268 THE BEE-KEEPER’S MANUAL. 
quires more unremitting attention than most bee- 
keepers would be disposed to give.” * 
It is a highly desirable precaution to stop the 
production of brood in an infected stock; and for 
this end the queen must be removed. It is held 
by some that the royal person is proof against the 
micrococcus spores, and will not convey the con- 
tagion with her; consequently, it is usual to transfer 
her to any other hive which is either in a queenless 
condition, or ruled by a monarch inferior to herself. 
As to this supposed immunity, however, which reads 
more like superstition than science, the explanation 
is probably very simple: the spores float about freely 
in the hive and render the colony infected as a whole; 
yet they may have settled upon only one-third or 
one-tenth of the individual bees, and hence, by the 
law of chances, the queen would in a majority of 
instances escape. 
Extended as have been our remarks on this subject 
already, we cannot abstain from appending some 
valuable directions by Mr. Cowan which were con- 
veyed in a letter to Mr. Cheshire, and by him in- 
serted in the number of the Journal of Horticulture 
specified in the note below. He writes as follows: 
“You know I had it in my apiary, and it was a 
source of great trouble to me, but I stamped it out 
with salicylic acid. My proceeding was to excise any 
very bad places, and when I found cells affected here 
and there I merely uncapped them and sprayed the 
* Addressing those who are disposed to give this attention Mr. 
Cheshire adopts a more encouraging tone when he writ s in the 
Journal of Horticulture, October 2 1879: “I assert its curability 
because I have again and again cured it.” 
