124 ^ Modern Bee-Farm 



remain indefinitely without germinating in a comb removed 

 from the genial temperature of the hive, are as it were, 

 under a forcing process while remaining there during 

 the active period of summer. Moreover, where a 

 suitable remedy such as Izal is used to combat the 

 disease, it acts in the presence of brood in a manner 

 similar to the removal of brood without medication. In 

 each case the germ reaches a finality without reproduc- 

 tion, because there is no soil for its further development. 



Foul Brood Correctly Named. 



Every experiment resulting in a successful cure goes to 

 disprove the theory that Bacillus Alvei is, as some will 

 have it, a disease of the bees. Take away the brood, or 

 the means of continuing its production, and behold the 

 bees need no medicine to cure them, while they are 

 almost at once capable of tending a perfectly healthy 

 brood nest, and of keeping it so. Then again the germs 

 of disease, when present in the bees, are only to be found 

 in comparatively small numbers. The soil is not suitable 

 for rapid development, and should a worker die, the 

 extent of its malady is confined to its own body. In the 

 workers the disease does not pass from the dead to the 

 living. In the larvae that is its most terrible means of 

 infection. 



The, same state of restriction is found in the case of the ' 

 queen ; for I have on numerous occasions during many 

 years' experience, given queens from diseased stocks to 

 those quite healthy, and on no single occasion have I 

 found the complaint communicated by so doing. 



Moreover, there is the fact of the exchange of stocks 

 before mentioned. Not only were the large number of 

 workers of all ages from the diseased hive incapable of 

 transmitting the complaint to their new nursery, but the 



