"The Disappearing Trick" is a term coming into
common use among Australian bee-keepers, and there's
nothing funny about it, either. The older bees of a colony
disappear in a sudden and mysterious manner, the strongest
colonies appearing to be the ones most affected, causing
very heavy loss of colonies. The bee-keepers are asking
that government come to their aid by making investigations
looking to cause and cure.

AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL
CHICAGO, ILL, JAN. 8. 1903.

¶

It is now generally recognised that the 
adverse climatical condition in early 
spring is not the chief factor governing 
the rapid depopulation of colonies by — 
what some apiarists have appropriately 
termed — "The Disappearing Trick." 
From the suffering apiarist's standpoint, 
a better descriptive title could not be 
found in the English language to dis- 
tinguish this extraordinary phenomenon. 

" One morning — -it was clear and warm 
— we missed the usual humming, and, 
although surprised, felt sure that the 
flight had been diverted, from some cause 
or another, to a different point of the 
compass. Curious, but not apprehensive, 
we visited the yard, and at once per- 
ceived that while a number of bees left 
the entrances none returned. 

The workers did not leave the hives with that 
sudden ' shoot ' that betokens vim and 
thriftiness, but delayed on the bottom 
board in an indecisive manner before 
taking wing. They seemed reluctant to 
leave. Alarmed, we opened hive after 
hive to find only full combs of honey, 
sealed and unsealed. Rarely, there was a 
small cluster of bees, together with a 
queen, which later on swarmed out and 
hung promiscuously about the yard. We 
did not use any curative measures, be- 
cause the whole thing was so sudden and 
unexpected." 

The writer elicited these additional 
facts. The yard contained nearly two 
hundred colonies, of which number only 
some half-dozen remained normal and 
apparently unaffected. Some of the 
colonies absolutely devoid of bees con- 
tained a few cells of sealed and unsealed 
larvae. The queens were all reared from 
the same stock, most of them sisters to 
the survivors. The losses occurred so 
early in the season that many queens had 
not commenced their oviparous duties, 
while some hives showed a few eggs only. 

British Bee Journal AND BEE-KEEPERS' ADVISER. 
VOLUME XLIV. January-December, 1916.

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