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FLORIDA ENTOMOLOGIST 
Official Organ of The Florida Entomological Society, Gainesville, 
Florida. 
PROFESSOR J. R. WATSON. rere haa Editor 
DR? = WL MONG INGE WL ies ee eee Pe ee Associate Editor 
RH WiC GERGHRS 2: See St eee are ee es Business Manager 
Issued once every three months. Free to all members of the 
Society. 
Subscription price to non-members is $1.00 per year in ad- 
vance; 25 cents per copy. 
THE HONEYBEES’ OWN TROUBLES 
By FRANK STIRLING 
Honeybees, like everything else, have their troubles. Some- 
times it is a lack of care on the part of their owners, but more 
frequently there are pests and enemies such as bee diseases, 
moths or wax worms, wild animals and ants, which make raids 
upon the colonies from time to time. 
One of the most serious pests, especially in tropical and sub- 
tropical countries, are ants. The small black fire ant, the giant 
red ant and the wood ant frequently attack colonies of bees and 
sometimes destroy them entirely before the beekeeper discovers 
them. 
A very striking incident of this nature was brought to the 
writer’s attention several months ago when a large apiary on 
Biscayne Key, in Dade County, was attacked and seriously rav- 
aged by the large red ant (Camponotus abdominalis, Fab.). 
On this key or island, lying four or five miles off the mainland 
and across Biscayne Bay from Miami, Mr. C. E. Bartholomew 
was engaged in beekeeping and was operating some eight or 
nine hundred colonies of bees. The honey plants on this par- 
ticular key are varied and many; shrubs and other plants such 
as mangrove, sumac, palms of many kinds, especially the scrub 
palmetto, are found in abundance. In and around the base of 
the scrub palmettoes many colonies of these red ants had made 
their homes, evidently attracted by the nectar produced by the 
blossoms of the palmetto and by the trash and litter commonly 
found around these plants. 
These ants very soon discovered the whereabouts of the apiary 
and began to make nightly raids upon different colonies of bees. 
(56) 
