258 AUSTRALASIAN 



separate cells amongst healthy brood. These dead larvas have passed 

 into a pap-like or tough mass, and later on into a greyish-brown or 

 quite black crust on the floor or the lower surface of the cells. If the 

 majority of the cells are in that condition, the infection took place 

 some time ago, and the evil has already become very great. Because 

 a stock with foul brood generally ventilates considerably, the evil may 

 ' be recognised in hives with immovable combs by an unpleasant smell 

 proceeding from the entrances ; the smell is similar to that of putrid 

 glue or meat. As the bees take the trouble to bring out separate 

 larvae that have not yet entirely rotted, such will be found sometimes 

 on the floor of the hives affected. The bees take the trouble partially 

 to remove to the outside the blackish-brown crust forming finally from 

 the rotten matter. There are therefore found on the floor a dark- 

 coloured dust and entire skins torn off, which, when rubbed down 

 between the fingers, give off the same unpleasant smell. In spring, 

 when other stocks are already diligently building, the foul-broody do 

 not generally make any preparation for it ; at most they will only do 

 so wnen they are still fairly strong and unusually good pasture sets in. 

 If the combs are examined, the sealed brood is never found en masse, 

 but standing in isolated irregular patches. To be thoroughly satisfied, 

 a piece of brood-comb must be cut or torn out ; and if it shows cells 

 with the matter described above, foul brood is certainly present. " 



He says that there are two kinds of foul brood, 



" One kind that is mild and curable, and another kind malignant and 

 incurable ; both kinds are, however, contagious j" and that "the cura- 

 ble kind may occur of itself, under certain conditions of ingathering, 

 .... and sometimes disappear again of itself when the conditions 

 have changed." 



It has long been the opinion of many bee-keepers, that bees 

 occasionally contract this disease while working on certain 

 plants ; Dzierzon mentions two of this class, " bilberries and 

 pines ; " while on the other hand it has been said that it never 

 appears in apiaries situated in the neighbourhood of certain 

 other plants. As the name, foul brood, implies, it was thought 

 —until Mr. Cheshire proved otherwise — to be a disease of the 

 larvae, and that the old bees and queen were not affected by 

 it. This and other errors, however, of earlier investigators have 

 been brought to light by the above-mentioned gentleman. 



Beyond the fact that it was a germ disease, nothing reliable 

 was known about foul brood up to a very recent period. The 

 fungoid growth was supposed to belong to the sort known to 

 microscopists as micrococci; it was supposed to originate in the 

 decaying bodies of the larvae. A treatment with salicylic acid 

 and borax, used in solution, to spray over the affected combs 



