_In the winter of 1782-3, a general mortality_ took place _among the bees_ in this country, which was attributed to various causes: want of honey was not one of them; for in some hives considerable store was found, after the bees were gone. Some were of opinion that it arose from the preceding being a bad breeding year, and thought the bees died of old age. Others attributed it to the moistness of the spring of 1783, which rendered the providing of pollen difficult, for without pollen no brood can be raised. The difficulty of collecting pollen was ascribed to the continual closing of the flowers over the anthers, the want of sun to burst the anthers, and the washing away of the pollen by the frequent showers after they did burst. The fatal influence ascribed to the wetness of the spring of 1782 seems to be improbable; though the wet might have affected the quantity of bees bred, it was not likely to put a stop to their breeding altogether, and the young bees ought at any rate to have escaped the desolating evil, if it were old age alone; yet wherever the mortality once made its appearance, every bee became its victim. _A similar incident occurred among the wasps in the year_ 1824. The queen wasps were unusually numerous in the spring of that year, and yet scarcely a wasp could be seen of any sort in the ensuing summer and autumn, though there was a great deal of fine weather and plenty of sunshine, the fruits having ripened remarkably well. In both cases, it seems probable that the mortality arose from some unfavourable circumstance at the breeding season, with which we are unacquainted. I am not aware that it has been attributed to any specific distemper of an epidemical nature. +Mr. Knight+ _noticed a similar occurrence, as to wasps, in the year_ 1806 (Philosophical Transactions 1807, p. 243); and _in_ 1815, +Messrs. Kirby+ _and_ +Spence+ _made the same observation_. Mr. Knight supposed the scarcity to arise from a want of males to impregnate the queens. I shall now proceed to notice the maladies of bees; and state their causes, symptoms and remedies, as I have collected them from ancient and modern authors. +Dysentery.+ This malady was attributed by +Columella+ to the bees extracting and feeding upon honey collected from the blossoms of elms and spurge; he regarded it as an annual distemper. By others it has been ascribed to their feeding too freely upon the vernal honey, from whatever source derived; or from their being obliged to eat wax, through want of other food, in the early part of the spring. +Madame Vicat+ supposed it to arise from the feeding upon honey that had been candied, in consequence of the hive being exposed to a severe winter. +Reaumur+ instituted some experiments to ascertain the cause of dysentery, but they were not satisfactory.