570 
BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
opaline, and when magnified fifty diameters show 
that the bacilli are grouped in radiating clusters. 
These characters mark off this bacillus from other 
forms. I have named it Bacillus Gaytoni^ from 
Miss Gayton, who found some of her bees suffering 
three years in succession as I have described, and 
at whose request I investigated the cause. Miss 
Gayton imagined the disease to be connected with 
the queen, and this I have been able to corroborate, 
as the queen, in these diseased colonies, abounds 
with these bacilli. What is more important, is that 
her removal, and the establishment of a healthy 
successor, usually banishes the unfavourable symp- 
toms ; but this is not uniformly true, seeming to show 
that the bacillus is readily communicable from bee 
to bee, the attack being at times immensely more 
virulent than at others. Weakness and loss of 
vitality, with defective nutrition, would seem to 
occasion the dropping of the hairs, and this is, no 
doubt, favoured by the uneasy scraping, to which the 
body of the sufferer is continually subjected. Very 
large numbers of bees, sent me from different parts, 
and one from Cyprus, have yielded this bacillus as 
the result of cultivation, and I have found it the very 
easiest to propagate. My experience in treating it is 
very limited, but some trying phenol have testified 
that very obstinate cases of it yield to the same 
measures as would subdue Bacillus alvei — by the 
side of which, be it remembered, it is a very slight 
offender. 
In human diseases, as well as those of the larger 
animals, two or even more micro-organisms, have been 
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