DISEASED BEOOD. 215 



As our practice will be in accordance with the view wo 

 take in this matter, and the result will be somewhat impor- 

 tant, I will give some of the reasons that have led to this 

 conclusion. 



Once in the month of March, all the bees of a good 

 swarm left the hive and united with another good stock, 

 making double the number of bees at this season ; enough 

 to keep the brood sufficiently warm at any time, if other 

 stocks with half or quarter of the number could do so. 

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

 had not cast a swarm. The hive was examined, and the 

 brood found badly diseased. 



My best and most populous stocks in spring, are just as 

 liable to be found in this condition, and I might add more , 

 so, than smaller or weaker families. I have united two large 

 swarms, and found them diseased the next autumn. (It is 

 probable that they obtained diseased honey.) These cases 

 prove strongly, if not exclusively, that animal heat is not 

 the only requisite. The facts, that when I had pruned out 

 aU affected comb from a diseased stock, and left honey in 

 the top and outside pieces, and the bees constructed new 

 for breedingj and the brood in such were invariably af- 

 fected, slightly at first, and increasing as the combs were 

 extended, led me to suppose that it was a contagious dis- 

 ease, and the poison was contained in the honey. Some 

 of it being left in the hives, the bees had probably fed it 

 to the brood. To test this theory 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, 

 toithout an exception, had caught the contagion. Here 

 then is a clue to the cause of the spread of the disease, 

 whether we have its origin or not. We will now see if 

 there is any consistency in the theory that it can be trans- 

 ferred from one stock to another. 



