FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 297 



effective the colony must be strong, either by uniting or giving 

 frames of sealed brood. My experience leads me to think that 

 not only must the colony be strong but it must be strong in 

 young bees. 



With the opening of the season of 1910 you may well suppose 

 I was on the alert to see whether any colonies were di^ased. 

 In fact I was really hoping there would be some eases, for I 

 had formed a theory and wanted to try some experiments. I 

 was not disappointed. In 27 hives could be found the distinc- 

 tive mark of the disease, in some only a cell or two, while in 

 others as much as one cell in every ten was affected. 



Some one may think it a difficult thing to detect the disease 

 if only one or two bad cells are to be found in a hive. It is not 

 difBeult. The healthy brood is pearly white, while the diseased 

 larva being distinctly yellow is quickly spotted, just as you 

 would easily detect a yellow hen in a flock of white ones. It 

 was impossible to say how many of the 27 cases were old 

 offenders and how many of them were fresh cases brought in 

 from outside ; for there were diseased colonies all about me, and 

 there was no law in Illinois to clean them up. 



About that theory, the theory as to how the disease is 

 continued in the hive and conveyed from one cell to another. 

 It is well known that if a larva be broken open the bees will 

 suck up its juices, and in a case of starvation the juices of the 

 larva? are consumed and the white skins thrown out of the 

 hive. When a larva first becomes diseased, and has not yet 

 become offensive, it is easy to believe that the nurse-bees will 

 suck up its juices, and then when they feed healthy larvse the 

 healthy larvse will become diseased. But in a little while a dis- 

 eased lan'a will become decayed and offensive, so that it will no 

 longer be eaten by the nurse-bees. If this supposition be cor- 

 rect, it will come to pass that if egg-laying should stop for 5 or 

 6 days (the time a larva remains unsealed in its cell) there will 

 no longer be in the hive at the same time diseased larvse fit for 

 the nurses to eat and healthy larvae to which the diseased food 

 may be given, and thus, the disease should come to an end. 



It was not hard to make the test. I caged the queen of a 

 diseased colony after strengthening it, and freed her after six 

 days of imprisonment. No more diseased brood appeared in 



