BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
The cause of foul-brood is a micro-organism growing in the tissue of the larvae of the bee and sometimes also in the adult insect. It was named _Bacillus alvei_ by Cheshire and W. Cheyne in 1885. Since 1912 American investigators have discovered that there are three types of foul-brood, European Foul-brood caused by _Bacillus pluton_, American Foul-brood caused by a micro-organism differing from the former and named _Bacillus larvae_ by Dr. G. F. White, of United States Department of Agriculture, and Sac-brood caused by a filterable virus. The general appearance of the diseased brood is, however, the same in all,and the same treatment is necessary to effect a cure. Whether followed in Australia is caused by _B. pluton_ or _B. larree_ has up to the present not been scientifically tested; probably both are present.
To describe diseased brood to any one not well acquainted with the subject it is best to contrast its appearance to the eye with that of brood in a healthy state. Normal healthy brood shows in compact masses in the comb, that is to say, considerable numbers of adjoining cells contain larvae of the same age (Fig. 1). In a diseased comb the brood appears irregular and scattered. Healthy larvae are of nearly whiteness, plump, and lie curled up on the cell bottom almost in the shape of the letter C. Disessed larvae are pale yellow, and, further on, turn brown; the grubs appear flabby, and are not so much curled up as healthy larvae of the same size.
When the larvae do not die till after the cells have been capped over, cells will be found here and there darker in colour than healthy ones alongside; theappings usually will be indented instead of convex, and will frequently show irregular holes. (Fig. 2.) If these cells are opened, a brown mass is visible which, when touched with a match or straw, draws out stringy or ropy. The ropiess is the surest practical way of identifying the disease, and the test should be applied to any suspicious-looking cells which may appear amongst the brood. I would here point out that, although theappings of brood, particularly those of black bees, have, when healthy, the appearance shown in Fig. 1, there are some bees of the yellow races which cap the cells quite flat; also, that the scattering of the brood is by itself not necessarily an indication of disease, and may be due to the irregular laying of an inferior queen.
In view of the heavy losses resulting from foil-brood, when once it has obtained a good start in an apiary, and the great amount of labour involved in its eradication, as well as to the fact that it has
Figure 1: Comb of Healthy Brood; Queen Cells also Shown.
now been proclaimed a disease under the _Bees Jet_1910,* it is desirable that every owner of bees should be able to recognise this disease when it appears in one or more of his hives. He will then be able to deal with it before it has made any great headway.
Unfortunately, there are still many bee-keepers who do not discover the presence of this disease amongst their bees till the small number of bees in several of the hives indicates that there is something wrong. When hives have been affected sufficiently long to show marked decline in the number of bees, the disease is likely to spread rapidly; the remaining bees are usually inactive, and do not defend their hives against robber bees from strong healthy colonies. which in turn fall victims to foil-brood. It is, therefore, important that vigilance should be exercised whenever combs are handled, so that the disease may be discovered and treated when still in its first stage.
Footnote *: Under the _Bees Dinness Act_1910 it is provided that the Governor in Council may by tucclamation declare as disease any yeast, sec., for the purposes of the Act. In this respect Foud Brood _Bacillus alves_, Brood Pest _Bacillus alves_, and Sour Brood _Streptococcus apis_ have been so proclaimed. By the Act an inspector is empowered to enter and inspect any premises where bees are kept, and take such action as is necessary to arrest the spread of disease by cleansing or disistlecting or destroying such articles or appliances, or hees, hives, comb, or honey as are likely to spread disease; and any owner neglecting to carry out the direction of an inspector is liable to a penalty for an offence against the Act. On and after 1st January, 1913, any district may be proclaimed a district in which no bees shall be kept except in certain prescribed hives.
When foil-brood is discovered, the affected hive should be at once covered up again to prevent attracting robber bees from other hives; and unless the colony is still strong in bees the entrance should be contracted to from 1 to 3 inches in width, so that the diseased colony may be better able to defend itself against robbers. The brood in the other hives of the apiary should be carefully examined, taking care not to attract robbers by leaving a hive open too long or performing the examination at unsuitable times. If more cases are found, the hives should be marked and treated at the first favorable opportunity.
Figure 2: Comb of Diseased Brood, Showing Flat, Sunken, and Perforated Capplings.
To successfully cure a colony of foul-brood three conditions are necessary, viz., first, there should be sufficient bees in the diseased colony to form a small swarm; second, the weather should be mild or warm; and third, honey should be coming in. If sufficient bees are not left in a diseased colony to build combs and to raise sufficient brood to increase the worker force, no eure should be attempted; it will be found more profitable to at once destroy by fire the bees, combs. and frames.
Warm weather is required to enable the bees to secrete wax and rear brood, and therefore bees cannot be treated before September or after March. A honey flow is essential, so that bees treated may not be robled during or after treatment.
The only reliable method of getting rid of foul-brood without destroying the entire diseased colony is to remove the bees from their infected surroundings and start them afresh in a clean hive.
This is done by putting a clean hive with frames supplied with starters of comb foundation on the spot oeuepied by the diseased hive, removing the latter to a little behind the former. A cloth or bag is placed in front of the clean hive, on to this the bees are rapidly shaken and brushed from the diseased combs. If they do not readily enter the new hive, a little smoke may be used to drive them in. The bees will now start comb-building; the honey which they brought from the diseased combs in their honey sacs will be consumed in the secretion of wax, and the colony will now be free from disease, unless it is re-introduced into the hive from outside. To prevent the bees swarming out and abseonding, as they will sometimes do when suddenly deprived of their brood, queen-excluding zinc may be fastened over the entrance, so that when the bees swarm out the queen cannot follow, and the swarm will return to the hive. This obstruction should. however, be removed in four or five days, when the bees will have settled down.
The diseased hive, floor, cover, and frames of comb should be taken indoors as soon as the operation of shaking down is finished, and effectively secured against acees by bees. The combs and frames should be at once destroyed by burning. The hive, hive floor, and roof should be thoroughly eleansed by immersing and scrubbing in boiling water containing washing soda and soap. When clean, the hive should be exposed to the atmosphere to dry thoroughly, after which it may again be used for housing bees.
When only a few diseased cells are found in a number of hives, the strongest of them may be treated first, and the brood combs given to the other affected colonies in a super over a queen-excluding honey board. In ten days most of the healthy sealed brood will have hatched, increasing the worker-force of the remaining diseased colonies, which may now also be cured by the shaking-down method described before.
To completely destroy a diseased colony which is too weak to be cured, close the entrance of the hive when the bees have ceased flying towards evening. Put sufficient wood, ready for lighting, into a hole dug for the purpose, place the hive on the fuel and set fire to it. When burned down, fill up the hole with earth. The combs removed from hives shaken down should be destroyed in the same way, otherwise there may be difficulty with bees getting access to honey which remained unconsumed by fire.
Observance of the following rules will greatly assist bee-keepers in the prevention of foul-brood and its eradication when present in the apiary :--
1. Have no queenless colonies; they will not defend their hives, and will thus establish robbing habits in the apiary.
2. Do not allow bees to have access to honey, combs, wax, or live refuse, even when quite free from disease; bees should know of no other source than the nectar of flowers.
3. Never feed honey to bees; it may contain disease germs; it excites them and induces robbing. Sugar syrup is safer, cheaper, and just as good for feeding.
4. Do not try to eure foul-brood by requeening alone, or by doctoring diseased cells, or cutting them out. It will only delay the course of the disease, but will not eure it.
5. When examining combs for disease, do not use your finger nail to open the cells, but a match, toothpick, or straw. Use a fresh one for each hive, and burn those used.
6. Do not try to eure the disease by giving the bees medicated food. Any drug given strong enough to destroy the germs of foul-brood would kill the bees.
7. Do not interchange conbs between different hives while there is disease in the apiary.
8. If bad weather should set in after a diseased colony has been treated, feed sugar syrup (1/2 sugar to 1 water) inside the hive.*
Footnote *: See Feeding, pages 7373.
A disease of the brood of bees which, while somewhat resembling foul-brood in appearance, but without the characteristic ropiess of the dead larva, has for some years attracted the attention of bee-keepers in other countries. That this disease is distinct from foul-brood is proved by the fact that in the study of samples carried out by Dr. G. F. White, of the United States Bureau of Entomology, no micro-organisms were found either culturally or interoscopically.
This disease is present in Victoria, and, as it will sometimes entirely disappear or yield to the cutting out of the affected brood, the temporary suecess of this superficial treatment has, in some cases, caused the adoption of this method for the treatment of foul-brood, for which it was mistaken by bee-keepers.
Even when this disease disappears without treatment, it may re-appear the next season. As it has been proved to be infectious, bee-keepers are advised to treat affected colonies in the same way as those suffering from foul-brood; that is, by the removal of all infected material from the hive.
Dr. G. F. White commenced the study of this disease in 1902. In a pamphlet just issued by the United States Department of Agriculture he gives it the name of saebrood, on account of the sae-like appearance of the dead larvae, which can be removed from the cell without rupturing their body wall.
material for the experiments. Larvae, sick and dead, of sackrood were picked from the combs, crushed, and diluted with sterile water. This suspension was filtered by the use of the Berkefeld filter. From each of the three diseased colonies a separate filtrate was obtained, which was fed in syrup to healthy colonies. Six colonies were thus fed--two with each of the three separate filtrates. As a result of these inoculations sackrood with typical symptoms of the disease was produced in all of the six colonies thus fed.
" One more experiment will be mentioned at this time. In this the diseased brood used was taken from one of the colonies in which the disease had been produced by feeding filtrate. Disease material from this colony was filtered as before and fed to two healthy colonies, with the result that sackrood was produced in each. It might be mentioned here also that other experiments made indicate that the virus is killed by the application of a comparatively small amount of heat.
" In eleven colonies, therefore, sackrood has been produced experimentally by feeding to healthy colonies the virus of this disease. In eight of the eleven colonies the disease was produced by virus that had passed through the Berkefeld filter. The disease, therefore, which beekeepers have for a long time recognised as being different from either Ameriean or European foul-brood, has now been demonstrated to be an infectious disease that is caused by a filterable virus.
" The conclusion to be drawn from this work, therefore, is that sackrood is an infections disease of the brood of bees caused by an infecting agent that is so small, or of such a nature, that it will pass through the pores of a Berkefeld filter.
" The three principal brood diseases, then, are now all known to be infectious. These diseases are--American foul-brood, caused by _Bacillus larvae;_ European foul-brood, caused by _Bacillus pluton;_ and saebrood, caused by a filterable virus."
## Diseases of Adult Bees.
While the causes of brood diseases of bees are well known, the state of our present knowledge of the diseases of adult bees is much less satis factory. The latter are three in number--Paralysis, dysentery, and disappearing trouble.
## Bee Paralysis.
This is a disease of the adult bees, the cause of which is still unknown. The first indication is the presence in the colony of a few shiny, emaciated looking bees; these are still capable of flight, and some will go foraging, but they often fail to return, remaining on flowers and other objects and die. Later on numbers of bees with abnormally inflated abdomens will be noticed in the hive. They may be noticed about the hive entrance, their wings and legs extended sideways, giving them a sprawling appearance. Their movements are jerky, and their wings quiver at intervals. When a hive is opened some of the bees so affected will, after a few minutes, come on top of the frames. When smoke is blown amongst the bees they remain or top, while the healthy ones run down between the combs. After paralysis has been present in a colony for a considerable time even the newly-hatched bees may become infected. They crawl from the hive. call over on their side or baek, just move their legs now and again, and do not die till many hours later. In the ease of these young bees, there is no swelling of the abdomen and no quivering of the wings.
Paralysis in Victoria is more prevalent north of the Dividing Range than in the coastal country, but whether this is due to elimatie influences or to variations in the food supplies is not known. Many remedies have been advocated, such as sprinkling the bees with sulphur flour, spraying them with brine, or feeding medicated syrup, and although the disease is often ehecked for a time, no eure is effected. When using sulphur the brood should be removed, as otherwise the sulphur will kill all the unsenled brood and eggs. The brood removed may be given to any other colony without risk of infecting it, provided care is taken to shift none of the adult bees with the combs. There is no doubt that some strains of bees are predisposed to paralysis, and the only treatment known to be at all effective is to kill and replace the queen of every hive showing the first symptoms of the disease, and thus gradually eliminate it. If the new queen is of the same strain, or of another one equally predisposed, no cure will result. In obtaining queens from elsewhere for the purpose of re-queening colonies showing paralysis it will be better to get then from an apiary from which the disease has been eliminated than from one in which it has never made its appearance, because in the former the queens would be from stock which proved immune in contact with the disease, while in the latter there has been no such test.
It is of the utmost importance that on no account should queens be raised or kept from stocks which show signs of paralysis, no matter how desirable they may be in all other respects; further, the queens of all affected hives should be replaced as soon as possible, to prevent the raising of predisposed drones, which by mating with the young queens would perpetuate the weakness in the apiary.
DysenTerry.
The symptoms of dysentery of bees are the soiling of the hive entrance and the immediate surroundings with the watery exerement of the bees. This is brownish-yellow, and has a disagreeable smell when dysentery is present, while under normal conditions it is darker in colour, and drier, and is voided at a greater distance from the hive. This spotting of the hives and surroundings usually occurs in spring, when the bees have been prevented from taking a cleansing flight by a long spell of cold weather. When bees winter on thin, watery honey they have to consume greater quantities to produce the required animal heat than when their winter food is of proper density. Bees in a healthy state do not void inside the hive, but when, owing to inclement weather, they are unable to fly, there is, on account of the consumption of a large amount of diluted food, such an accumulation of waste in their bodies that they are forced to discharge it inside the hive, soiling each other and the combs. Before this condition is reached the bees are so sureharged with accumulated waste that they are unable to consume sufficient honey to maintain the animal heat necessary, and many perish. The cause, as already indicated, is the consumption of watery honey during cold weather. Honey may be too thin for winter food, because it was gathered so late in the season that the bees were not able to evaporate it to its proper density on account of low temperature and humidity of the atmosphere, or it may have absorbed water from the air because it was not sealed and not covered by the cluster of bees.
With the approach of warm weather, colonies suffering from this type of dysentery will recover, provided sufficient bees are left. As a preventive, I would recommend removing all surplus combs and boxes from the hives at the approach of cold weather, and confining the bees to just the number of combs they can cover. If this is done the bees will be prevented from storing outside the cluster honey which they may gather on odd fine days, also the loss by radiation of the heat generated by the bees will be reduced to a minimum, thus economizing in the consumption of stores and avoiding an excessive accumulation of waste matter in the bodies of the bees.
## Infectious Dysentery
This is a disease which has caused enormous losses of bees in Great Britain and Germany. Dr. Zander, of Erlangen, Bavaria, first drew attention to it at a meeting of German bee-keepers held at Weissenfels in August 1909. The disease_is a malignant type of dysentery, caused by the invasion of the digestive tract of the bee by an animal parasite of oval shape, which multiplies with great rapidity, and by the destruction of the cell wall of the ehyde stomaeh causes the death of the bee Dr. Zander discovered this organism during 1907 in the intestines of bees suffering from malignant dysentery, and named it _Nosema apis_. This parasite, when in the spore (dormant) stage, is oval in shape, and measures about 1-200 mm, in length by 1-500 mm. in breadth (Figs. 1, 2, 3, 4). | Infection is spread by means of the spores voided with the excreta of diseased bees coming into contact with the bees' food or drinking water. | The visible symptoms are described by Dr. Zander as follows:--' Sudden mortality of large numbers of bees within or outside the hive. The bees become restless, separate from the cluster, fall off the combs, crawl excitedly out at the entrance, and, unable to fly, collect on blades of grass and other objects, and sooner or later die, the abdomen being more or less inflated.'
In May, 1912, the British Board of Agriculture published a report on the bee mortality, known in Great Britain as the Isle of Wight Bee Disease, giving the results of the investigations of Dr. Graham-Smith, H. B. Fantham, Annie Porter, G. W. Bullamore, and Dr. W. Malden In this report the name of _microsporidiosis_ is given to the Isle of Wight Disease and _Nosema apis_ as its cause. In regard to symptoms, the authors state--Inability of some of the diseased bees to fly, the presenee of numerous bees crawling on the ground in front of the hives, and the gradual dwindling of stocks are common, but many other symptoms have been recorded, and no one symptom is characteristic of the disease. | The only essential feature is the death of large numbers of bees, and often of the whole stock, especially during wet and cold periods of the year or during the winter months.
The presence of the _Nosenia apis_ parasite in Australia was first discovered in October, 1909, and made public in the _Journal of Agriculture,_ January, 1910. [It was then generally assumed that the heavy losses of bees occurring at intervals in certain districts of Victoria and some other States were caused by _Nosenia apis._
Since then the microscopical examination of bees from all over Vietoria, the adjoining States, and Tasmania have shown that _Nosenia apis_ is present in almost every apiary, and equally numerous in the intestines of bees from localities where no losses have ever occurred. Out of 84 lots of 20 bees, each obtained from different apiaries, and examined by Mr. W. Laidlaw, B.Sc., Biologist, Department of Agrieulture, only two apiaries were proved free from the parasite in the 20 bees examined. If, therefore, _Nosenia apis_ is a factor in what is known as the disappearing trouble, it does not appear to be the only one, since in many localities bees are exceedingly prosperous, notwithstanding the presence of the parasite in their organism.
These micro-organisms were first noticed by Donhoff and Leuckart in 1857, but regarded as vegetable parasites, _prologzoa_ being at that time unknown. Bees were then not kept in such large numbers of colonies in one spot, and the _?_rame have being then not known, new combs had to be built by the bees after every robbing of the hives. With the advent of the frame hive system bees began to be kept in apiaries, numbering hundreds of colonies, the old combs were used for many years, and the swarms hired and placed close to the old hives. Whenever large numbers of animals are kept for any length of time on the same spot diseases break out, unless certain precautions are taken. In the case of bees in a state of nature, their nest is usually some distance from the ground; all refuse and dead bees thrown out, as well as the exereta, fall to the ground out of harm's way. When a swarm issues, it establishes a new home some considerable distance away in clean surroundings, where it builds new combs. In the case of a modern apiary, large numbers of colonies are kept on a comparatively small space; the hives are on the ground, which in time becomes contaminated with exerement, dead bees, and refuse from the hives. _?_The bees are compelled to breed in the same combs year after year. The causation of disease by micro-organisms depends upon the amount of resistance which the invaded host offers and the degree of infection which takes place. A vigorous, well-nourished animal will overcome a degree of infection to which a constitutionally weak one, or an ill-fed one, would succumb. The modern apiarist, by keeping large numbers of colonies on a limited space for years, and using the same brood-combs continuously, has thereby raised the degree of infection to which the bees are subjected, while by breeding his queens for prolifeness and colour he has weakened the vacc and reduced its vigour and resistance to disease.
To counteract these results of the present day system of beekeeping remedies may be found in the periodical shifting of apiaries on to new ground (the further from the old site, the better), the replacing of the brood-combs with new ones at intervals of a few years, and the restoration of the bees to their original vigour, by breeding all queens from stoeks giving the highest yields of honey (an indication of longevity) and not from colonies with an abnormal amount of brood only.
## Disappearing Trouble.