272 SUMMEB, 



EKASONS FOR THE OPINION. 



For instance, I had all the bees of a good swarm 

 leave the hive in March ; after flying a time, they 

 united with another good stock, making double the 

 -usual number of bees at this season ; enough to keep 

 the brood sufficiently warm at any time ; if other stocks 

 with half or a quarter of the number could. By thai 

 middle of June, the bees were much reduced, and had 

 not cast a swarm. It was examined, and the brood 

 was found badly diseased. My best and most popu- 

 lous stocks, in spring, are just as liable, and I might- 

 add more so, than smaller or weaker families. I have 

 had'two large swarms unite, and were hived together, 

 that were diseased the next autumn. These cases 

 prove strongly, if not conclusively, that animal heat is 

 not the only requisite. The fact that when I had 

 pruned out all affected comb from a diseased stock, and 

 left honey in the top and outside pieces, and the bees 

 constructed new for breeding, and the brood in such 

 were invariably affected, though only a few at first,' 

 and increasing as the combs were extended ; led me 

 to suppose that it was a contagious disease, and the 

 virus was contained in the honey. Some of it had 

 been left in these stocks, and very probably the bees 

 had fed it to the brood. To test this principle still 

 further, I drove all the bees from such diseased stocks, 

 strained the honey, and fed it to several young healthy 

 swarms soon after being hived. When examined a 

 few weeks after, every one, without an exception, had 

 caught the cojitagion'. ,■ , 



Here then is a clue to the cause of this disease 



