i82 A MANUAL OF BEE-KEEPING. 



from germs of a fungus, millions of which are floating in 

 the atmosphere, and which, when finding an appropriate 

 habitat, germinate and produce the disease : probably 

 the foulness of dead larvse provides this condition, and 

 the fungi spores there find the essential condition, as in 

 like manner typhus finds it in squalor and dirt. 



Dr. Schonfeld of Germany has made a variety of ex- 

 periments, which tend to prove the correctness of this 

 theory. 



As an example of the destructive effects of this 

 disease, I may cite the case of Dzierzon, the great 

 German Bee-master, who in 1848 had this plague break 

 out in his Apiary with such virulence that he lost more 

 than 500 stocks, only ten having escaped the malady. 

 About 1865, a friend of mine, who had twenty stocks, 

 complained of them not being profitable, and I purchased 

 the whole of him, and removed them to my garden. 

 Alas ! they were foul-broody, and I lost them all, and 

 my original stocks in addition, as well as having two 

 or three years of trouble and vexation. 



Again in 1876-7 my Bees were aittacked with the 

 same disease in a most virulent form ; and once more, 

 in spite of endless trouble, and far more attention than 

 most people could devote to their Apiary, I lost them all. 

 Many times I cut out the plague spots from the combs, 

 sometimes destroying all the brood combs. For a time 

 all appeared to go well, but most surely the evil day came 

 again. While the warm weather lasted the combs were 

 examined almost daily; a single foul cell scarcely escaped 

 attention ; but when the quiet of winter arrived, the 

 disease spread apace, and in the end I made a clean 

 sweep, by destroying the frames and the whole of my 

 beautiful straight combs that I was so proud of The 

 hives I had scalded inside and out, washed with a 



