LAMBOTTE, SEPTEMBER 25, 1902. 5d 
that foul brood might be started in the colony, but repeated attempts 
resulted each time in failure. 
He then made a medium from bee larve by the use of which he 
thought he had obtained by successive inoculation a special variety 
of Bacillus mesentericus. He supposed that if Bacillus mesentericus 
were grown upon the bee-larve medium its virulence for bees would 
be increased. After using the culture of Bacillus mesentericus, which 
had been grown upon the bee-larve medium, and after inoculating 
larve as before, he reports that foul brood was produced with the 
typical symptoms of the disease. The only exception noted was that 
fewer cells were affected. 
He attributed his good results to two facts, first, that Bacillus 
mesentericus was cultivated on a bee-larve medium, and second, that 
the experimental inoculation was made at a time of the year when the 
activity of the hive was considerably diminished. To the latter 
factor he attributes most of his success. He states that a colony 
inoculated with Bacillus alver or with Bacillus mesentericus grown on 
a bee-larvee medium will not allow itself to become infected when it 
is active at the beginning of the season. 
In his conclusions Lambotte writes: 
(1) Bacillus alver, described by Watson Cheyne and Cheshire as the specific cause 
of foul brood, is simply the widely distributed organism Bacillus mesentericus vulgaris. 
(2) Bacillus mesentericus can be found in healthy hives, in the cells of the comb, and 
in the intestines of bees. 
(3) Bacillus mesentericus, by growth in the tissues of larvee, produces changes char- 
acteristic of foul brood. 
Lambotte insists that the hygiene of the colony is above all the 
most important in the control of foul brood. He believes that unless 
the resistance of the larvee to infection is maintained by good hygiene, 
Bacillus mesenterrcus, which is so widely distributed in nature, may 
invade the colony and produce foul brood in any apiary. 
A brief summary of Lambotte’s works may be made as follows: 
1. He did not take into consideration the two forms of foul brood 
described by some authors, working for the most part, at least, with 
American foul brood only. 
2. He observed that in American foul brood it was not easy to 
obtain a growth of the spores which are found in such large numbers 
on microscopic examination. 
3. He suspected that an antiseptic was present in the dead remains 
of the larve in this disease which prevented the growth of the spores. 
The effect of such an antiseptic he hoped to overcome by diluting it 
with a large amount of the medium used for its cultivation. 
4. He obtained a bacillus by this special technique and identified 
it as the Bacillus alvei of Cheyne and Cheshire. 
