Difficulties, and How to Overcome Them. 69 



the uproar, he does not return to give the information 

 obtained to the other bees, but immediately passes 

 down the bird's throat, unhonoured and unsung. 

 Ants may occasionally be seen in large numbers in 

 the hives, and they are arrant thieves. They object 

 to the smell of turpentine, which can be rubbed on 

 the stand. Lucky is the bee-man who has legs to 

 his hives, as a saucer of water can be placed under 

 each leg. Bees have other enemies, but the principal 

 have been named. To cure the birds, fasten a net 

 over the hives, and let them hear a gun occasion- 

 ally. 



Bees have few diseases as compared with other 

 living creatures, but one is very serious, and that is 

 called ' ' Foul brood. " No better description can be 

 given than that by Mr. A. Pettigrew in his Handy 

 Book of Bees. He says : " Foul brood is the great 

 and incurable malady of bee-hives. From some 

 cause or other, and in some seasons more than others, 

 larvae, or half-hatched bees (or brood), perish in their 

 cells, and become a putrid pestilential mass in a hive. 

 Prosperity departs from a hive whenever this happens, 

 and sometimes the stench of it has driven the bees 

 wholly out of their hives, and made them build fresh 

 combs underneath their boards ; and sometimes they 

 have gone off as swarms, abandoning their hives in 

 utter despair and detestation. An experienced bee- 

 keeper can smell this disease outside the hive in 

 which it exists, long before it is so fully developed 



