258 AUSTRALASIAN 
separate cells amongst healthy brood. These dead larva 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 
larve 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 when 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 ;” 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 
larve, 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 larve. A treatment with salicylic acid 
and borax, used in solution, to spray over the affected combs 
