U. S. D. A., B. E. Bui. 75, Part II. A., December 31. 190 
MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS ON APICULTURE. 
WAX MOTHS AND AMERICAN FOUL BROOD 
By E. F. Phillips, Ph. D., 
In Charge of Apiculture. 
INTRODUCTION. 
It has generally been held by bee keepers that, while the wax 
moths often cause considerable damage by destroying surplus 
combs and in other ways, they were not an unmixed evil, for by 
destroying combs infected with brood disease they were supposed to 
remove the infection. Text-books on apiculture and articles in 
various bee journals have repeatedly reiterated this statement. 
Evidently no person has seen fit to look into the question thoroughly, 
and it is the object of the present paper to record some observations 
which have been made. 
When a bee larva dies from infection of American foul brood, it 
decays rapidly, and the mass becomes ropy, so that if a small stick 
or pin is inserted in the deca}^ed mass and removed, the larval mate- 
rial adheres to it and will string out for an inch or more. This 
ropiness of the dead larva is very characteristic of this brood dis- 
ease. Seemingly this ropiness makes it impossible for the bees to 
remove the infected material, and when the decayed mass dries down 
it forms a scale which adheres so tightly to the lower side wall of the 
cell that it can not be removed without tearing the wax wall. 
As the disease progresses in the colony the various cells of the 
brood chamber come to contain diseased larvae and, later, scales 
formed of dried larvae. It is probable that after a cell once comes to 
contain a diseased larva, it is almost impossible for another larva to 
reach maturity in a healthy condition, consequently the number of 
bees which reach the adult condition is constantly reduced and, as the 
old field bees die and are not fully replaced, the colony becomes weak- 
ened and finally dies out completely. 
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