306 FIFTY Y^ARS AMONG- THE BEES 



cases the colonies had not been made very strong. Mr. Alex- 

 ander had emphasized the point that in order to have the 

 treatment effective the colony must be strong, either by unit- 

 ing or giving frames of sealed brood. My experience leads 

 me to think that not only must the colony be strong but it 

 must be strong in young bees. 



With the opening of the season of 1910 you may well 

 suppose I was on the alert to see whether any colonies were 

 diseased. In fact I was really hoping there would be some 

 cases, for I had formed a theory and wanted to try some ex- 

 periments. I was not disappointed. In 27 hives could be 

 found the distinctive mark of the disease, in some only a cell 

 or two, while in others as much as one cell in every ten was 

 affected. 



Some one may think it a difficult thing to detect the dis- 

 ease if only one or two bad cells are to be found in a hive. 

 It is not difficult. The healthy brood is pearly white, while 

 the diseased larva being distinctly yellow is quickly spotted, 

 just as you would easily detect a yellow hen in a flock of 

 white ones. It was impossible to say how many of the 27 

 cases were old offenders and how many of them were fresh 

 cases brought in from outside; for there were diseased colo- 

 nies all about me, and there was no law in Illinois to clean 

 them up. 



About that theory — the theory as to how the disease is 

 continued in the hive and conveyed from one cell to another 

 — ^it is well known that if a larva be broken open the bees will 

 suck up its juices, and in a case of starvation the juices of 

 the larvae are consumed and the white skins thrown out of the 

 hive. When a larva first becomes diseased, and has not yet 

 become offensive, it is easy to believe that the nurse-bees will 

 suck up its juices, and then when they feed healthy larvae the 

 healthy larvae will become diseased. But in a little while a 

 diseased larva will become decayed and offensive, so that it will 

 no longer, be eaten by the nurse-beesl If this supposition be 

 correct, it will come to pass that if egg-laying should stop for 

 5 or 6 days (the time a larva remains unsealed in its cell) there 

 will no longer be in the hive at the same time diseased larvae 

 fA for the nurses to eat and healthy larv» to which the dis- 



