Diseases of Bees.— Bees are subject to dis eases, like all domestic animals, such as dysen tery, paralysis and foul and black brood. Dys entery, as its name signifies, is a sort of bowel trouble due to the retention of the feces for an extended time during winter. If the bees are shut up without a chance for flight (for they never void their feces inside of the hive except when confined), their intestines become dis tended and this finally results in purging. The only remedy is warm weather and a flight. Paralysis is a form of palsy that seems to affect the adult bees. Their bodies become swollen and shiny, the affected individuals crawling out of the entrance and running into the grass to die. The remedy is to sprinkle powdered sul phur over the combs. Foul brood and black brood are germ-diseases that affect bees in the larval or imago state. The little maggots be come brown or black and die, the dead matter finally assuming a sodden, gelatinous or ropy condition. When it attacks a colony, shake the bees into a clean hive and put them on frames of foundation. For three or four days feed them sugar syrup. The old combs, including the frames, must be burned. If the hive has been soiled by the tainted honey or dead matter, it must be scalded out or held over flames for a few seconds. Any honey taken from the hive
may be rendered safe to give to the bees by boiling it for two hours.
A number of insects, birds and mammals must be classed as enemies of bees, but of these the larger wax moth, the lesser wax moth and ants are the only ones of importance. Moth larva: often destroy combs. To prevent this the combs are fumigated with sulphur fumes or bisulphide of carbon in tiers of hives or in tight rooms. In warm climates ants are a seri ous pest. The usual method of keeping them out is to put the hive on a stand, the legs of which rest in vessels containing water or creo sote. Another method is to wrap a tape soaked in corrosive sublimate around the bottom board.
Root, 'A B C of Bee Cul ture' (1903) ; Miller, (Forty Years Among the Bees' ; Langstroth, (The Honey-Bee,' revised edition (1889) ; Hutchinson, 'Advanced Bee Culture> (1902); Cook, 'Manual of the Apiary' (1902) ; Root, 'Quinby, New Bee-keeping); and the following periodicals: American Bee Journal, published in Chicago, Ill.; Gleanings in Bee Culture, Medina, Ohio; Bee-keepers' Review, Flint, Mich.; American Bee-keeper, Fort Pierce, Fla.; Progressive Bee-keeper, Higginsville, Mo.