BEE DISEASES IN MASSACHUSETTS. 27 
the year 1902 or 1903 he lost forty-five colonies of bees. From East 
Brookfield and Charlton, from New Braintree, Sturbridge, and War- 
ren, all located around and adjoining Worcester and Auburn, reports 
of heavy loss of bees, not alone by one bee keeper in a town but by 
several, are at hand. A bee keeper in Warren says, " Bees all died 
about five years ago; I had nine colonies which I lost; Mr. -lost 
ji bout five colonies also, as did others, so that at the present day only 
three to four colonies remain in town." Similar reports come from 
across the county and Connecticut State lines adjoining this section 
of Worcester County. It is highly probable, then, considering the 
positive knowledge of foul brood in Worcester and Auburn and con- 
sidering collectively the widespread and yet individual reports from 
the country about these two towns, that these diseases are present 
throughout this section of Massachusetts and Connecticut. In other 
parts of the State similar conclusions are obvious. 
Considering the distribution as a whole, it is apparent that Euro- 
pean foul brood has swept in from New York State, where the 
disease has existed for years. Moreover, were the bees in western 
Massachusetts systematically examined, this portion of the State 
would doubtless be found thickly infected with European foul brood. 
American foul brood in Connecticut has apparently invaded Litch- 
field County in the western half of the State. In Massachusetts, 
on the other hand, and in one small area in New Hampshire, where 
there is less thorough information, American foul brood is largely 
confined to the eastern half of the State. Ultimately, when more 
information is at hand, if decisive and immediate steps to suppress 
these diseases are not taken, Massachusetts, as well as the rest of New 
England, will undoubtedly reveal a mass of infection. 
EVIDENCE THAT BEE DISEASES WERE NOT RECENTLY INTRO- 
DUCED INTO MASSACHUSETTS. 
In 1828 Dr. James Thatcher wrote (p. 4) : a 
The destructive ravages of the hee-moth have in many places almost anni- 
hilated our bee establishments and discouraged all attempts to renewed trials. 
No less than a hundred hives have, the past season, been entirely destroyed 
by that enemy within the towns of the county of Plymouth, and in places 
where a single hive has yielded one hundred pounds of honey. 
At first reading this might appear, so far as bee diseases are con- 
cerned, of slight import. General experience sIioavs, however, that 
strong, healthy colonies of bees are seldom if ever destroyed by 
wax moths, the presence of the latter being secondary as a result of 
a weakened condition of the colony from loss of its queen, disease, 
or the like. Consequently, wherever there is extensive complaint of 
damage from moths, there the presence of disease is to be suspected. 
"A Practical Treatise <>n the Management of Bees. * * * By James 
Thacher, M. l>., Boston, 1829. 
