86 liee-heepinii in Victoria. 



newly-hatelit.^d bees may become infected. They crawl from the hive. 

 Tall over on their side or back, .just move their legs now and again, and 

 do not die till many hours later. In the case of these yonng bees, there 

 is no swelling of the abdomen and no quivering of the wings. 



Pai-alysis in Victoria is more prevalent north of the Dividing Kange 

 than in the coastal country, but whether tliis if due to climatic influ- 

 ences or to variations in the food supplies is not known. Many remedies 

 have been advocated, such as sprinkling the bees with sulphur flour, 

 spraying them with brine, or feeding medicated syrup, and although 

 the disease is often checked for a time, no cure is effected. When using 

 sulphur the brood should be removeu, as otherwise the sulrthur will kill 

 all the unsealed 1)rood and eggs. The brood removed may be given to 

 any other colony without risk of infecting it, provided care is taken to 

 shift none of the adult bees with the combs. There is no doubt that 

 some strains of bees are predisposed to paralysis, and the only treatment 

 known to be at all effective is to kill and replace the queen of every 

 hive showing the first symptoms of the disease, and thus gradually 

 eliminate it. If the new queen is of the same strain, or of another 

 one equally predisposed, no cure will result. In obtaining queens 

 from elsewhere for the purpose of re-queening colonies showing paralysis 

 it will be better to get them from an apiary from which the disease has 

 been eliminated than from one in which it has never made its appear- 

 ance, because in the former the queens would be from stock which 

 proved immune in contact with the disease, while in the latter there 

 has been no such test. 



It is of the utmost importance that on no account should queens 

 be raised or kept from stocks which show signs of paralysis, no matter 

 how desirable they may be in all other respects ; further, the queens 

 of all affected hives should be replaced as soon as possible, to prevent 

 the raising of predisposed drones, which \)y mating with the young 

 queens would perpetuate the weakness in the apiary. 



Dysentery. 

 The symptoms of dysentery of bees are the soiling of the hive en- 

 trance and the immediate surrormdings with the watery excrement of 

 the bees. This is brownish-yellow, and has a disagreealale smell when 

 dysentery is present, while under normal conditions it is darker in 

 colour, and drier, and is voided at a greater distance from the hive. 

 This spotting of the hives and surroundings usually occurs in spring, 

 when the bees have been prevented from taking a cleansing flight by a 

 long spell of cold weather. When bees winter on thin, watery honey 

 they have to consume greater quantities to produce the required animal 

 heat than when their winter food is of proper density. Bees in a 

 healthy state do not void inside the hive, but when, owing to inclement 

 weather, the.y are unable to fly, there is, on account of the consumption 

 of a large amount of diluted food, srich an accumulation of waste in 

 their bodies that they are forced to discharge it inside the hive, soiling 

 each other and the combs. Before this condition is reached the bees 

 are so surcharged with accumulated waste that they are unable to con- 

 sume sufficient honey to maintain the animal heat necessary, and many 



