108 DISEASES OF BEES 



excrement before the accumulation is too great. 

 When this disease is in the hive, the bees soil the 

 combs most unpleasantly and dwindle rapidly 

 away. 



From this it will be seen that, as a general rule, 

 bee-keepers themselves are to blame if dysentery 

 breaks out, although it is believed that it is 

 sometimes brought on by bees eating honey- 

 dew. 



Honeydew is a curious sticky substance which 

 in dry summers may be found on the leaves of 

 very many plants and trees. It is an excretion 

 from the plant induced by the attacks of aphides. 

 Probably most people have at some time or other 

 noticed this stickiness. Insects are very partial 

 to it, and I have taken many kinds of moth in 

 the evening feasting upon it. Ants eat it 

 greedily, and so fond are they of it that they 

 hunt out the aphides and milk them. I have 

 often seen them doing this, and in my garden 

 there are several trees which, so surely as summer 

 comes round, are bound to be covered with ants 

 searching eagerly for their cows. If an aphis is 

 closely examined, there will be seen two little 

 tubes on its back standing up, from which, by 

 tickling the insect with its antennae, the ant 

 causes the honeydew to flow. 



As a general rule, when honey is abundant, 

 bees do not collect honeydew, but in some seasons 

 it is stored in great quantities, and it is, as I said 



