52 HISTORICAL NOTES ON BEE DISEASES. 
the hive and from the digestive tract of the workers. After the third 
week, to each colony the feeding of ordinary unmedicated sirup 
containing the spores of B. alvei was practiced. In each experimental 
colony typical symptoms of the disease are reported to have been 
observed in 10 days, and a well-established disease after 16 days. 
This experiment is offered as proof by Harrison that the feeding 
of an antiseptic in the treatment of foul brood is beneficial, as it 
hinders the germination of the spores of B. alver. This confirms, 
he states, the opinion of Lortet that the digestive canal ef the nurse 
bee is alone affected. Harrison reports the finding of B. alvei in the 
digestive canal of adult bees taken from diseased colonies. 
After giving the results of his experiments, Harrison writes the 
following conclusion: 
From the results of the above experiments I conclude that in certain cases the use 
of chemicals is beneficial, but I would not say that other measures, such as starvation 
and stamping out, should be abandoned as unnecessary or useless. Some of the drugs 
used are of very little, if any, value; but others, such as formic acid and napthol B, 
are undoubtedly very useful. In some cases, especially those in which the disease 
is very virulent, it may be advisable to resort to more drastic measures. 
In another experiment he reports that symptoms of the disease 
were produced after 14 days when B. alvei was fed. In these inocu- 
lation experiments, cultures were used which had been recently 
isolated in order that the virulence might not be diminished. He re- 
ports one experiment, however, in which cultures were used which 
had been transferred 30 times, with the result that several weeks 
elapsed before the disease appeared and then only in a light form. 
One observes here that Harrison reports at least four cases in 
which foul brood developed after feeding the spores of B. alvei in 
sirup. These are of special interest inasmuch as many failures have 
been made since that time to obtain the symptoms of foul brood by 
similar inoculations. It would be well if Harrison could repeat these 
feeding experiments for confirmation. 
The following summary contains some of the features of interest in 
Harrison’s paper: | 
1. It has now been 11 years since the bulletin by Harrison, which - 
is here briefly reviewed, was published, and very naturally, as its 
author no doubt will agree, it is in need of revision. 
2. He has given in the historical résumé a brief account of the re- 
sults and beliefs of a number of workers and writers on foul brood. 
3. He believed that the two forms of foul brood described by some 
authors were only two phases of the same disease, one form being 
that phase of the disease in which the larve die just before capping, 
and the other one that phase of the same disease in which the brood 
dies after capping. 
