Report of the Secretary of Agriculture 
By United States Dept. of Agriculture

=====Article Start=====

Agricultural Report 
Statistics of Beekeeping

During the past season a disease suddenly appeared in several states, 
sweeping away whole apiaries. So quiet were its operations that the bee-
keepers became aware of its existence only by the disappearance of their 
bees. The hives were left, in most cases, full of honey, but with no brood 
and little pollen; the whole appearance of the hive causing the casual 
observer to suppose that the bees had "emigrated;" but close observation 
showed that they had died. We give a number of accounts from various 
correspondents, principally from the states where this disease first raged.

Jesse R.. Newson, Bartholomew County, Indiana, says: "With an experience 
of twenty-five years, I have not seen so disastrous results among bees as 
in the present year. We generally feel that all is well with our bees, if 
they have succeeded well in laying up a winter supply of food. I have lost 
nineteen stands since the first of November; in some of them as many as 
forty pounds of honey were left, looking very nice, and tasting as well as 
any I ever saw; no sign of moth or any thing wrong that I could see. The 
bees seem to die without a cause. The stand twenty years old is yet 
living. We find in nearly every stand plenty of food, but "what ails the 
bees? What the remedy? If something is not done to stop this fatality, 
this pleasing and useful pastime will be taken from us, and our tables 
will be robbed of honey."

A. Leslie, Pike County, Indiana, says: "Nearly all our bees have died in 
this county, perishing mostly in November, supposed to be for want of bee-
bread."

S. G. Bates, Boone County, says: "The mortality among the bees this winter 
cannot be accounted for, since they have plenty of food. Out of twelve 
hives I this day took three hundred pounds of honey"; not a young bee to 
be found; the comb clear and healthy. My opinion is, that the queen, from 
some reason, not having deposited eggs, is the cause of their death."

T. J. Conuett, of Austin, Scott County, Indiana, says: "There is a disease 
prevailing to an alarming extent among our bees this fall that is entirely 
new, nobody being able to find any cause or remedy. Old and substantial 
swarms die, leaving the hive full of honey and bee-bread. Full three-
fourths of the swarms are dead, as far as I have heard from them."

J. N. Webb, Newcastle, Henry County, Kentucky, says : " There were no 
swarms last spring, so far as is known. The bees, however, continued 
to work and lay up their stores until some time in August, or early in 
September, when, to the consternation and utter surprise of the bee-
raiser, they were all found to have died. Many swarms left well-stored 
stands of excellent honey, amply sufficient to carry them through the 
winter; and what is more strange, comparatively few of the bees were 
found dead at the hives. What was the cause of the wholesale destruction 
of this useful and interesting insect, dying in the midst of plenty, away 
from its hive, we cannot understand. Up to the time when the discovery was 
made, no frosts had come, no atmospheric change had taken place, out of 
the ordinary course, and in fact nothing to which it may have been 
rationally attributed."

T. Hullman, jr., of Terre Haute, Indiana, writes as follows: " In 
September last, when the first cold weather set in, my bees began to die. 
First, I found in one of my best stands, with all the frames full of 
sealed honey, and some honey in boxes, the bees all dead. After that the 
bees began to die in all my stands, mostly pure Italians, and some 
hybrids. First, about one-third of the bees would be found dead; next, I 
would find the queen lying dead before the hive; and in about a week more, 
the whole colony would be found dead in and around the hive. Sometimes the 
queen would live with a handful of bees. The hives were full of honey, 
gathered the latter part of the season ; and the smallest had enough for 
the bees to winter upon. In this way I have lost forty stands, and have 
now only fifteen skeleton colonies, which I think will also perish before 
spring. At first I thought I was the only victim, but I have ascertained 
that all the bees in this neighborhood have died, and as far as thirty 
miles north and eighteen south. Yesterday I saw a letter from Kentucky, 
from a man who thought his bees had stampeded in the same manner as mine, 
to the hive of mother-earth. Some colonies had broods others had not. Late 
in October all the queens commenced laying again. To some colonies I gave 
three queens in about two weeks, and they lost each in turn."

The true cause of the disease has not been discovered. Some attribute it 
to the want of pollen; some to poisonous honey; and some to the unusually 
hot summer. Whatever may be the cause, the effect has been most 
disastrous, throughout these two States.

=====End Article=====


It may appear CCD is making a resurgence.  You may perhaps have noticed  
the old writing style, or terms used in the Agriculture Report.  If you 
have, good work, because the article is from 1869, reporting on the 
honeybee mortality of 1868.

Is history repeating itself?  There are a few similarities,  not only with 
some of thesymptoms, but more strikingly,  in the human reaction. 
 
As the CCD of today has some calling it the AIDS of bees,  In the years 
following the 1868 bee mortality, that disease has been paralleled to 
another disease feared by humans at that time, -Cholera.  The bee disease 
of 1868 became known as “Bee Cholera”.

In fact, in the years following the 1868 bee mortality, the panic was so 
severe with consumers, newspaper reports state that “consumers refuse to 
buy what is called Bee Cholera Honey, -where the bees have died of this 
disease, consumers don’t like it, and the doctors think it is dangerous to 
life.”

In 1869, fear spreads amongst beekeepers the same as with today’s CCD, 
which as in both instances, created a need for blame.  During the Bee 
Cholera die off, articles in the Bee journals quote beekeepers as 
saying: “Bee Cholera was not known in the United States until the Italian 
bee was introduced”,  and the belief that the Italian bee was to blame 
endured for years.

In the article below, please find the symptoms associated with the Bee 
Cholera,of 1868, so you can make your own diagnosis. 

Page 34 Annals of Bee Culture

The Bee Cholera of 1868.

By D. L. Adiar.

During the fall of 1868 and following winter, honey bees died in
great numbers throughout a large portion of the States of Ohio,
Indiana and Kentucky, in a manner not before noticed in diseases of
that insect. All the bees in some large Apiaries died or disappeared, and
over large districts scarcely a colony escaped, and the few that still 
survive
are in a diseased and weak condition. From my own observation,
and a correspondence with parties, in different parts of the infected
district, I have ascertained the existence during the fall and winter of
following unusual conditions of the hives.

1. The honey stored by the bees from about the 20th of July was of
a bad quality. When taken from the hives it fermented in a short while,
and a great deal of it fermented in the hives.

2. The honey not only fermented in the cells that were uncapped, but
in those that had been sealed up.

3. The fermentation partially decomposed the wax covers of the cells,
turning them an ashy gray, giving them a bleached or faded appearance,
and bubbles or froth oozed through.

4. The honey was of a peculiar reddish color, and somewhat turbid,
and of a bitter disagreeable taste.

5. In the first stages of the fermentation, the honey was viscous, slimy
or ropy. It afterwards lost its viscous character, and emitted an odor
like rancid butter, which I suppose to be butyric acid, developed perhaps
by the decomposition of the wax. The honey up to this time (1st of
Feby. 1869) still retains some of that odor, and is yet turbid.

6. The bees did not commence dying until the honey in the hives
showed fermentation, about the 20th of August.

7. There was an unusual activity about the diseased hives, the bees
flying in great numbers before and around the hives, and excitedly
running in and out, apparently greatly confused or disturbed.

8. The abdomen of the bees, after death, was considerably swollen, and
filled with an offensive fluid, and some of them are now, after being dead
four months, as soft and pliant, as if they had just died, not having
stiffened or dried up in the least

From these observations I infer that the disease was induced by the
unhealthfulness of the honey.

Best Wishes,
Joe
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/HistoricalHoneybeeArticles/
Files> 13) Honeybee Mortality and Hardship 
"exportant corpora carentum luce tectis, et ducunt tristia funera." 
- they bear off the bodies of those deprived of life from the hives, 
and lead out sad funerals. (Virgil, Georgics, Book IV)

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