2() MEETING OF I X-PKc'i'oRS OF APIARIES. 



and 261 I. This examination showed that in every dead larva and in each foul 

 brood cell, whether the contents were yet white and fluid or brown, tenacious, 

 .Mid ropy, there were t<» he found long oval bodies, which Preuss called "micro- 

 cocci." close t<> and among them, Cohn was the firsl to And, with the most 

 powerful of the live microscopes thai were used, a countless number of slender 

 pale rods, joined together, and which he a1 once identified as bacteria of the 

 genus Bacillus. The length of a single rod was about <*, micromillimeters, but 

 many of them were two and three jointed, so that these foul brood bacteria 

 microscopically resembled the anthrax bacteria, though of course they were 

 different physiologically and in the manner in which they acted as ferments. 



it is not surprising when we remember the state of bacteriological knowledge 

 in 1870, that Preuss should have mistaken micrococci for the spores of a bacillus. 



In L885 the first investigation which merited close attention was 

 published in the Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society, entitled 

 " The Pathogenic History and History under Cultivation of a New 

 Bacillus (B. alvei), the Cause of a Disease of the Hive Bee Hitherto 

 Known as Foul Brood.'" by Frank 11. Cheshire, F. R. M. S., F. L. S., 

 and W. Watson Cheyne. M. B., F. R. C. S. One point is here to be 

 especially noticed, there were two authors of this paper. The paper 

 was divided into Part I. Pathogenic History, by Mr. Cheshire, and 

 Part II, History Under Cultivation, by Mr. Cheyne. and with the 

 latter part Mr. Che- hire had nothing whatever to do. Bee keepers 

 are generally giving Mr. Cheshire the credit for this work, hut it is 

 dear that Mr. Cheyne. the man who did the bacteriological work. 

 should be the one to get the credit. The description of the disease, 

 contained in Part I, is as follow- : 



V7e mi hire of foul brood as <i germ disease. — If a comb he removed from 

 neai- the center of a healthy hive during the summer months its cells will 

 normally he filled with eggs, larvae, and pupae in every sta.se of development. 

 The eggs as left by the ovipositor of the queen or mother adhere commonly by 

 the end to the hase of the cells they occupy, and favored by the high tempera- 

 ture constantly maintained within the hive, the germinal vesicle at about three 

 days matures into a larva ready for hatching. These eggs 1 have shown as lia- 

 ble to the disease even before they leave the body of the mother, hut most careful 

 microscopic examination is needful to make this apparent (and of which 1 

 shall speak presently more particularly). <>n the contrary, the larvae, which 

 are constantly fed by the workers, so change in appearance soon after in- 

 fection that a practiced eye at once detects the presence of the disease. Whilst 

 healthy their bodies are of a beautiful pearly whiteness, lying, at first floating, 

 in the ahnndant pabulum the nurses are ever ready to supply. As they^row 

 they curl themselves at the bottom of the cells until they become too strait 

 tor their occupants, which now advance to the head to he in readiness for the 

 cocoon spinning, which follows upon the dose of the eating stage. When the 

 disease strikes the larvae they move uneasily in their cells, and often then pre- 

 sent the dorsal surface to its mouth, * * * so that mere posture is no insuffi- 

 cient evidence of an unhealthy condition. The color changes to yellow, passing 

 on by degrees toward a pale brown, whilst the skin becomes flaccid ami opaque; 

 death soon occurs, when the body, now shrunken by evaporation, lies on the 

 lower side of the cell, increasing in depth of tone, until in a few days nothing 



