There is no doubt that some beekeepers lost most of their bees in the Isle of Wight in 1906, which, apparently, was the worst of two or three consecutive bad years. It was then assumed, however, without any evidence, that the cause of the losses was an infectious disease. This idea was then promulgated by sensational but uninformative articles, which I have read, in the Standard, a now defunct London morning paper, and in several provincial newspapers. This publicity, as usual, helped to fix the belief firmly in the public mind.
The first professional investigations was made by Imms in 1907. He examined bees in the Isle of Wight which were said to have the I.O.W. disease and found they had 'enlargement of the hind intestine', which Imms, who at the time seemed unfamiliar with bees, thought abnormal. His diagram, however, represents very clearly the intestine of any normal bee that has been long confined to the hive. Malden, the next professional investigator to visit the Isle of Wight, pointed out that the intestine of healthy bees confined to hives for a few days very closely resembled those of diseased bees. He had accepted the idea that there was an infectious disease, however, and he obtained a colony, said to have the I.O.W. disease, and confined it in a 'warm room' in a muslin cage on 27th June, 1908. By 10th August, he said, they had ceased to fly, and the colony was dead by 26th October. To keep them for so long under such conditions, however, would have been difficult had the colony started in the best of health. Malden examined minutely the anatomy of bees said to have the I.O.W. disease, including their tracheae and air sacs, but all he found were more bacteria in the gut of diseased bees than in healthy ones: he failed to show that these micro-organisms were pathogenic. Bullamore also pointed out that bees prevented from flying sometimes develop signs, described as crawling with bowel distension, which are indistinguishable from the I.O.W. disease. Now in 1906, according to newspaper accounts, there was a disastrous April for agriculture, with frost (- 5°C. in London on 2nd May) and snow, after a very early spring which had been hot enough to draw crowds to the seaside resorts. This very unusual weather might have accounted for trouble with bees which, being suddenly confined to their hives, possibly with freshly gathered nectar, may well have become very dysenteric. The only photograph of bees suffering from I.O.W. disease I have been able to find was taken in 1911 by G. W. Judge. A print is in the Bee Research Association Library, and it shows what appears to be a colony with severe dysentery-not a very unusual event after winter even today. The ‘Isle of Wight Disease’: The Origin and Significance of the Myth. L. Bailey
