§ x.j BEE ENEMIES. 315 



remarks that it will be the bee-keeper's own fault or in- 

 experience if his bees are ever allowed to suffer from it. 

 Then there is " mad sickness," which consists in tumbling 

 about as if intoxicated, and which Dzierzon says he meets 

 with nearly every year, and conjectures to arise from 

 partaking of poisoned honey — he suspects the honey to 

 be naturally poisonous, since he observes this complaint 

 almost regularly at the time when the mountain ash is in 

 bloom. The next is " wing lameness,'' which the Baron' 

 conjectures may be the real disorder just spoken of as 

 madness. Lastly we have the " thread fungus," which is 

 a growth found by Leuckart and Donhoff in the stomach 

 and intestines of several bees, and which they pronounce 

 contagious. Our author does also include among the 

 " sicknesses " of bees such irregularities as rising against 

 and murdering their queen; but one would think that 

 this was rather a political disorder, or else a case for a 

 commission of lunacy. 



The apparent fungus growths seen occasionally on the 

 heads and bodies of bees have been found to be nothing 

 more than the effect of smearing with the giimmy pollen 

 of orchids, or with other glutinous vegetable juices, on 

 which afterwards ordinary pollen has collected and thus 

 caused the appearance of tufts or patches. 



§ X. BEE ENEMIES. 



Bees have few worse enemies than wasps in auturnn. 

 The most effectual method of checking their invasion of 



