(3) Isle of Wight Disease in Hive Bees—Experiments on Infection with Tarsonemus woodi, n. sp.

Abstract

The following experiments and observations have been undertaken with a view to discovering the means by which Tarsonemus is transmitted from one bee to another. It is obvious that a stage of the parasite exists outside the bee, and that there are also several possibilities (which may occur). One is the passage from bee to bee within the hive either directly or through the medium of frames or combs. Another, also within the hive, where the mites may in wandering upon the frames enter the cells and invade the body of the developing larvæ or pupæ, and in this way be present in the bee when it hatches. A third possibility is that whereby foraging infected bees may leave the mite upon flowers, vegetation generally, drinking grounds, or other situations, to be picked up later by other bees chancing to visit these. Crawling or dead bees may in a similar manner prove to be a source of infection through the contamination of the ground about the hive or of the actual hive itself.