BEE MANUAL. 257 



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wholesome as food. The ventilation of hives, both in summer 

 and winter, should receive close attention. Owing to the 

 disease usually appearing in the northern part of New Zealand 

 about the time when peach trees commence to blossom, it has 

 sometimes been wrongly attributed to the honey gathered from 

 that source. There is, however, reason to believe that it is 

 sometimes caused by the honey gathered from the wharangi 

 shrub, which blossoms about the same time, and which will be 

 found more particularly mentioned in Chapter XVIII. 



The best preventive measure that can be taken is to provide 

 the bees with clean, warm, tight, well-ventilated hives, and the 

 surest cure is a spell of warm, genial weather. 



BACILLUS ALVEI (FOUL BROOD). 



This disease is the most fatal to bees, and if prompt action 

 is not taken to stamp it out on its first appearance it may very 

 rapidly lead to the loss of the whole apiary. The disease 

 appears to have taken a pretty firm hold in a few districts in 

 both Australia and New Zealand, and the difficulty of getting 

 rid of it in these places is increased by the carelessness and 

 wilfulness of box-hive bee-keepers, who, in the utter disregard 

 of the advice given them by more careful men, will persist in 

 leaving the old boxes with their combs lying about in which 

 diseased colonies have died for other bees to enter, and occa- 

 sionally hiving stray swarms in them, only to propagate the 

 disease and finally perish as the others have done before them. 

 A gentleman who went to much trouble to assist some box-hive 

 bee-keepers in his neighbourhood to get rid of the disease, and 

 supplied them with a remedy free of cost, wrote me some short 

 time since, that as they would not follow on with the work he 

 had commenced, he had given the whole thing up in disgust, 

 and that he had no hopes of the district ever being clear of the 

 disease while such men remained in it. Fortunately, I have 

 had no experience of the disease beyond inspecting pieces of 

 diseased combs that have been sent to me. 



SYMPTOMS OF BACILLUS ALVEI. 



Dr. Dzierzon, who once lost 500 colonies by it, describes the 

 symptoms as follows : — 



"An infallible symptom of the presence of foul brood (bacillus alvei) 

 is the discovery of dead, dried-up, shrivelled larvae or nymphs in 



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