THE CAXADIAX ENTOMOLOGIST 291 



CLEANING BUMBLE-BEES. 

 Recently, when looking over some back numbers of the 

 Can. Ent. I came across Mr. Sladen's article on page IIG of vol. 

 XLV, 1913, entitled "Bumble-Bees and Wasps Wanted," and 

 noticed that in the second paragraph he says that "crushed tissue 

 paper should be placed in the cyanide jar to absorb moisture 

 which would otherwise mat and spoil the bees." As I have had 

 some experience in the matter I thought perhaps a cure for this 

 trouble might be of sufficient interest to warrant publication. 

 Several years ago I visited a peach orchard in full bloom, and 

 swarming with bumble-bees. I caught a nice lot of them and 

 took them home, and when I came to pin them out I found that 

 they were all as w^et as the traditional "drowned rat," and appar- 

 ently ruined. I decided to experiment with them; they couldn't be 

 made to look any worse anyway and perhaps might be bettered. 

 I took a good-sized bottle with a wide mouth, filled it about half 

 full of water, dumped the bees into it, corked it tightly, and shook 

 it violently for several minutes. I then poured off the water and 

 poured in more and shook again, repeating the process until the 

 water seemed perfectly clean. I then spread the bees out on blot- 

 ting paper and left them for a few minutes to get rid of the excess 

 of the water, then put them back into the bottle and covered them 

 with denatured alcohol, letting them stand until I thought the 

 alcohol had had time to unite with the water, (perhaps 15 minutes) 

 and then removed them again to fresh blotters to get rid of most 

 of the alcohol, after which I again returned them to the bottle 

 and flooded them with gasoline. After a few minutes.in this bath 

 they were again placed on blotting paper, and in a few minutes . 

 the gasoline all evaporated, and the bees were as fresh and clean 

 as though never wet; cleaner in fact, for often fresh specimens are 

 badly daubed with honey on the face and head. Possibly the last 

 bath might not have been necessary, but it made them dry quicker. 

 The same process would, I think, be equally successful in cleaning 

 moths which have been drowned in sap buckets, onh, of course, 

 they should not be shaken in a bottle, but floated on a pan of 

 w-ater and moved around carefully to get rid of the sugar, just 

 as tlfe bees are freed of the regurgitated honey which is the cause 

 of their being wet and sticky. E. J. Smith. Sherborn, Mass. 



