DISEASES OF BEES. 
259 
than it is desired to winter, it is judicious to take the 
honey from the colonies deprived of their queens, imme- 
diately after all the brood has emerged, as they usually 
contain the greatest quantity of stores at that time. If 
the disease be not malignant foul-brood, the colony may 
be allowed to remain undisturbed after it has bred a new 
queen, and, in most instances, such colonies will subse- 
quently be found free from disease. I have, indeed, ascer- 
tained the singular fact that, if both bees and combs be 
removed from an infected hive, and healthy bees and pure 
comb be placed therein, these will speedily be infected 
with foul-brood ; whereas, when the queen of an incipiently 
infected colony is removed, or simply confined in a cage, 
and the workers are still sufficiently numerous to remove 
all impurities, the colony will speedily be restored to a 
healthy condition. It thus seems as though the bees can 
become accustomed to the virus which usually adheres so 
pertinaciously to the hive. 
“ Foul-brood , indeed, is a disease exclusively of the 
larvae, and not of the emerged bees, or of brood suffi- 
ciently advanced to be nearly ready to emerge. Hence, 
the cause of the disease may exist already in the food 
provided for the larvae , and have its seat in the chyle- 
stomach of the nursing .bees, though these latter may not 
themselves be injuriously affected thereby. 
“ Though the colonies treated in this manner generally 
appear to be free from infection during the ensuing ' 
season, and the brood proceeding from the eggs of a 
queen subsequently given to them, or from those of one 
reared by themselves, is healthy, maturing and emerging 
in due time, still, the disease, in most instances, re-appears 
in the following Summer. It is, indeed, possible that the 
bees may have re-introduced it from foreign sources, but 
it is not unlikely, also, that the infectious matter really 
