474 DISEASES OF BEES. 



its effects mainly by the dying of tlie brood, but the de- 

 nomination is improper, for the brood is not alone diseased. 



"When we remember that bees live in the closest contact 

 in very numerous colonies; that their usual system of inter- 

 cpmmunication is by actual touch; that they habitually pass 

 food from one stomach to another, while all the food they have 

 has been carried either within or upon the bodies of their fel- 

 lows; that their very home is formed of one of their secretions, 

 and that their beds, cradles and larder are all interchangeable, 

 we shall admit that the circumstances are such as would appear 

 to favor the development of' contagious diseases." — (Cheshire.) 



787. The scientific and indeed the true name of foul- 

 Tjrood is bacillus'f alvei, "small stiak of bee-hives'' because it 

 is Composed of living organisms resembling small sticks. It 

 develops very rapidly, and has been found, by Schonfeld and 

 by Cheshire and Cheyne, not only in the brood, but in the 

 bees and queens. The rapid depopulating of the coloniefe in- 

 fested, coupled with the fact that Mr. Bertrand has known 

 ■several queens to die in diseased colonies, leaves no doubt as 

 to the accuracy of the microscopical experiments made by 

 Cheshire, on queens who were found with bacilli, not only in 

 their organs, but also in the half developed eggs of their 

 ■ovaries. According to the English rnicroscopists, there are 

 two kinds of foul-brood, the major and the minor, the larger 

 and the smaller {Britifili Bee-Journal), but are they equally 

 to be feared? We believe it, for in the U. S. also there are 

 two different descriptions of the disease and they are called 

 respectively, foul-brood and black-brood, both seemingly 

 equally dangerous, while a third (801) is benign and readily 

 cured. 



These imperceptible "sticks" break successively into several 

 parts, every one of which forms a colony of spores, that pass 

 through di^-ers shapes before developing into new bacilli. "We 

 can jud.se of the promptness of their reproduction, and of 

 their minuteness, when we read in Cheshire, that a dead 



f Bacillus, plural bariUi, from the Latin, n stick. 



