418 
Journal of Agricultural Research 
Vol. VIII, No. t\ 
American foulbrood or European foulbrood; nor were any other abnormal 
conditions detected. If we judge from the amount of culture or virus 
required to produce disease generally, more than enough of the culture 
was fed to produce disease. Also, the seasonal range is certainly sufficient 
to cover the time of appearance of any of the known infectious brood 
diseases of bees as occurring naturally, or by inoculation with the proper 
etiological factor. All of the known infectious brood diseases of bees— 
American foulbrood (17), European foulbrood (18), and sacbrood (19)— 
have been thus produced experimentally. Unfortunately Lambotte (7) 
does not describe sufficiently the method of preparing his agar medium 
from the juices of bee larvae, and a medium might be devised to produce 
the variation claimed—that is, transformation of B. mesentericus vidgatus 
to B. alvei. But, if it is granted that Lambotte fed cultures of B. alvei , 
his results would not agree with present-day investigations, since B . alvei 
has been found not to produce disease upon repeated inoculation. Mind¬ 
ful of the variation possible in different strains of the same organism from 
a study of the B. vulgatus group, it seems, nevertheless, that the differ¬ 
ences in biological characteristics of B. alvei , B. vulgatus , and B. mesenteri¬ 
cus are too great to warrant expecting any transformation of one to the 
other in any short period of time. 
SUMMARY 
(1) Lambotte (7), in 1902, claimed to have produced ^foulbrood” of 
bees by feeding them cultures of B . ?nesentericus vulgatus. 
(2) Lambotte, in explanation of the above, states that B. alvei arises 
as a special variety of B. mesentericus vulgatus when the cultures are 
grown upon media prepared from the juices of bee larvte. 
(3) There are at least five spore-forming bacteria occurring commonly 
about the apiary— B. vulgatus , B. mesentericus , B. orpheus t B. alvei , and 
B . larvae. 
(4) Mistakes in the identification of the above-mentioned organisms 
might well be made, especially without knowledge of their occurrence. 
(5) There seems no doubt that many of the earlier investigators of bee 
diseases confused the identity of the spore-forming bacteria of the apiary. 
(6) From our present knowledge of these organisms, their identification 
should be a matter of less difficulty. 
(7) The author, from his study of B. vulgatus , B. mesentericus , and B . 
alvei , believes that the biological differences of the three species are too 
great to warrant expecting the transformation of one to another in any 
short period of time. 
(8) Even if it is granted that Lambotte fed pure cultures of B. alvei , 
his results would not agree with those of present-day investigators of bee 
diseases, since B. alvei has not been found to produce disease in bees upon 
repeated inoculations. 
