256 
THE IITVE ANn HONEY-BEE. 
menl, which, instead of a reddish yellow, exhihits a 
muddy black color, and has an intolerably offensive smell. 
Also, by its being voided upon the floors and at the 
entrance of the hives, which bees, in a healthy state, are 
particularly careful to keep clean.”* 
Various opinions have prevailed as to the causes of this 
disease. All Apiarians are agreed that dampness in the 
hives, especially if the bees are long confined, is sure to 
produce it. Feeding bees late in the Fall on liquid honey— 
which they have not time to seal over, and which sours 
by attracting moisture—should be avoided ; also, all unne¬ 
cessary disturbance of colonies in the Winter, which, by 
exciting them, causes an excessive consumption of food. 
Populous stocks, well stored with honey, in hives so venti¬ 
lated as to keep the combs dry, will seldom sufier severely 
from this disease. 
The disease called by the Germans '■'■foul brood," is of 
all others the most fatal (p. 19) to bees. The sealed 
brood die in the cells, and the stench from their decaying 
bodies seems to paralyze the bees.f 
There are two species of foul-brood, one of which the 
Germans call the dry, and the other, the mout or foetid. 
The dry appears to be only partial in its efiects, and not 
contagious, the brood simply dying and drying up in cor- 
* I have discovered a kind of dysentery which confines Its ravages to a few bees 
In a colony. Those attacked are at first excessively irritable, and sting without 
any provocation. In the latter stages of this complaint, they may often be seen on 
the ground, stupid and unable to fly, their abdomens nnnaturally distended with so 
offensive yellow matter. I can assign neither cause nor cure for this disease. 
t Dzierzon thinks that this disease was produced in his Aplcry by feeding bees 
on “American honey” (honey from the West India Islands). As this honey does 
pot ordinarily produce It, he probably used some taken A'om colonies having tlio 
disease. Such honey is always Infectious. 
Mr. Quinby informs me that be has lost ns many as 100 colonies in a year from 
this pestilence. It has never made its appearance In my Aplmies, and I should 
regard its general dissemination through our country as th« greatest posbitta 
calamity to bee-keeping. 
