20 Department Circular 287, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. 



In the meantime a number of other articles {15, S3, 38, 39) have 

 appeared in German journals regarding the Isle of Wight disease 

 and its newly discovered cause, and in none of those which have come 

 to the attention of the writer is there any statement regarding the 

 occurrence of the disease in Germany. Dr. Bartholomaus Manger 

 of Ingolstadt in a private communication writes (December 30, 1922) 

 that he reads all the German bee journals and has seen no such state- 

 ment. Because of the geographical position of Germany in the center 

 of various important beekeeping regions of Europe, it seemed quite 

 desirable to determine whether the disease is actually present in that 

 country. Probably no American beekeeper would wish to import 

 queenbees from Germany, almost certainly not of the race of bees 

 native to that country. Germany has long been the home of scientific 

 research in beekeeping and there are a large number of competent 

 investigators in beekeeping in that countrj'. It was felt that if the 

 disease has actually been found in Germany this fact would indicate 

 a wider distribution than has been assumed for the mite in most of 

 the publications on the subject. With this thought in mind, the 

 writer addressed a considerable number of the prominent beekeeping 

 investigators of Germany, asking whether they had any knowledge 

 of the actual finding of the mite within the boundaries of Germany. 



The replies to these inquiries were uniformly to the effect that the 

 mite has so far not been recorded in any German beekeeping periodi- 

 cal and none of the men who replied had any knowledge of such 

 findings. It appears from these letters that no search has been made 

 specifically for this mite, but one of the men who wrote, a prominent 

 investigator, states that he expects to undertake such a search during 

 the summer of 1923. 



Except for the surmise of Morgenthaler, based on his finding of 

 the mite on the northern boundary of Switzerland, adjacent to south- 

 ern Germany, it may therefore be stated that there is so far no evi- 

 dence of the occurrence of the Isle of Wight disease in Germany. 

 This negative statement will be of little value in comparison with 

 such scientific investigations as will doubtless be made in the near 

 future. 



ITALY. 



American beekeepers are perhaps more concerned with the situa- 

 tion as to diseases of adult bees in Italy than in any other country 

 of continental Europe, since more importations of queenbees have 

 been made and will be desired from that country than from any 

 other. Several articles {8, 9, 10, ^5) have appeared in the Italian 

 bee journal on the Isle of Wight disease and on its newly discovered 

 cause, but they are usually a summary of the work of Eennie or an- 

 nouncements of the finding of the disease elsewhere in England. 

 Tlie effort of the United States Government to prevent the introduc- 

 tion of the disease into this country has also been mentioned on sev- 

 eral occasions, not always favorably (4). 



The only defiinite statement which has come to the attention of 

 the writer is a brief one by Prof. Vincenzo Asprea, of Calabria. 

 In discussing the United States postal regulation approved March 

 21, 1922, prohibiting the mailing of queenbees into the United States, 

 he says {8) : 



