XXIX.— ISLE OF WIGHT DISEASE IN HIVE BEES. 



(1) The Etiology of the Disease. By John Rennie, D.Sc. ; Philip Bruce White, 

 B.Sc. ; and Elsie J. Harvey. (With One Plate.) 



(Bead November 1, 1920. MS. received December 4, 1920. Issued separately Mafch 25, 1921.) 



Introductory. 



Isle of Wight Bee Disease has been known in this country certainly since 1904, 

 when it was first recognised in the island from which it derives its popular name. 

 According to Imms it was probably present in Derbyshire in 1902, and was also known 

 in Cornwall and other districts in 1904. Prior to these dates periodic losses of bees of 

 a serious character are on record, dating as far back as the middle of the eighteenth 

 century. Bullamore and Malden (1912) have summarised fully these outbreaks in 

 historical series in their report in Journal of Board of Agriculture, Supplement 8, 

 xix. From a study of the records which they have brought together and from 

 personal inquiries which we have made at various bee-keepers of wide experience, 

 it would appear that none of these earlier outbreaks attained the general distribu- 

 tion throughout the country which we know in Isle of Wight Disease at the present 

 date, nor did any of them remain established over such an extensive period of years 

 as that which h«,s continued without interruption from 1902 until the present time. 



Another striking characteristic, and one which has an important bearing in any 

 investigation which seeks to trace the source of this malady, is the fact that no 

 disease of such a permanent and extensive nature has soTar been recognised unmis- 

 takably outside the British Isles. All the facts we are at present aware of suggest 

 its definitely localised and insular character. 



Since 1907 investigations into the cause of this disease have been carried out by 

 a series of workers who have from time to time reported upon the subject : Imms 

 (1907), Malden (1909), Graham Smith, Fantham, and others (1912 and 1913) in 

 England ; and Anderson (1916), Anderson and Rennie (1916), Rennie and Harvey, 

 No. 1 (1919) and No^ 2 (1919), in Scotland. 



The net result of-these investigations has been that the English workers (Graham 



Smith et alii, 1912 and 1913) put forward as the causal organism the protozoan, 



Nosema apis. It is due to Anderson amongst the Scottish workers to state that 



he was the first to call this conclusion in question, and we think that the later work 



referred to above (Anderson and Rennie, and Eennie and Harvey, 1919) has succeeded 



in establishing (l) that Isle of Wight disease and Nosema infection are not 



coincident, and (2) that there exists a' distinct disease due to Nosema apis, which 

 TRANS. KOy. SOC. EDIN., VOL. LII, PART IV (NO. 29). 115 



