made in attempting to combat the disease. " The disease," he says, " mani- 

 fests its presence by defects in the combs filled with brood, and which only 

 contain a pntrid mass ; instead of the bee pnpse there is only rottenness in 

 the cells, which, however, being capped always preserve a healthy appear- 

 ance. If these cells are broken open, a blackish liquid flows out, which 

 spreads the infection through the hive. This disease only manifests itself in 

 cells which contain a nearly mature larva or a capped one. The bees them- 

 selves remain in good health, and work with the same activity, but their 

 numbers decrease daily. This disease, however, was not so general in a hive 

 but that a small portion escaped ; some new bees emerged, but in too small 

 numbers to supply the daily losses Thus a hive attacked by this scourge 

 will perish from scarcity of population. At first it was not noticed that this 

 disease was epidemic, and the hives emptied by death of the bees, were filled 

 with fresh swarms, and these contracted the same disease and perished. Yet 

 another mistake was made. The remains of the hives that were lost were 

 taken into the streets of the town to expose them to the sun, in order to ex- 

 tract all the wax, and the bees from the neighborhood sucked up the honey, 

 caught the disease, and communicated it to other hives, and all, without ex- 

 ception perished in a short time. The epidemic, bavins reached the island, 

 spread everywhere and the mortality among the bees was general, either from 

 eating infected honey, or from stopping up the infected combs, or from the 

 bees nourishing their brood on infected honey." Delia Rocca criticizes 

 Schirach's statement regarding the misplacement of the larvse by the queen as 

 a cause of the disease, because " everybody knows that the queen has nothing 

 else to do but deposit eggs. These are then cared for and nourished by the 

 bees, and when the larva is nearly ready to change into the pupa, the bees 

 close the cell, and every position which is given the larva depends on their 

 good pleasure and not on the queen's." Delia Eocca himself thinks that 

 " some pestilential blight had without doubt corrupted the quality of the 

 honey and the dust from the authers," and recommends " burning everything 

 without pity, as there is no other resource when the disease is well established, 

 as the pest is without doubt the most terrible in the natural history of bees." 



Neither Wildman (9), Keys (10), Woolridge, Needham (11), Rhein, 

 Reaumur (12), or other authors about the same time (latter end of the 18th 

 century) mention this disease. 



Bevan (13) names the disease " Pestilence," and also quotes Schirach's 

 name " Foul Brood," and says regarding it, that the " festiler ce has been 

 attributed to the residence of dead larvse in the cells, from a careless deposi- 

 tion of ova by the queen ... it has also been attributed to cold and 

 bad nursing, that is, feeding with unwholesome food." 



Nothing further of note appears in bee literature till the year 1860, 

 when Dr. Leuckhart (14) writes that he was formerly of the opinion that foul 

 brood was caused by the same fungus {Panhistophyton ovatum) which is 

 noticed in a disease ot the silk worm, but now after observation and experi- 

 ment, is quite certain that the disease is caused by neither vegetable nor ani- 

 mal parasite. He also notes that the term " foul brood " is applied to a 

 number of diseases afiecting bees. 



Molitor Miihlfeld (15) recognizes two forms, one contagions and the other 

 not contagious, and thinks that the only cause of contagious foul brood is a 

 fly (Ichneumon apium meUificarium) which lays its eggs on the yoang larvae 

 of the bfe. 



A discovery of note was Preuss's (16) in 1868. He contradicts Muhlfeld'a 

 statement about the fly, and states that foul brood cells can be detected by 



