THE DISEASES OF BEES. 117 



hive to be fed is placed on this board. The bees go 

 through the holes and carry the honey from the combs 

 into their own. In this way, too, we present honey to hives 

 on which supers are being filled by artificial means. 



CHAPTEE XXVII. 



THE DISEASES OF BEES. 



Amongst the many distempers of bees, dysentery may be 

 named. It is of rare occurrence ; but doubtless it is 

 caused by unwholesome food, or a cold damp dwelling- 

 house in winter. Damp hives are very destructive of the 

 lives of bees in weak stocks during the winter months. 

 To-day (January 17th) some of our hives were examined. 

 All were found quite dry save a few that were eked with 

 riddle-rims. Even the hives of these were perfectly dry ; 

 but the insides of the wooden ekes were as wet as water 

 could make them. This shows the danger of wooden 

 domiciles for bees ! For dysentery, loaf-sugar and water 

 boiled is a safe and certain cure. 



Foul brood is the great and incurable malady of bee- 

 hives. From some cause or other, and in some seasons 

 more than others, larvae, or half-hatched bees (or brood), 

 perish in their cells, and become a putrid pestilential mass 

 in a hive. Prosperity departs from a hive whenever this 

 happens, and sometimes the stench of it has driven the 

 bees wholly out of their hives, and made them build fresh 

 combs underneath their boards ; and sometimes they have 

 gone off as swarms, abandoning their hives in utter despair 

 and detestation. An experienced bee-keeper can smell 

 this disease outside the hive in which it exists long before 



