DISEASES OF THE BEES.
Bees have no real disease. Dysentery, about which so much noise has
been made, and for which so many remedies are prescribed, never attacks
the bees of a well-stocked hive, that is left open at all seasons, but
only those that are too long and too closely confined. They are always
in good health as long as they are at liberty, when they are warm
enough, and have plenty of food. All their pretended diseases are the
result of hunger, cold, or the infection produced by a too close and
long confinement during the winter.
Some intelligent people have erroneously thought that the honey
gathered from the flowers of the lime-tree caused dysentery, but
experience convinced me to the contrary; for my hives were never in
better condition than when the lime-tree flowers supplied them with
honey in abundance.