28 I'll r-],-et piiifi III I ictnriii. 



ones are j-ellowish, grey, or brown, and flabby in appearance, and, later, 

 collapse into a shapeless brown mass, which, when touched with a match, 

 draws out stringy or ropy. This disease is often, but not always, 

 accompanied by an odour of stale glue.* 



Any eolonv found diseased and with not sufficient bees left to form 

 a medium swarm should be at once destroyed by burning the box, 

 bees, combs, and all. The bees should be shut in when they have 

 stopped fiying for the day, and the whole hive burned on a fire in a 

 hole dug for'the purpose, which is to be fi.lled up with earth when 

 everything is consumed. 



If a diseased hive still contains sufficient bees to form a swarm, they 

 may be drummed off into an empty box, in which they should be left 

 for' three or four days to cleanse themselves. The bees are then trans- 

 ferred to a frame hive like an ordinary swarm. The old box and 

 contents should be burned as soon as the bees are driven out, and the 

 hitermediate hive cleaned by immersion in boiling water. 



Robbing box hives for the purpose of transferring tlie bees to 

 frames should not be done too late in the season, so as to give them a 

 better chance to estabhsh themselves before winter. 



On no account should honey or comb, wax, or refuse from the box 

 liives be given to the bees, nor should they be allowed to have access 

 to it. The cutting out of combs, the straining of honey, and the 

 rendering of wax should all be done indoors, secure from bees, or when 

 that is not possible, it should be done at times when bees are not flying 

 and all honey, wax scraps, or daubed utensils should be removed, or 

 carefully and securely covered up, when the work is finished. 



It may here be pointed out that the practice of many box hive bee- 

 keepers of leaving comb too dark for the straining bag lying about 

 straining honey out of doors, or even purposely putting scraps of comb 

 and sticky refuse out for the bees to clean up, has, since foul-brooc 

 has been introduced to Australia, caused the loss of thousands ot 

 colonies of bees and the wholesale dissemination of that disease. Even 

 the bees' nests in trees first became infected in this way. The subsequent 

 felling and robbing of bee trees by bee hunters, who left the refuse 

 exposed to other wild bees, box hive, and frame hive bees, caused a still 

 wider distribution of foul-brood. 



It is not natural for bees to find hone}^ They gather nectar from 

 the blossoms; this they transform into honey inside the hive. When 

 they find honey outside they become excited; when the supply is 

 exhausted they forage around for more; they find weak, usually dis- 

 eased colonies, or bee trees, somewhere within their range of flight; 

 they attack these and carry home their stores of honey, and with the"" 

 the germs of foul-brood. 



If feeding bees is necessary, as it may be in the case of late transfers, 

 sugar syrup (2 sugar to 1 boiling water by weight) should be given in 

 a feeder inside the hive, not honey outside. Sugar syrup does not 

 excite bees so much as does honey, and can be relied upon as being free 

 from disease. 



* For symptums of Foul-ln-ood and its treatment see Chapter XTX,, page 70. 



