276 
DISEASES OF BEES 
nies in his apiary that show bees affected 
with it. Yet it seldom spreads or makes 
any great trouble; but, unfortunately, this 
is not true in some parts of the South and 
West. In the South it is known to affect 
whole apiaries, and seems to be contagious. 
SYMPTOMS. 
In the early stages an occasional bee will 
be found to be crawling from the entrance, 
with the abdomen greatly swollen, and in 
other respects the bee has a black, greasy 
appearance. While these sick bees may 
be scattered thru the hive, they will sooner 
or later work their way toward the en¬ 
trance, evidently desiring to rid the colony 
of their miserable presence. The other 
bees also seem to regard them as no longer 
necessary to the future prosperity of the 
colony. In fact, they will tug and pull at 
them about as they would a dead bee until 
they succeed in getting them out in the 
grass, where the sick bees seem willing to 
go and die alone. 
Another symptom is, that the bees often 
show a shaking or trembling motion. Along 
with this is an effort to scratch and tug at 
their abdomens with their legs as if there 
was an itching or irritation. 
TREATMENT AND CURE. 
In most cases, destroying the queen of 
the infected colony, and introducing an¬ 
other from a healthy stock, affects a cure. 
This would seem to indicate that paralysis 
is constitutional, coming from the queen; 
but in the South, where the disease is much 
more prevalent and destructive, destroying 
the queen seems to have but little effect. 
Spraying the combs with a solution of salt 
and water, or of carbolic acid and water, 
has been recommended; but these do little 
or no good. One writer recommends re¬ 
moving the diseased stock from its stand, 
and putting in its place a strong healthy 
one. The affected colony is then removed 
to the stand formerly occupied by the 
healthy bees. He reports that he tried this 
in many cases and found that an absolute 
cure followed in every instance. The ra¬ 
tionale of the treatment seems to be that 
the bees of the ordinary colony having bee 
paralysis are too much discouraged to re¬ 
move the sick: as a consequence, the source 
of infection—that is, the swollen, shiny 
bees—are allowed to crawl thru the hive at 
will. But when the colonies are transposed, 
the healthy vigorous bees of the sound 
stock carry the diseased bees entirely away 
from the hive. The sick and the dying re¬ 
moved, the colony recovers. 
0. 0. Poppleton of Florida had a large 
experience. One plan that he used is as 
follows: 
He sprinkled sulphur over the affected 
bees and combs, but not until all the brood 
in the diseased colony had been removed, 
and put them into a strong healthy one. 
Mr. Poppleton said that sulphur kills all 
unsealed brood and eggs but no harm re¬ 
sults from putting the brood among 
healthy bees, as he found the source of the 
malady is not in the combs or brood. He 
repeatedly put combs from colonies af¬ 
fected with paralysis into healthy ones and 
never (but once) did the disease develop 
in any such colony, and that was a year 
afterward. 
At first, said Mr. Poppleton, the disease 
seems to get worse instead of better. The 
colony will dwindle, but in two weeks there 
will be a decided improvement, and finally 
it will be cured. In many cases, he thought, 
it might be necessary to repeat the applica¬ 
tion of the sulphur about 10 days after 
the first time. This makes sure that, every 
bee has received a curative quantity of the 
sulphur, even if it were not in the hive at 
the first dose.* 
While the foregoing plan worked well, 
yet, because it is attended with a rapid 
reduction of the strength of the colony so 
treated, and because the disease has a ten¬ 
dency to run in certain strains that are 
very susceptible to it, Mr. Poppleton 
thought that, in the long run, it might be 
better to use the following plan: Form as 
many nuclei from strong healthy stocks as 
there are sick colonies to be treated. As 
soon as the nuclei have young laying 
queens, give to each, as fast as they can 
take care of them, one or two frames of 
the oldest capped brood from each of the 
paralytic colonies, and thereafter till all 
the brood of such colonies is used up. Next 
destroy the diseased bees and queen with 
sulphur fumes, fumigating the hives at the 
same time. 
* Always dust the sulphur on in the evening. 
