FOUL BROOD. Foul Brood in the hives of bees has become a source of serious annoyance to many bee-keepers. The following digest of the subject, from a number of sources. will show the result of some of the later investigations upon this subject: Putrid Foul Brood is a dis ease which attacks the young brood of the hive, showing itself fully after the larvm have been sealed up. It may be known by the viscous, gelat inous, and yeast-like appearance of the decom posing brood, the unpleasant odor arising from the hive, and by the sunken covers of the cells. The cause of foul brood has been, until recently, involved in doubt, but late discoveries in Ger many have thrown much light upon its origin. Mr. Lamprecht alleges that he has discovered the cause of the disease. His theory is this: The chyme which the workers prepare from honey and pollen by partial digestion, and with which the larvm are fed, contains a nitrogenous, plastic, formative substance, from which all the organs and tissues of the larvm are derived and com posed; and precisely because of this its com plicated composition it is peculiarly suscepti ble of rapid decomposition when exposed to air and moisture ; that is, to undergo fermenta tion and putrefaction. It is hence obvious that pollen, even though having undergone only a partial decomposition, must affect the bodies of bees and larvm differently from what it did or would do in its natural condition; and there is no longer a doubt that it is from pollen, thus partially decomposed, that the foul brood orig inates. That it can readily undergo decomposi tion is manifest. Moisture, emanating in part from unsealed honey, and in part from the per spiration of the bees, becomes condensed in the hive from external cold, and in the fall and toward spring it is frequently found hanging in drops on the combs, just as we find it condensed on the windows of our dwelling houses. If one of these drops falls into a cell containing pollen, decomposition of the latter speedily commences, and is then communicated by the bees to the pollen in the other cells; and the cause of foul brood is hence abundantly present in a hive thus circumstanced. The discovery of Dr. Preuss,
an eminent physician and mycologist, is that a microscopic fungus, Cryptoeoccus alvearis, devel oped from fermenting matter, feeds upon the young larvm, and thus causes foul brood; and that by means of the numerous sporules of the fungus, the disease is spread through the hive, and finally through the apiary. To show the character of this microscopic pest we quote the following from the article of' Dr. Preuss, in the Bienenzettung : The foul brood fungus, which I have named Cryptococcus alrcetri8, belongs to the smallest of the fungoid forms. It is round and dust-shaped, and has a diaineter of 1.500 milli meter, or 1.1095 line: consequently 1,095 can lie side by side within a Rhenish line, but within a square line, 1.095+1,095, that is, 1,199,825, or, in round numbers, 1,200,000. The cubic line, according to this, would contain 1,440,000,000, 000 fungi, and a cubic inch of foul brood, which consists of 1728 lines, would contain 2,488,320, 000,000,000. If we reckon, further, that a cubic inch of comb contains fifty cells, the contents of each would be 49,766,400,000,000; in round numbers, fifty billions; or, deducting one-fifth for wax,forty billions of fungi. There is no cure for this disease when it has once obtained headway. Destruction of the bees and honey, and thorough purification of the hive is the only remedy to prevent the spread of the disease. As a means of preventing the disease, Dr_ Preuss gives the following directions: Feed no, fermenting honey; feed no meal, especially when the hive is threatened with disease; destroy care fully every particle of dead and rnoldering mat ter; and avoid weakening the bees during the brooding seasons, so that they will not be able properly to maintain the heat necessary for the development of the brood. With the light now thrown upon the nature of this disease by recent discoveries, bee-keepers should be able to con quer the contagious malady whenever it makes its appearance.