted by pound 

 packages, and the shipment of nuclei is rapidly giving place to 

 package shipments. Most men who buy bees in the South buy 

 them from their own region and consequently run a smaller 

 risk of buying disease than if purchased in the North, where 

 disease is all too prevalent. 



Need of Education. 



The need of acquainting beekeepers with the symptoms of 

 bee diseases is seen throughout the country as well as in theSouth. 

 Beekeepers, as a rule, seldom harbor the disease when they know 

 it is present. Taught to recognize the symptoms and to rec- 

 ognize the infections at sight, the end of serious disease losses 

 would soon come. There is no more efficient method of accom- 

 plishing this than by extension ^\T)rk, either by purely extension 

 or by inspectors who are authorized to give part time to educa- 

 tional work. 



Not enough publicity is given the dangers of disease incident 



