290 
DYSENTERY 
an upper story, and a couple of these wire 
cones conduct the drones “upstairs.” If 
any worker bees should go up too, they can 
Manner of attaching wire Alley trap. 
readily go up thru the perforated zinc. 
This latter arrangement is shown in the 
cut above. 
DYSENTERY. —This is really a form 
of diarrhea that afflicts bees. It is not a 
disease as would be the case in real dys-- 
entery, but a functional disorder due to 
too long retention of the feces, bad food 
or improper protection, or both. The term 
“dysentery” is here retained, not because 
it is accurate, but because it has been used 
so generally in bee literature. 
SYMPTOMS. 
The fecal discharge is thin and watery, 
ill-smelling, and from a light yellow to a 
dark brown. In advanced cases the color 
is almost black. The abdomens of the bees 
are swollen considerably, and sometimes 
are almost twice the size of those of normal 
bees. The bees have a dark greasy-looking 
appearance, and act listless. Individual 
bees will be seen crawling out of the en¬ 
trance, and the front of the hive will be 
stained with yellow, brownish, or nearly 
black splotches. Ordinary .dysentery, 
when destructive, is a malady that shows 
up only during winter or early in the 
spring. 
At any time of the year, however, when 
the weather has been cold or rainy for sev¬ 
eral days, normal bees as soon as they can 
fly will void on the hives, walks, and 
ground yellowish-brown spots or dark 
spots or dark strings of excrement in a 
more solid form. Bees that have been con¬ 
fined in the cellar all winter and have win¬ 
tered well will, when set out, void their 
feces in a more or less liquid form over 
everything. (See Bees as a Nuisance.) 
Some of the hives at this time in the spring 
may have real dysentery; but probably the 
majority of them, if they wintered well, 
will be in a perfectly normal condition. 
The presence of these spots on the hives 
during summer is not a bad omen, because 
active bees, when shut in the hives after 
flying for several days, always throw out 
some discharge when they fly. 
In an advanced form of dysentery—the 
kind that destroys bees or colonies—the 
outside of the hives will be badly smeared 
up with dark-brown (almost black) stains. 
These stains, when the trouble has pro¬ 
gressed to a point where most of the bees 
are dead, will be smeared all over the 
combs and the inside of the hive; and 
when the colony reaches that stage no 
amount of good weather will help it. The 
queen, however, will be all right, and may 
be introduced into any colony. The bees 
remove the feces from the queen as fast as 
necessary, so that she never suffers as do 
her subjects from an impacted bowel tract 
that causes dysentery. 
CAUSE OP DYSENTERY. 
The real causes are bad food and long- 
continued low temperature that prevents 
bees from flying. In order to keep up suffi¬ 
cient animal heat the bees have to overeat, 
surcharging their intestines. The long- 
retained fecal matter results in purging or 
dysentery. Any food alone would hardly 
produce the disease, as one rarely, if ever, 
finds bees suffering from anything they will 
gather, in warm summer weather. Aster 
honey (see Aster) or the sweet juices gath¬ 
ered from rotten fruit or eider are very 
productive of this complaint, and are 
almost sure to kill bees at the approach of 
cold weather. A woman once boiled up a 
mass of sweet apples and allowed the bees 
to extract the sweetness because, as she 
said, she could not afford to buy sugar 
for them. They all died of dysentery long 
before spring. Where dampness accumu¬ 
lates from the breath of the bees, and set¬ 
tles on the combs, diluting the honey, it 
may cause trouble. Sorghum syrup has 
brought on k very aggravated form, and 
burnt candy or sugar is almost sure death 
