126 A Modern Bee-Farm 



clustering bees during warm weather ; (c) the germs can 

 only increase by reproduction in dead animal matter; 

 and lastly, where the temperature is favourable for 

 germination without the means of reproduction the end 

 of the disease is reached. 



6. — The presence of Foul Brood in a hive is an evidence of 

 low vitality. 

 How do we know this ? The facts supporting this pro- 

 position are unassailable ; and they are numerous. In the 

 first place I will call attention to the opinion of nearly 

 ■every writer who has had any acquaintance with the 

 disease. All agree that the complaint is most virulent in 

 the early spring. It gets a hold of the colony hardly 

 before it is aroused from its winter's slumber, while the 

 workers have as yet no incoming stores, and what little 

 activity is apparent is only intermittent, such as the 

 brighter intervals of sunshine tempting a few of the 

 workers to gather fresh supplies of pollen. Otherwise the 

 bees sit quietly upon the combs covering the slowly 

 developing brood nest ; and though only specks of the 

 malady at first appear, long before general activity is 

 aroused the brood may be half dead and putrid, while 

 never a bee has attempted to remove the foul matter. 



But, you go one fine morning to the apiary later in 

 spring, and the bees are tumbling over each other in their 

 hurry, while many are so loaded as to reach the entrance 

 laboriously. Ah ! that means honey, natural excitement, 

 new vigour and vitality ! Watch now the combs from day 

 to day of any colony that has not become utterly 

 depopulated. There will be no further extension of the 

 malady, but first a restriction, then a decline, and with 

 such manipulation as I have already offered my readers, 

 finally a complete cure. Indeed, what disease can stand 

 in the face of a renewed life, a greater vitality built upon 



