The Occurrence of Diseases of Adult Bees, U. 15 



made to it in recent discussions have been the cause of some con- 

 fusion in the minds of beekeepers in America and elsewhere, it is 

 well to record exactly what Duchemin found and to show that this 

 had nothing whatever to do with the Isle of Wight disease. No 

 claim is made by Giraud or Sevalle {28) that Aoarapis woodi and the 

 Duchemin mite are the same species. 



In 1866 M. Duchemin published a brief article {21) in which he 

 described his finding several years before of a mite in the apiary of 

 a poor peasant to which Duchemin attributed the rapid death of 30 

 colonies of bees. On near-by flowers of the sunflower, TIelianthus 

 annuios^ to which the bees had access, he also found a mite which he 

 considered to be identical. He concludes from observations then 

 made and from work which he did on this subject in 1864, several 

 years later, that the mites inhabit the sunflower and that in this way 

 these plants are destructive to honeybees as sources of this enemy. 

 This finding was discussed in several succeeding numbers of the same 

 journal by the editor, Hamet, Andre (7), and again by Duchemin 

 {22), who replies to cricitisms of Andre. The notes by Duchemin 

 also appear in another journal {20) . From the recent discussion it 

 appears that this purported discovery was then discussed in other 

 periodicals {15). 



After the announcement of the discovery of Acarapis woodi as the 

 cause of the Isle of Wight disease, several writers referred to this 

 early finding by Duchemin. The well-known German investigator 

 Von Buttel-Eeepen {15) refers to his own finding of a mite on bees 

 of Apis indiccu and raises the question whether Tarsonemus woodi 

 may not be the same mite which Duchemin found in France. This 

 article was translated in part into English and reply was made to 

 it by the writer (^7). Von Buttel-Eeepen wrote his article before 

 the description of Acoofapis woodi had been published. In the re- 

 ports of M. Duchemin's discovery in certain German periodicals 

 mention had been made of an illustration which Duchemin had pre- 

 pared, but unfortunately this illustration was not available to V on 

 Buttel-Reepen when he prepared his paper. The illustration was 

 not given in the account of this mite which Duchemin published 

 in the Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des seances de I'Academie, des 

 sciences [Paris] {20), and Kennie {50) refers to the absence of an 

 illustration. It appeared in L'Apiculteur, a French bee journal, for 

 February, 1866 (perhaps also elsewhere), and the illustration was 

 copied in the American Bee Journal for May, 1922. Ewing {25) 

 later stated that the Duchemin mite, as determined from this illus- 

 tration, was doubtless a nymph of a species of Trichotarsus, so there 

 is not the slightest reason for thinking that the Duchemin record has 

 anything to do with the Isle of Wight disease. These mites may 

 have been injurious to the bees, as Duchemin claims, but this finding 

 has no bearing on the present outbreak of Isle of Wight disease 

 in France or elsewhere. 



A similar record of the finding of a mite on bees is mentioned by 

 Manger {39) (see also Elsaas-Lothring. Bienenziichter, 1884 (i)), 

 and Dennler {18) , where it is recorded that Trapp, of Strassburg, 

 found mites in considerable numbers on the head of a bee. An illus- 

 tration of a ventral view of this mite by Schmidt j^much better than 

 the illustration drawn by Duchemin of his mite) is copied by Man- 

 ger, which shows that there is no reason to believe it is any way 



