[From PARASITOLOGY, Vol. XIV, No. 1, 25 April, 1922.] 

 [All Bights reserved] 



NOSEMA APIS AND ACAEAPIS (TABSONEMUS) WOODI 

 IN RELATION TO ISLE OF WIGHT BEE DISEASE. 



By GEO. W. BULLAMOEE, 



Molteno Institute for Research in Parasitology, Cambridge. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



I. Some outbreaks of bee disease previous to 1906 .... 53 



II. The outbreak of 1906 commonly called Isle of Wight Disease . 55 



III. The symptoms of disease in adult bees 55 



IV. Attempts to ascertain the cause of Isle of Wight Disease . . 56 



A. Bacillus pestiformis apis ... . .56 



B. Nosema apis 56 



C. Acarapis {Tarsonemus) icoodi 58 



V. Conclusions 61 



I. Some Outbreaks of Bee Disease previous to 1906. 



In former times when this country was dependent upon bees for its supply of 

 sugar, a heavy mortahty among these insects was of sufficient importance to 

 be placed on record. In his Animal Plagues Fleming (1871) gives a number of 

 references to such losses. In Ireland there was a "mortahty of bees" in 

 950 A.D. and again in 992 a.d. there was a "great mortahty upon men, cattle 

 and bees." In 1035 a.d. the destruction of bees afflicted the whole of Bavaria. 

 An echpse of the sun in 1124 a.d. was followed by a great pestilence amongst 

 oxen, sheep, pigs, and bpes. During the time of the "Black Death," also, 

 there appears to have been heavy losses of bees and at the Manor Court of 

 Heacham in Norfolk, a statement was made on oath by the steward in the 

 forty-fifth year of the reign of Edward III (1372 a.d.) to the effect that ten 

 out of eleven stocks of bees had perished from the murrain. There is little 

 doubt that this entry in the manorial court rolls refers to epidemic disease, 

 but, as Fleming points out, "there is evidently no relationship between the 

 morind of the bees and that of the sheep and cows." 



The year 1443 a.d. was rainy and tempestuous after May which "much 

 hurted both bees and sheep in Ireland"; while in Italy in 1690 a.d. "bees 

 extracting no sweetness from the calyces of the flowers, but a bitter poison, 

 either died or left the country." A great mortahty among bees and carp is 

 also recorded in 1717 a.d. in Silesia. 



A well-known writer on bees, Dr Bevan (1837), states that 



in the winter of 1782-3, a general mortality took place among the bees in this country, 

 which was attributed to various causes; want of honey was not one of them; for in some 



