18 HISTORICAL NOTES ON BEE DISEASES. 
DZrIERzON, 1882. 
For many years Dzierzon and others entertained the belief that 
there existed two forms of foul brood, a mild form and a virulent one. 
In his ‘‘ Rational Bee Keeping,’’ Dzierzon! has written the following 
concerning the kinds of foul brood. 
There is one kind that is mild and curable, and another kind malignant and incura- 
ble; both kinds are, however, contagious. 
The curable occurs in this way: More of the larve die still unsealed, while they are 
still curled up at the bottom of the cell, rotting and drying up to a grey crust, that may 
be removed with tolerable ease. The brood which does not die before sealing mostly 
attains to perfection, and it is only exceptionally that individual foul-brood cells are 
met with sealed. 
This is exactly reversed in the malignant kind of foul brood. In this the larve do 
not generally die before they have raised themselves from the bottom of the cell, have 
been sealed and begun to change into nymphs. The rotten matter is, therefore, not 
found on the cell floor, but on the lower cell wall; it is brownish and tough, and dries 
up to a firm black crust, both in consequence of the heat prevailing in the hive, and 
of a small opening bitten in the depressed cover. This matter the bees are not able 
to remove; and when they are in some strength, they can at most get rid of it by entirely 
biting down the tainted cells and making fresh ones. 
The description which Dzierzon here gives of the ‘‘mild”’ form of 
foul brood applies very well to European foul brood, and his de- 
scription of the ‘‘malignant”’ form applies equally well to American 
foul brood. It is fair to suppose that he encountered both European 
foul brood and American foul brood, but instead of recognizing them 
as two distinct diseases, he thought them to be two forms of the same 
disease. 
CHESHIRE, AuGcusT 1, 1884. 
The work of Cheshire on the cause of bee diseases is of much in- 
terest and should be somewhat carefully considered, inasmuch as it 
has directly and indirectly caused much confusion in the minds of 
bee keepers concerning the nature, cause, and treatment of foul 
brood. 
The first paper ? by him to be considered was the outgrowth of an 
invitation by a committee of the British Bee Keepers’ Association 
about the last of May, 1884, to give an address before the association 
on foul brood. A paper of considerable length was prepared and 
was read before that body of bee keepers on July 25, 1884. In this 
address the subject of foul brood was taken up under three separate 
headings: (1) ‘‘The nature of foul brood as a germ disease;’’ (2) 
“The means of the propagation of the disease;”’ (3) “The method of 
1 Dzierzon, Johannes, 1882. Dzierzon’s Rational Bee Keeping; or the theory and practice of Dr. Dzier- 
zon. Translated from the latest German edition by H. Dieck and S. Stutterd. Edited and revised by 
Charles Nash Abbott, London. Pp. xvi+350. 
2 Cheshire, Frank R., August 1,1884. Foul brood (not Micrococcus, but Bacillus) , the means of its prop- 
agation and the method ofitscure. British Bee Journal, Vol. XII, No. 151, pp. 256-263. 
