AMERICAN FOULBROOD. 3 



the decaying brood and a peculiar foul odor is now called American 

 foulbrood, and the other one which is not so characterized is called 

 European foulbrood. These two foulbroods are very different, the 

 principal point of similarity being that they are both brood diseases. 

 Both of them occur in Europe as well as in America. Unless these 

 facts are borne in mind the names are likely to be misleading. 



The term "foulbrood" (French, la Toque) in most countries as in 

 America frequently is used in a general sense meaning simply some 

 disorder of bees but no definite disease. In this popular use of the 

 term, either or both of the two foulbroods may be meant. Other 

 brood disorders sometimes are loosely referred to by this general 

 term. "Foulbrood" and "bee pest" or slight modifications of these 

 terms as used in different countries certainly include the disease 

 American foulbrood. In Switzerland no pronounced odor had been 

 observed in connection with American foulbrood and it is referred 

 to as "nichtstinkende Faulbrut" (6, 7, 8); in Austria it is called 

 "Faulbrut" (18); in Germany "Brutpest" (29) and "Faulbrut" 

 (12) ; in Denmark it is called "Bipest" (2, 3, 4) ; in England (10) and 

 in Ireland it is called foulbrood or bee pest; and in Australia it is 

 called foulbrood (5). 



There are at least three infectious brood diseases of bees but as a 

 rul3 the one which beekeepers, entomologists, and pathologists have 

 referred to in the past by the term "foulbrood" is the disease Amer- 

 ican foulbrood, discussed in the present paper. 



HEALTHY BROOD AT THE AGE AT WHICH IT DIES OF AMERICAN 



FOULBROOD 



The description of the symptoms of a brood disease as well as 

 the recognition of the disease are very materially aided by making 

 a comparison of diseased with healthy brood. Such a comparison 

 involves the age of the brood, the relative arrangement of the capped 

 and uncapped cells, the appearance of the diseased and of the dead 

 brood, and the relation of the dead larva or pupa to the cell in which 

 it lies. Furthermore, the character of the caps and the odor of 

 the brood-combs should not be overlooked. 



In healthy brood-combs a certain regularity is to be expected in 

 the arrangement of areas containing eggs, larvae, pupa3, and emerg- 

 ing brood, respectively. The cell caps when recently constructed 

 are convex outward (PI. II, A), but usually become flattened some- 

 what before the bees are ready to emerge. They are rarely punc- 

 tured, remaining as a rule entire. In color these combs vary widely 

 from a very light hue when recently constructed to a dark brown 

 when old. Accompanying them is a slight but not disagreeable odor. 



In American foulbrood the brood that dies does so nearly always 

 either during the last two days of the four-day prepupal period or 



