MANUAL OF THE APIARY. 259 



all sufficient. With the hive we have recommended, this is 

 easily accomplished by simply moving the hive back. 



Another way to secure such colonies against robbing is to 

 move them into the cellar for a few days. This is a further 

 advantage, as less food is eaten, and the strength of the indi- 

 vidual bees is conserved by the quiet, and as there is no 

 nectar in the fields no loss is suffered. 



In all the work of the apiary at times of no honey gather- 

 ing, we cannot be too careful to keep all honey from the bees 

 unless placed in the hives. The hives, too, should not be 

 kept open long at a time. Neat, quick work should be the 

 watch-word. During times when robbers are essaying to 

 practice their nefarious designs, the bees are likely to be 

 more than usually irritable, and likely to resent intrusion ; 

 hence the importance of more than usual caution, if it is 

 desired to introduce a queen. 



DISEASE. 



The common dysentery — indicated by the bees soiling their 

 hives, as they void their feces within instead of without — 

 which has been so free, of late, to work havoc in our apiaries, 

 is, without doubt, I think, consequent upon wrong manage- 

 ment on the part of the apiarist, as already suggested in 

 Chapter XVII. As the methods to prevent this have already 

 been sufficiently considered, we pass to the terrible 



FOUL BROOD. 



This disease, said to have been known to Aristotle — though 

 this is doubtful, as a stench attends common dysentery — 

 though it has occurred in our State as well as in States 

 about us, is not familiar to me, I having never seen but one 

 case, and that on Kelly's Island, in the summer of 1875, 

 where I found it had reduced the colonies on that Island to 

 two. No bee malady can compare with this in malignancy. 

 By it Dzierzon once lost his whole apiary of 500 colonies. — 

 Mr. B. Rood, first President of the Michigan Association, has 

 lost his bees two or three times by this same terrible plague. 



The symptoms are as follows : Decline in the prosperity 

 of the colony, because of failure to rear brood. The brood 

 seems to putrefy, becomes "brown and salvy,"and gives oiF a 



