§ IX.] DISEASES OF BEES. 311 



as possible, in order to prevent their carrying mucli of 

 the infected honey with them ; whilst the combs them- 

 selves were set draining out of the bees' reach, and con- 

 signed as quickly as possible to the melting-pot. After 

 the lapse of three or four days, the queen (still im- 

 prisoned) and bees were again transferred to another 

 clean hive, furnished with a few pure combs, and in this 

 they were suffered to remain, their queen being released 

 in a day or two, as soon as they appeared contentedly 

 settled. Mr. Woodbury gives another important hint, 

 that operations of this kind with tainted combs should 

 be performed out of reach of robber bees from adjacent 

 hives, lest they should carry the infection to their respec- 

 tive houses. By the before-mentioned process, he suc- 

 ceeded in completely extirpating foul brood from his 

 apiary in 1863, and had no return of it afterwards. 

 English apiarian writers have made so little allusion to 

 this disorder, that some of our older bee-keepers contend 

 that modern hives and foreign bees have something to 

 do with bringing it about. To show that the disease 

 made its appearance in former days, there is a chapter 

 ■on this subject in Bonner's " Bee-Keeper's Companion," 

 published at Berwick in 1798, entitled "An Uncornmon 

 Disaster which sometimes, though rarely, happens to 

 Bees." Bonner, after recounting therein his observa- 

 tions of the dwindling state of his own apiary, for which 

 he could not account, says : " He saw plainly that the 

 young were all going backward in the cells, and that he 



