“Again, Mr. De Molitor assigns to it a similar origin,--but instead of the Phora, regards some ichneumon-fly as the perpetrator of the evil--unless, indeed, he regards the Phora itself as an ichneumon. But this notion, too, is obviously untenable, for if ichneumon-flies laid their eggs in the larvæ, those eggs must surely hatch and the insect develop there, at least in its first stages; but on placing a foulbroody comb under glass, and watching it closely, nothing of this sort is found to take place. “The Baroness of Berlepsch supposes the cause of foulbrood is to be found in the use of movable comb hives, and the various manipulations--oftimes needless--which the facilities afforded tempt the apiarian to undertake. Were this diagnosis correct, the remedy could readily be found. It would only be necessary to discontinue the use of such hives, and return to the ancient fixed comb system, to be safe from the inroads of this pestilence. But alas, it is only too well known that foulbrood existed extensively long before Dzierzon was born, and that it prevails where the fixed comb system is most rigidly adhered to. “Others imagine that the disease has its origin in malarious vapors, in some kind of fungus, in a diseased condition of the sexual organs of the queen, in an imperfect fecundation of the egg, or even in a noxious state of the fluids of the bee-keeper’s body, &c., without, however, by any of these surmises or suggestions, furnishing us with an available clue to a remedy, from the application of which a favorable result might be expected. Obscurity and doubt still involve the inquirer, and he quietly ‘gives it up;’ while the more practical bee-keeper, perplexed and baffled, finally resolves to resort to the radical remedy of the brimstone pit and the ‘parlor match’--thus effectually _curing_ his colonies. “So matters stood in regard to this puzzling question, till, in consequence of a communication from the Directors of the Central Committee of the Hanover Agricultural Society, respecting an alleged cure of foulbrood which Mr. Fisher claimed to have devised and successfully employed, the Hanover Centralblatt opened its columns for further discussion of the topic. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by Samuel Wagner, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. “I had given it as my own opinion that the disease was probably, in most cases, produced by feeding infected honey derived from foulbroody colonies; but that we were still constrained to believe that it had also an independent origin, which would probably be found in some deleterious substance mixed with the nutriment of the bees.