DISEASES AND ENEMIES. 
563 
touch it ; but open the stocks, remove the brood-combs, 
and pour the medicated syrup into those cells imme- 
diately around and over the brood, and the bees 
will use a curative quantity of phenol.” In my ex- 
periments I inoculated a stock, and allowed it to get 
into a bad state, then inserted a comb of store in 
the centre of the brood-nest, and treated one side, 
from which the disease disappeared, but raged, although 
with abated fury, in the other half. Having, by these 
and many similar experiments, made the curability of 
Bacillus alvei a certitude, and having ascertained that 
of phenol could be given to the bees without limit- 
ing the queen in breeding, or touching her health, while 
dispatched the bacillus quickly when honey was 
coming in, and when it was not, I, in the interest 
of apiculture, requested the British Bee-keepers’ Asso- 
ciation to provide me with a bad case, fully attested. 
It arrived late, June 21st, 1884, with seven combs, 
about half a pint of bees, and a queen-cell — which I 
saw at once contained a dead larva only. Amidst 
crowds of bad cells, scarcely any living brood was 
visible. A casual counting of one of the best frames 
gave 371 dead larvae on one side. The odour was 
pronounced. The case needed confidence ; it was bad 
indeed. With me, queenlessness presents the worst of 
all obstacles. No grubs, no physic, no cure ! I had 
stipulated that the stock should have a queen, and 
so the difficulty was greater than I had anticipated. 
Early next morning, seeing the utterly disheartened 
condition of the poor bees, I went to a nucleus, 
took out a very fine Italian mother, just proved as 
purely fecundated, and putting her under a dome cage, 
2 O 2 
