§ IX. DISEASES OF BEES.
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 see that there is plenty of wholesome food in the hive, and to well clean or to change the floor-board, and so produce cleanliness.
The more formidable, but happily less common, malady of "foul brood" 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 of which is dry and not contagious, the brood merely drying up in the cells; from which partial character it is probably within the power of the bees themselves to overcome. In the other kind, 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.
In the year 1848 Pastor Dzierzon lost a large number of stocks from this disease; he however was enabled to banish it from his apiary, and communicated to a German bee-journal very wholesome advice, which Mr. Langstroth quotes, and from, which we make an extract; "When the malady makes its appearance in only two or three of the colonies, and is discovered early (which may readily be done in hives having movable combs), it can be arrested and cured without damage or diminution of profit. To prevent the disease from spreading in a colony there is no more reliable and efficient process than to stop the production of brood; for where no brood exists none can perish or putrefy. The disease is thus deprived both of its aliment and its subjects. The healthy brood will mature and emerge in due time, and the putrid matter remaining in a few cells will dry up, and be removed by the workers. All this will certainly result from a well-timed removal of the queen from such colonies. If such removal becomes necessary in the spring or early part of the summer, a supernumerary queen is thereby obtained, by means of which an artificial colony may be started, which will certainly be healthy if the bees and brood used be taken from healthy colonies. Should the removal be made in the latter part of summer, the useless production of brood will at once be stopped and an unnecessary consumption of honey prevented. Thus, in either case, we are gainers by the operation."
In cases where the disease assumes a more malignant character—in other words, "has got ahead," through "not being nipped in the bud"—it will be well to take notice of another quotation from Mr. Langstroth's book: "In the spring or summer, when the weather is fine and pasturage abounds, the following cure is recommended by a German apiarian: 'Drive out the bees into any clean hive, and shut them up in a dark place without food for twenty-four hours; prepare for them a clean hive, properly fitted up with comb from healthy colonies; transfer the bees into it, and confine them two days longer, feeding them with pure honey.'"
The late Mr. Woodbury's apiary was severely attacked by this disease in the spring and summer of 1863. The writer happened to be on a visit to him at this juncture, and witnessed him withdrawing infected combs from hives that were literally masses of corruption, the brood-cells of which, on being opened with a pointed instrument, revealed the dark brown slimy matter before alluded to, and from which arose a most unpleasant smell. Mr. Woodbury communicated to the Journal of Horticulture, of July 21, 1863, an exact and graphic account of his misfortunes, headed "A Dwindling Apiary." Finding that the removal of the putrid matter must be simultaneously effected and the bees driven out and placed in hives that had undergone a complete purification, he set about endeavouring to accomplish his object, and was so far successful that he was able to furnish an article to the before-named journal of August 4, same year, under the more cheerful title of "Convalescent," in which he says: "First, let me endorse the opinions both of Dzierzon and Rothe, that, except under very especial circumstances, it is unadvisable to attempt the cure of a foul-breeding stock: better, far better, to consign its inhabitants to the brimstone pit; the hive itself, if a straw one, to the flames; the comb to the melting-pot; and appropriate the honey to any purpose, except that of feeding bees."
Mr. Woodbury further says: "Before starting, it was requisite to ensure the transfer of the bees to unpolluted hives; and here I found that Dzierzon declares that every hive that has contained a foul-breeding colony should be exposed to the sun and air for two years before being re-stocked. In my own case this was simply impossible, and I therefore adopted the practice of another German writer on the subject, viz., to scrape out the hive very carefully, wash it all over with a saturated solution of chloride of lime, keeping it closely shut up for twenty-four hours, and then, after thoroughly washing it with clean water, exposing it to the sun and air until the smell of the disinfectant had passed off. This method has the advantage of enabling one to use a wooden hive again after a lapse of a couple of days, and is, I believe, thoroughly effectual."
Mr. Woodbury then captured the queen, secured her in a cage, and placed her in a clean empty hive; all her bees were brushed from their combs into it as rapidly as possible, in order to prevent their carrying much of the infected honey with them; whilst the combs themselves were set draining out of the bees' reach, and consigned as quickly as possible to the melting-pot. After the lapse of three or four days, the queen (still imprisoned) and bees were again transferred to another clean hive, furnished with a few pure combs, and in this they were suffered to remain, their queen being released in a day or two, as soon as they appeared contentedly settled. Mr. Woodbury gives another important hint, that operations of this kind with tainted combs should be performed out of reach of robber bees from adjacent hives, lest they should carry the infection to their respective houses. By the before-mentioned process, he succeeded in completely extirpating foul brood from his apiary in 1863, and had no return of it afterwards. English apiarian writers have made so little allusion to this disorder, that some of our older bee-keepers contend that modern hives and foreign bees have something to do with bringing it about. To show that the disease made its appearance in former days, there is a chapter on this subject in Bonner's "Bee-Keeper's Companion," published at Berwick in 1798, entitled "An Uncommon Disaster which sometimes, though rarely, happens to Bees." Bonner, after recounting therein his observations of the dwindling state of his own apiary, for which he could not account, says: "He saw plainly that the young were all going backward in the cells, and that he looked down between the combs, but was unable to proceed for the stench that the rotten maggots produced." Mr. Langstroth writes that "Aristotle speaks of a disease which was accompanied with a disgusting smell, so that there is reason to believe that foul brood was known two-thousand years ago."
Our own observation leads us to the belief that foul brood is caused in many instances by feeding stocks with fermented honey or with syrup likely to ferment. All liquid food should be boiled before it is given to the bees, to destroy any impurity and to make it wholesome, for in several cases we have found stocks to be infected that have thus been incautiously fed.
Suspicion may be aroused of the existence of foul brood in any kind of hive, firstly, by the unproductiveness of the bees, also by the diminishing number at the entrance; and if very far advanced the odour will be very noticeable a few feet from the hive. But in bar-frame hives an experienced eye will on examination readily detect the malady if present by the dark unwholesome appearance of the comb, and by the caps covering the diseased brood being sunken rather than raised. Small perforations are noticeable in some, and in others the grubs may be seen rotting in unsealed cells. We know of no cure, but some foreign apiarians of experience recommend injecting a solution of salycilic acid into every diseased cell; others say that carbolic-acid will effect a cure; we know that the latter is very distasteful to the bees and therefore should not be disposed, to advise its use. The best thing to do is to break the hive up at once. The bees may be saved by being put in quarantine a short time, and the hive cleansed as before mentioned; but if the hive be a valuable straw one, after cleansing and scraping, the interior should be coated with shellac dissolved in spirits of wine. If a frame hive it will be best to have new frames rather than to attempt to cleanse the old ones. To allow a hive to die out is very dangerous, because the bees from other hives will rob and carry the infected honey to their combs, and thus every colony within bee-flight is liable to be polluted.
It may be well to give a hint about using old combs. Any that is very black should be rejected, because the disease is sometimes present in old hives, and also because each maggot leaves behind a silken film which lines the top, sides, and base of the cell, also a slight deposit of excrement which the bees do not clear away; thus the cells grow smaller and the bees reared in them are also diminished in size, although the bees do add a little to the mouth of the cell. On this account we would recommend all when purchasing stocks to see that they are not very old. The combs of a hive may be said to be the furniture and storehouse of the bees, which in long service wear out and to some extent become after a lapse of years unfit tenements for use. To remedy this, Nature, always true to her laws and careful to make provision for the perpetuation of the species, may have ordered that swarming should be the means of establishing fresh colonies freed from the disadvantages and contamination of the old. The late Mr. J. H. Payne, of Bury St. Edmunds, had a straw skep that had had bees in it without intermission for twenty years, but it is not advisable to keep them so long, although, with a little judicious pruning, much may be done to remedy the defects of old combs. Our own experience for keeping a stock does not extend beyond ten years.
When we take into consideration how sorely our farmers are perplexed by the cattle plague, known as the rinderpest, concerning which so many conflicting opinions exist (and the same may be said of the recommendations for its cure), can we wonder that our little favourites should occasionally be liable to disorders of this sort which puzzle even experienced bee-keepers? In the hope of allaying unnecessary alarm, we would just add that foul brood is not a very general complaint, and, so far as our observation extends, has been most fatal in large experimental apiaries, where extensive propagation has necessarily had to be pushed forward. With the experience and advice already gained, this disorder may now be said to be considerably deprived of its terrors.
We find several other complaints described at more or less length by Von Berlepsch, but to which a very brief allusion will here suffice. One he speaks of under the self-explaining title of "thirst-need," as to which he rightly remarks that it will be the bee-keeper's own fault or inexperience if his bees are ever allowed to suffer from it. Then there is "mad sickness," which consists in tumbling about as if intoxicated, and which Dzierzon says he meets with nearly every year, and conjectures to arise from partaking of poisoned honey—he suspects the honey to be naturally poisonous, since he observes this complaint almost regularly at the time when the mountain ash is in bloom. The next is "wing lameness," which the Baron' conjectures may be the real disorder just spoken of as madness. Lastly we have the "thread fungus," which is a growth found by Leuckart and Dönhoff in the stomach and intestines of several bees, and which they pronounce contagious. Our author does also include among the "sicknesses" of bees such irregularities as rising against and murdering their queen; but one would think that this was rather a political disorder, or else a case for a commission of lunacy.
The apparent fungus growths seen occasionally on the heads and bodies of bees have been found to be nothing more than the effect of smearing with the gummy pollen of orchids, or with other glutinous vegetable juices, on which afterwards ordinary pollen has collected and thus caused the appearance of tufts or patches.