SYMPTOMS OF THE DYSENTERY. 349 



that the drone takes his excursions in the air, which is 

 generally from about eleven to one; and it is rather singular, 

 and forms a striking proof of the contradictions and paradoxes 

 into which the numerous historians of the bee have fallen, 

 that Huber mistook the excrement of the drone for the 

 seminal fluid, and on that mistake he founded his system of 

 the impregnation of the queen by the drone in the open air. 

 The most extraordinary error, however, into which Mr. 

 Ducouedic has fallen is, that the food imbibed by the bee is 

 converted into wax, and disgorged by the mouth, which is tan- 

 tamount to saying that wax is the excrement of the bee; for 

 Ducouedic would not dare to lay such a heavy tax upon our 

 credulity, as to assert that the drone made any use of the 

 wax. We are, however, in some degree indebted to him 

 for his tacit avowal of the manner in which wax is made by 

 the bee, which is exactly conformable with the description 

 which he gives of the conversion of the food, imbibed 

 by the drone, into wax in the second stomach and disgorged 

 by the mouth. 



The following may be considered as the chief symptoms 

 of the dysentery. When the bee-master examines his hive, 

 and perceives on the platform or at the entrance of the hive 

 large spots, like linseed, of a colour approaching to black, 

 and of an offensive smell ; if the combs appear to be 

 streaked with dark lines, as if some feculent fluid had 

 run down them, the prevalence of the dysentery is then 

 confirmed. It has been asserted by several apiarians that 

 the dysentery is contagious, and that the bees of one hive 

 will communicate the malady to those of another; we 

 however conjecture that this opinion has arisen from the 

 circumstance, that several hives of the same apiary have 

 been affected with it at the same time; the real cause of 

 which most probably was, that the bees of all the infected 

 hives became subject to the same malignant influences, 

 and consequently were subject to the same disease. The 

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