The apiary; or, bees, bee-hives, and bee culture [1866]: Being a familiar account of the habits of bees, and the most improved methods of management, with full directions, adapted for the cottager, farmer, or scientific apiarianNeighbor, Alfred
Science
The apiary; or, bees, bee-hives, and bee culture [1866]: Being a familiar account of the habits of bees, and the most improved methods of management, with full directions, adapted for the cottager, farmer, or scientific apiarian
Dysentery is a disease produced either by long confinement, by
dampness, or by feeding in the winter. The first thing bees do when
disturbed is to fill themselves with food, so that in winter weather,
when they cannot get out to void their fæces, hives should not be
meddled with, otherwise the complaint may be brought on. It is also
engendered in many instances by the state of the weather in winter
months, and is indicated by the yellow colour of the excrement, and
by its being voided upon the floors and at the entrance of the hives,
which bees in a healthy state generally keep clean. All, that can
be done for them when affected is to well clean or to change the
floor-board, and so produce cleanliness. Having made some remarks on
this disease at page 214, in connection with bees sent to Australia, we
will pass on to the more formidable, but happily less common, malady of
"foul brood."
This disease does not attack the bees themselves, but affects the
larvæ, by causing them to putrefy in the cells, thus destroying all
hope of the rising generation. Bees are exceedingly fond of their
young, and are greatly dispirited when their hives are in this plight.
In common with most pestilential disorders, no satisfactory cause is
assigned for its first appearance. Some apiarians contend, that "foul
brood" is another name for chilled, brood; others, that the queen, by a
freak of nature, deposits some of her eggs the wrong way upwards, and
that these putrefy in the cells and contaminate the others. Whatever
may be the origin, one thing is very certain, "it is catching;" there
is, however, in the circumstance of the adult bees and of those about
emerging from the cells not being injuriously affected thereby, a great
help to its eradication, as will presently be shown.
There are two kinds of foul brood--one is moist and fœtid, the other is
dry and not contagious, the brood merely drying up in the cells, and,
from its partial character, is probably within the power of the bees
themselves to overcome. In the former, instead of drying up, the brood
remains dark and slimy in the cells, and emits a most unpleasant odour,
perceptible at some distance from the hive.
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