WINTER MANAGEMENT. 259 
severe, and sometimes disappears wholly of its own 
accord, as the Baron has himself repeatedly ob- 
served; but care is requisite, or it may develop 
into the more malignant form. 
The third degree is apparently slightly milder 
than even the second, but it is noticed on the 
authority of Dzierzon alone. In this case it is the 
uncovered larve chiefly that die, rarely the others. 
The material to which they turn is more like broth, 
and not so tough or clammy as in the malignant 
form; it dries to a crust at the bottom of the 
cells, and the bees, so long as they are strong 
enough, can remove it without difficulty. It is 
made manifest by the appearance of dark brown 
little scales upon the floor-board. A stock will hold 
out under it for two summers, and sometimes wholly 
recover of itself. 
All these forms are set down as more or less 
contagious, and the following are noticed among the 
means of spreading the disease: feeding with honey 
from foul hives; miasma conveyed by the surround- 
ing air; robbing; the hands of the bee-keeper as 
he passes from hive to hive without washing; the 
depositing of a stock where a foul hive had stood 
it may be a year before; and even (says Dzierzon) 
the settling of bees upon flowers where bees of an 
infected stock had settled before them. 
The cause, says Von Berlepsch, we do not know, 
and all that we can do is to take the ground from 
under the feet of the disease by putting a stop to 
all breeding. The first degree, he adds, is abso- 
lutely incurable, and, at most, the bees may be saved 
8s 2 
