The Occurrence of Diseases of Adult Bees, II. 23 



the bees of Switzerland due to the infestation indicates that the mite 

 may be present for a considerable time without the beekeeper being 

 aware of the fact, and, even from an experienced beekeeper, one may 

 not accept the statement that there are no cases of the disease in his 

 country, merely on the basis of lack of visible symptoms among his 

 own bees. Various diseases or abnormalities of adult bees, known 

 variously as paralysis, May disease, and under other names, have been 

 recorded repeatedly from the various countries of Europe, and since 

 these names mean little or nothing, the causes of these conditions 

 being purely a matter of speculation, one is entirely unable to esti- 

 mate the probability that some of these conditions are actually the 

 Isle of Wight disease. It certainly can not be considered safe to 

 accept statements of interested persons who desire to make sales of 

 queenbees in the United States when there is no way of checking 

 their statements. 



CARNIOLA, 



The Province of Carniola, in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, 

 and Slovenes, is the home of the Carniolan bee, which has for a num- 

 ber of years had some ardent advocates in the United States. They 

 are excellent bees, but have not gained the popularity in this country 

 which Italian bees enjoy. There are only a few queen breeders 

 in the United States who have found demand enough for these bees 

 to make their propagation profitable, and as a result many beekeepers 

 who prefer bees of this race have been in the habit of obtaining their 

 queens directly from Carniola. Perhaps because of this fact, there 

 has been more demand that this Province be excluded from the opera- 

 tion of the law against importations and that queens from Carniola 

 be admitted freely than has come from those who desire queens from 

 Italy. The statement has been made by those interested in these 

 importations that there is no Isle of Wight disease in that Province. 

 An effort has been made by the writer through correspondence to 

 learn if there has been any investigation to determine whether any 

 Isle of Wight disease or any disease of adult bees exists in Carniola, 

 but so far without success. The president of the provincial bee- 

 keepers' association, M. Humek, wrote under date of August 18, 1922, 

 that he is not aware of any kind of infectious bee disease in his 

 country. He states in his letter that certain bees had been sent away 

 for examination and that one of the best-known queen breeders of 

 that country would send to this Government a report which would 

 show that the Isle of Wight disease is unknown in Carniola. So far 

 the report has not been received, and from other correspondence ifc 

 would appear that there has been some unavoidable delay in the ex-, 

 animations, the nature of which is not clear. The Royal Depart- 

 ment of Commerce and Industry of the Kingdom has also stated that 

 there is no case of any disease of bees in the Kingdom. An effort 

 is being made to obtain the data on which this statement is based. 



When the revised postal regulations were adopted prohibiting the 

 mailing of queenbees through foreign mails in March, 1922, four 

 persons who had imported queenbees from Carniola sent to the 

 Bureau of Entomology the original cages in which imported Carnio- 

 lan queenbees had been received, including the accompanying 

 worker bees. These worker bees were not found to contain Acarnph 

 woodi, but they were heavily infected with Nosema apis. This 



