gave me the following account:--

"In October last I had three hives of bees which I received into my
house. Each doorway was closed, and the hive placed upon a piece of
calico; the corners were brought over the top, leaving a loop by which
the hive was suspended from the ceiling. The hives were taken down about
the 14th of March; two were healthy, but all the bees in the third were
dead. There was a gallon of bees. The two hives containing live bees
were much smaller; but in each of them were dead ones. Under whatever
circumstances you preserve bees through the winter, dead ones are found
at the bottom, in the spring. The room, an attic, was dry; and I had
preserved the same hives in the same way during the winter of 1856. In
what I may call the dead hive there was an abundance of honey when it
was opened; and it is clear that its inmates did not die for want. It is
not a frequent occurrence for bees so to die; but I have known another
instance. In that case the hive was left out in the ordinary way, and
possibly cold was the cause of death. I think it probable that my bees
died about a month before the 14th of March, merely from the
circumstance that some one remarked about that time that there was no
noise in the hive. They might have died earlier; but there were
certainly live bees in the hive in January. I understand there was an
appearance of mould on some of the combs. There was ample ventilation, I
think; indeed, as the bees were suspended, they had more air than
through the summer when placed on a stand."

When the occurrence was first made known to me, I suggested that the
bees might probably have died from the growth of a fungus, and requested
some of the dead bees might be sent for examination. They were
transmitted to me in a very dry state; and a careful inspection with a
lens afforded no indications of vegetable growth. I then broke up a
specimen, and examined the portions under a compound microscope, using a
Nachet No. 4. The head and thorax were clean; but on a portion of the
sternum were innumerable very minute, linear, slightly curved bodies,
showing the well-known oscillatory or swarming motion. Notwithstanding
the agreement of these minute bodies with the characters of the genus of
_Bacterium_ of the Vibrionia, I regarded them as spermatia, having
frequently seen others undistinguishable from them under circumstances
inconsistent with the presence of _Confervae_, as in the interior of the
immature