. British bee journal & bee-keepers adviser. Bees. Oct. 28, 1909.] THE BRITISH BEE JOURNAL. 423 In studying diseases he has found this parasite in large numbers in dysenteric bees and in their excrements. In twenty- two out of twenty-five cases examined last spring he did not find a single bee free from it. Most bee-keepers do not con- sider dysentery a serious disease, and if certain precautions are taken it seems to disappear, but here Dr. Zander points out that there are two forms of dysentery. One is a mild, harmless form, and can be cured by the bees having a cleansing flight, a warm
. British bee journal & bee-keepers adviser. Bees. Oct. 28, 1909.] THE BRITISH BEE JOURNAL. 423 In studying diseases he has found this parasite in large numbers in dysenteric bees and in their excrements. In twenty- two out of twenty-five cases examined last spring he did not find a single bee free from it. Most bee-keepers do not con- sider dysentery a serious disease, and if certain precautions are taken it seems to disappear, but here Dr. Zander points out that there are two forms of dysentery. One is a mild, harmless form, and can be cured by the bees having a cleansing flight, a warm dwelling, and good food. In this form the fieoes are coarse-grained, have a sour smell, and, mixed with water, produce a yellow pulp which consists principally of pollen. Of the twenty-five cases examined by Dr. Zander, he found this mild form in only three of them. The second, or virulent, form is more frequent, and is also more dangerous. During last spring Dr. Zander says it destroyed more colonies round Erlangen than foul brood has done in the whole kingdom of Bavaria. In this disease the discharge of fasces is not a regular, but an occasional, accompaniment, and some bee-keepers have even noticed what they call "dry dysentery," which they dread even more than the other. During the progress of the disease there are all the symptoms of an infection with Nosema apis. Colonies may not be queen- less, may have abundant stores, may pass safely through the winter, and have their proper cleansing-flights, yet they die off rapidly in the spring. Being at its worst in May, the disease has received the general name of May-pest (Maikrank- heit). Microscopical examination of such bees shows the chyle-stomach to be milk- white and filled with Nosema spores. The evacuations, which are at first liquid, dry to hard brown scales, have a peculiar smell, and, diluted with water, make this muddy, and show numberless spores. As a result of the infection the cells cease to act, and as
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