104 
ter, and am sustained by a more thorough investigation 
of its features. Chilled, or exposed brood, arising 
from sudden changes from warm to cold, forcing the 
bees to cluster more closely together, thus leaving a 
portion of the brood exposed to chill. Sometimes, and 
very frequently too, from over-swarming, leaving the 
parent stock too few in numbers to cover and hatch the 
young brood, which is no doubt a premonitory cause ; 
and when once the disease makes its appearance under 
certain conditions it may become contagious; like pesti- 
lential diseases in the human family. To fully deter- 
mine from whence these take their origin must be left 
for future investigation to solve the mystery. “ An 
ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure,” is 
an old adage which probably would pay well to heed 
here. The perfect adaptation of a good movable comb- 
hive seems here indispensable, for if such a hive is 
in use, you have every facility to ascertain the true 
condition of your bees at all times. 
Atmospheric changes produce organic derangements 
in the animal world, and why not in the insect P Mias- 
matic vapors generate disease in particular organs ; 
sympathy exists between a combination of those organs 
that go to make up a whole or individual form of a 
species. This same sympathy exists between individual 
forms of any distinct type. Therefore, diseases that 
are contagious, very often take their rise in miasma 
floating in the atmosphere, and emanating secondarily, 
from putrefying masses of any particular type or class 
of the animal kingdom. Hence, we conclude, from the 
fact that if this disease is contagious, the atmosphere is 
its natural channel of communication and might have 
been the first cause, as well as to transmit the secondary. 
