2 



HABDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[Jan. 1, 1S70. 



laying its long oval egg in a horizontal position just 

 under the skin. The embryo of the Phora is al- 

 ready well developed, so that in three hours after 

 the egg is inserted in the body of its unsuspecting 

 and helpless host, the embryo is nearly ready to 

 hatch. In about two hours more it actually breaks 

 off the larger end of the egg-shell, and at once be- 

 gins to eat the fatty tissues of its victim, its pos- 

 terior half still remaining in the shell. In an hour 

 more it leaves the egg entirely and buries itself 

 completely in the fatty portion of the young bee. 



The maggot moults three times. In twelve hours 

 after the last moult it turns around with its head 

 towards the posterior end of the body of its host, 

 and in another twelve hours, having become full-fed, it 

 bores through the skin of the young bee, eats its way 

 through the brood-covering of the cell, and falls to 

 the bottom of the hive, where it changes to a pupa in 

 the dust and dirt, or else it creeps out of the door 

 and transforms in the earth. Twelve days after, the 

 fly appears. 



The young bee, emaciated and enfeebled by 

 the attacks of its ravenous parasite, dies, and 

 its decaying body fills the bottom of the cell with 

 a slimy foul-smelling mass, called "foul-brood." 

 This gives rise to a miasma which poisons the neigh- 

 bouring brood, until the contagion (for the disease is 

 analogous to typhus, jail, or ship fever) spreads 

 through the whole hive, unless promptly checked by 

 removing the cause and thoroughly cleansing the 

 hive. 



Foul-brood sometimes attacks our American 

 hives, and, though the cause may not be known, yet 

 from the hints given above we hope to have the 

 history of our species of Phora cleared up, should 

 our disease be found to be sometimes due to the 

 attacks of such a parasite fly. 



We figure the Bee-louse of Europe (fig. 4, Braula 



Fig. 4. 



Bee-louse {Braula cceca). 



emeu, Nitsch), which is a singular wingless spider- 

 like fly, allied to the wingless Sheep-tick 

 (MelopAagm), the wingless Bat-tick (Nycteribia), 

 and the winged Horse-fly (Ilippobosca) . The body 

 is divided into two regions, like the spider. The 

 head is very large, without eyes or ocelli (simple 



Fie 



eyes), and the ovate hind-body consists of five seg- 

 ments, and is covered with stiff hairs. It is one-half 

 to two-thirds of a line long. This spider-fly is 

 "pupiparous," that is, the young, of which only a 

 very few are produced, are not born until it has, or is 

 just about to, assume the pupa state. The larva 

 (fig. 5) is oval, eleven-jointed, and white in colour. 

 The very day it is hatched it sheds 

 its skin and changes to an oval 

 puparium of a dark-brown colour. 



Its habits resemble that of the 

 flea. Indeed, should we compress 

 its body strongly, it would bear a 

 striking resemblance to that insect. 

 It is evidently a connecting link be- 

 tween the flea and the two-winged 

 flies. Like the former it lives and 

 brings forth its young on the body 

 of its host, and draws its food from 

 its host by plunging its stout beak into the skin of 

 the bee. 



It has not been noticed in this country, but is 

 liable to be imported on the bodies of Italian bees. 

 Generally, one or two of the Braulas may, on close 

 examination, be detected on the body of the bee ; 

 sometimes the poor bees are loaded down by as many 

 as a hundred of these hungry bloodsuckers. Assnmss 

 recommends rubbing them off with a feather, as 

 the bee goes in and out of the door of its hive. 



Among the beetles are a few forms occasionally 

 found in bees' nests and also parasitic on the body 

 of the bee. Trichodes upiarius, Linn. (fig. 6, fig. 6 a, 

 larva; fig. G b, pupa, front view), has long been 



vis. <;. 



Larva of Bee- 

 louse. 



Trichodes apiariui. a. larva, b. pupa. 



known in Europe to attack the young bees. In its 

 perfect, or beetle, state it is found on flowers, like 

 our Trichodes Nuttallii, which is commonly found on 

 the Spiraea in August, and which may yet prove to 

 enter our bee-hives. The larva devours the brood, 

 but with the modern hive its ravages may be readily 

 detected. 



The Oil-beetle, Meloe angusticollis, Say (fig. 7, 

 male, differing from the female by having the 

 antenna? as if twisted into a knot ; fig. 8, the active 

 larva found on the body of the bee), is a large dark- 

 blue insect found crawling in the grass in the 



