53 
NOSE M A APIS AND ACARAPIS (TARSON EMUS) WOODI 
IN RELATION TO ISLE OE WIGHT BEE DISEASE. 
By GEO. W. BULLAMORE, 
Molteno Institute for Research in Parasitology , Cambridge. 
CONTENTS. 
PAG E 
I. Some outbreaks of bee disease previous to 1900 .... 53 
II. The outbreak of 1906 commonly called Isle of Wight Disease . 55 
III. The symptoms of disease in adult bees ..... 55 
IV. Attempts to ascertain the cause of Isle of Wight Disease . . 56 
A. Bacillus pestiformis apis ....... 56 
B. Nosema apis ......... 56 
C. Acarapis ( Tarsoncmus) uoodi ...... 58 
V. Conclusions........... 61 
I. Some Outbreaks of Bee Disease previous to 1906. 
In former times when this country was dependent upon bees for its supply of 
sugar, a heavy mortality among these insects was of sufficient importance to 
be placed on record. In his Animal Plagues Fleming (1871) gives a number of 
references to such losses. In Ireland there was a ‘‘mortality of bees'’ in 
950 a.d. and again in 992 a.d. there was a “great mortality upon men, cattle 
and bees.” In 1035 a.d. the destruction of bees afflicted the whole of Bavaria. 
An eclipse of the sun in 1124 a.d. was followed by a great pestilence amongst 
oxen, sheep, pigs, and bees. During the time of the “Black Death,” also, * 
there appears to have been heavy losses of bees and at the Manor Court of 
Heacham in Norfolk, a statement was made on oath by the steward in the 
forty-fifth year of the reign of Edward III (1372 a.d.) to the effect that ten 
out of eleven stocks of bees had perished from the murrain. There is little 
doubt that this entry in the manorial court rolls refers to epidemic disease, 
but, as Fleming points out, “there is evidently no relationship between the 
morind of the bees and that of the sheep and cows.” 
The year 1443 a.d. was rainy and tempestuous after May which “much 
hurted both bees and sheep in Ireland”; while in Italy in 1690 a.d. “bees 
extracting no sweetness from the calyces of the flowers, but a bitter poison, 
either died or left the country.” A great mortality among bees and carp is 
also recorded in 1717 a.d. in Silesia. 
A well-known writer on bees, Dr Bevan (1837), states that 
in the winter of 1782-3, a general mortality took place among the bees in this country, 
which was attributed to various causes; want of honey was not one of them; for in some 
