January, 1S70. 



Hardwicke's Science-Gossip. 



THE PABASITES OF THE HONEY-BEE. 



By A. S. PACKARD, Jun., M.D. 



H E generality 

 of bee-keepers 

 are unaware 

 how many in- 

 sect parasites 

 infest the 

 Honey-bee. In 

 our own litera- 

 ture we hear almost nothing of 

 this subject, but in Europe 

 much has been written on bee 

 parasites. Erom Dr. Edward 

 Assmuss' little work on "the 

 Parasites of the Honey-bee," 

 we glean many of the facts now 

 presented, and which cannot 

 i'ail to interest the general 

 reader as well as the owner of 

 bees. 

 The study of the habits of 

 animal parasites has of late gained much attention 

 among naturalists, and both the honey and wild 

 bees afford good examples of the singular relation 

 between the host and the parasites which live upon 

 it. 



Among insects generally, there are certain species 

 which devour the contents of the egg of the victim. 

 Others, and this is the most common mode of para- 

 sitism, attack the insect in its larva state ; others in 

 the pupa state, and still others in the perfect, or 

 imago state. Dr. Leidy has shown that of the wood- 

 devouring species, a beetle, Passalus cornatus, and 

 some Myriapods, or " thousand legs," are, in some 

 cases, tenanted by myriads of microscopic plants 

 and worms, which luxuriate int he alimentary canals ; 

 while the "caterpillar fungus " attacks sickly cater- 

 pillars, filling out their bodies, and sending out 

 shoots into the air, so that the insect looks as if 

 transformed into a vegetable. 



The Ichneumon flies, of which there are undoubt- 

 edly several thousand species in this country, 

 No. 61. 



are the most common insect parasites. Next to 

 these are the different species of Tachina and its 

 allied genera. These, like Ichneumons, live in the 

 bodies of their hosts, consuming the fatty parts, and 

 finishing their transformations just as the exhausted 

 host is ready to die, issue from their bodies as flies 

 closely resembling the common house-fly. 



An insect, allied to the Tachina, has been found 

 in Europe to be the most formidable foe of the hive- 

 bee, sometimes producing the well-known disease 

 called "foul-brood," which is analogous to the 

 typhus fever of man. 



This fly, belonging to the genus P/iora (fig. 1, 

 P/wra incrassata ; fig. 2, pupctrium ; fig. 3, larva), is 



ri"-. i. 



Pfiora incrassata. 



Larva. 



a small insect about one line and a half long, and 

 found in Europe during the summer and autumn 

 flying slowly about flowers and windows, and iu the 

 vicinity of bee-hives. Its white, transparent larva 

 is cylindrical, a little pointed before, but broader 

 behind. The head is small and rounded, with short 

 three-jointed autennae, and at the posterior end of the 

 body are several slender spines. The puparium, or 

 pupa-case, inclosing the delicate chrysalis, is oval, 

 consisting of eight segments, flattened above, and 

 with two large spines near the head, and four on the 

 extremity of the body. 



When impelled by instinct to provide for the 

 continuance of its species, the Phora enters the bee- 

 hive and gains admission to a cell, where it bores 

 with its ovipositor through the skin of the bee-larva, 



B 



