METHODS OF REPRESSION. 89 



of trying literally to kick out the invaders. A worker bee will run 

 in among the ants and, whirling about, will give repeated vigorous 

 Idcks with her limd legs, throwmg the ants m every direction, even 

 to a distance of 10 or 12 inches. The ants are not, however, killed 

 by this rough treatment, and they shortly return to the attack. 

 In a few hours after the attack has commenced the bees become 

 thorouglily disorganized and give up further defense, sometimes 

 swarming out as a last resort. At such times the normal hum of 

 the hive gives place to an entii'ely different note, which the expe- 

 rienced bee keeper at once recognizes as that of distress. 



The difficulties of extracting and handling honey in the presence 

 of these pests can be readily imagined. In order to extract we 

 first scrubbed the floor of the building, using copious amounts of 

 carbolic acid in the water. The foundations of the building and 

 a space about a foot wide all around the building were then sprayed 

 with crude oil. The extractor, as well as the uncapping can, was 

 placed in a large iron tray containing several inches of water. When 

 all these preparations were complete, the supers were taken from 

 the hives, and as fast as brought in were stacked on tables the legs 

 of which were wound with the corrosive sublunate ant tape. Extract- 

 ing was done as expeditiously as possible, but with all our pains 

 the ants were all over everythmg before we could extract and bottle 

 three or four hundred pounds of honey. Even our clothmg was 

 teeming with the workers and all human efl^ort was helpless to keep 

 them out of the honey. 



The number of apiaries destroyed by the ant in southern Louisiana 

 has been considerable, and one of our first lines of experimental 

 work was to devise some means of protectmg the beehives from the 

 foragmg ants. Among the various schemes that were tried the 

 followDig were found most efficient: 



Placmg the hive upon a stand havmg four legs and placing each 

 of these legs in a tin cup contaming crude petroleum served to deter 

 the ants for a time, but rain water soon displaced the oil in the cups, 

 and then with the first accumulation of dust on the water the ants 

 found their way across it. Tliis device also had the disadvantage 

 of killmg all bees which attempted to crawl up the legs of the stand. 



iVnother device, somewhat more successful than the open cups, 

 consisted of a stand the legs of which had at their tops inverted 

 troughs of galvanized iron so arranged that rain water could not 

 enter them, and so fixed that the ants would have to cross the troughs 

 containing oil in order to reach the hive. Stands ])rotected with 

 this appliance successfully repelled all ants for about two months 

 but, like the open cups of oil, resulted in the death of some bees. 



As our previous expermients had shown the repellent power of 

 ant tape, already described, it occurred to us that this might be 



