February, 1908. 



American Hee Journal 



tribute toward bringing the bees up to 

 their maximum strength as to num- 

 bers and a desire to store a surplus, 

 just at the time that your location brings 

 the surplus-nectar bearing flowers into 

 bloom in fheir greatest profusion. By 

 so doing you will bring your "field" and 

 your bees together, so that they will 

 roll in a great, big success for you ; 

 while, if you fail just here, no great 

 success can be obtained, no matter how 

 profuse the nectar-secretion at the time 

 of the minimum number of bees in your 

 colonies, or how maximum the strength 

 of your colonies, if that strength comes 

 when the nectar-producing flowers are 

 gone, or before they come- 

 There are lots of other things which 

 tend toward the success or failure of a 

 beginner, but the above are sufficient for 

 the "better digestion at one sitting," as 

 well as before the underlying foundation 

 on which to build a "permanent and 

 successful structure," along the line of 

 apiculture 

 Borodino, N. Y. 



Aphididae or Plant Lice 



BY PROF. A. .T. COOK. 



There are several reasons why bee- 

 keepers should be interested to learn 

 about the aphids. Their natural history 

 is unique and surprising, indeed; their 

 destructiveness is often alarming, as in 

 cases of the "green fly" on grain last 

 year in Kansas. Often, too, this injury 

 is to our honey-plants, as one of the 

 largest of the aphids in the United 

 States works on the basswood. 



Again, the aphids secrete honey-dew, 

 which is of the same nature as honey, 

 as it is composed of reducing sugar, 

 and is excellent, and, as it need not to 

 be digested, is probably superior as a 

 source of honey. I have known the bees 

 to gather much of the honey-dew from 

 the Lachness that works on evergreens 

 in the East, and the honey was of very 

 superior quality. I doubt if there is 

 any better honey than that which comes 

 from this honey-dew from some of these 

 aphids. 



Natural History of Aphids. 



The life history of plant-lice is as in- 

 teresting as it is exceptional. In the 

 fall, a little earlier than this (Dec. 19), 

 as the cold comes on, there appear the 

 only males that are ever to be found. 

 Novi^, too, come the normal females. 

 These mate and lay their eggs, which 

 are not many in number, and so the in- 

 sects pass the winter as eggs. In the 

 spring, as the foliage opens, the eggs 

 hatch and only agamic females come 

 from them. That is, these females pro- 

 duce without males, and their progeny 

 are, like our drone-bees, the result of 

 parthenogenesis. There may be a dozen 

 or more generations of these agamic fe- 

 males during the summer. These do 

 not lay eggs, as do most insects, but the 

 young are born alive — that is, the eggs 

 hatch within the parent louse. 



There is one more peculiarity of these 

 lice, and that is, they arc dimorphic; 

 that is, they appear in two forms in the 

 season of work. The most of them are 

 wingless, but occasionally they appear 

 with wings and are able to fly from 



their old host-plants to a new pasture- 

 field. This is of great service to the in- 

 sects, as they are a serious menace to 

 the host-plants that give them home and 

 food, and soon the plants would die, 

 and they be starved, except that they 

 are able to fly to other host-plants. This 

 point should be remembered as it sug- 

 gests a way to destroy these plant- 

 lice. 



There is one thing that is pleasing 

 regarding these devastating pests, and 

 that is, they have many enemies. This 

 is why we often find that though they 

 may be very common in the early sea- 

 son, as they increase with enormous 

 rapidity, and later often in a few days 

 they seem to melt away as though 

 struck by the very bosom of destruc- 

 tion. This is doubtless due to the fact 

 that they have numerous foes among 

 birds and other insects. The fact that 

 they abound in such numbers so that 

 they crowd the plants that harbor and 

 feed them, makes them a very bountiful 

 source of food to an> animal that takes 

 to such diet. Here in California, roses 

 and ivy may be literally covered with 

 aphids in April, and in two or three 

 weeks they are nearly al gone so that it 

 is difficult to find one of them. The 

 cause of this rapid taking ofl is that a 

 braconid fly — a minute parasite — attacks 

 them, and it increases even faster than 

 the lice ; and so they melt away as by 

 fire. This suggests a possible way to 

 rid a place of these pests. It is often 

 easy to introduce the parasites, from 

 some other locality where they abound, 

 and as these "work for nothing and 

 board themselves," it is a cheap way 

 to fight the aphids. 



The plant-lice are so abundant, and 

 crowd in such profusion to every part 

 of the plant, on the under side of the 

 leaves as well as above, that it is very 

 difficult to destroy them by artificial 

 means. The coal-oil emulsions will kill 

 the lice and not destroy plants, and yet 

 it is impossible to apply them in many 

 cases of attack, such as that of the grain 

 aphis and the melon plant-hce. To- 

 bacco smoke is deadly to them, but this 

 must be confined as in greenhouses, 

 and so is rarely practicable to use. 



The fact that these aphids often have 

 two or three host-plants which they at- 

 tack exclusively, gives a further rem- 

 edy that may often be used to good 

 purpose. The potato plant-louse some- 

 times destroys to the tune of millions 

 in our country. The potatoes are of- 

 ten harvested early, and so the aphids 

 must hie to other plants or die. It is 

 found that they use chickweed and peas 

 as host-plants after the potato harvest. 

 If, then, we see to it that these plants 

 are not in the region of the potato-fields, 

 we will starve out the pestiferous 

 plant-lice. In our rich, low valleys near 

 the Salton Sea, excellent melons and 

 cantelopes are grown very easily, and 

 as they come very early they are grown 

 at a surprising profit. There is one 

 handicap on this industry — the melon 

 plant-lice are often a serious scourge 

 to the melon-growers. Here the har- 

 vest is over early in the season, when 

 the vines could all be plowed under, 

 in preparation for a later crop. In this 

 case it would be a wise policy to dis- 

 cover the later host-plants of these 



aphids, in the hope to practice clean 

 culture, and so banish the pests. 



The Slug a Borer. 



I suppose all our readers are ac- 

 quainted with the slugs. They are 

 really shelless snails. Indeed, they 

 once had shells, but have lost them 

 in their development history. It is 

 also well known that the snails and 

 slugs are fond of damp, and will not 

 sojourn where the earth is dry and 

 arid. Again, the slugs and snails feed 

 on vegetable matter wholly. Of late 

 I have word that slugs are boring. into 

 oranges. In this case the fruit must 

 lie near the earth. In some cases the 

 slugs have crawled up as far as 12 or 

 18 inches, and have bored into fruit 

 that distance from the ground. I was 

 appealed to help by advice and sugges- 

 tion in this case. I called attention to 

 the fact of the slug's love of moisture, 

 and suggested that the trees were head- 

 ed so low that a condition very favor- 

 able to the slugs were secured. Prun- 

 ing away the low branches and letting 

 in the sun and air, would drive the 

 slugs away and save the fruit. And do 

 we wish to grow our fruit on the 

 ground, any way? 



We cannot know too well the life his- 

 tory and habits of all our animal asso- 

 ciates, for with such knowledge we will 

 often know how to steer clear of harm, 

 that also might work us serious injury. 



Claremont, Calif. 



Season ofi9 07— Feeding 



Sugar Syrup— A New 



Location 



BY F. L. DAY. 



The past season was a poor one for 

 honey in Northern Minnesota. The 

 spring was fully a month later than 

 some of those of recent years. This did 

 not make any great difference with my 

 own bees, for they were in excellent 

 condition. Forty-one colonies were tak- 

 en from the cellar, 39 being in apparent 

 good condition. One of the others was 

 put over a strong colony. The weak one 

 had a queen which had begun to lay 

 some. I used 2 excluders and a wire 

 screen, also, for the first 3 days. But 

 the queen of the weak colony disap- 

 peared, and the workers joined those of 

 the strong colony, without any fighting. 

 The other colony which died was seem- 

 ingly all right at first, but soon dwindled 

 away in spite of anything I could do. 



My 39 colonies were increased to 61 

 by the nucleus plan, which suits me the 

 best of any for making increase- I had 

 formerly taken the queen and 2 or 3- 

 frame nuclei of brood and bees from 

 strong colonies to place in a new hive. 

 Then g or 10 days later I would divide 

 the remaining frames of brood and bees 

 so as to form 2 or 3 more nuclei and 

 still leave I or 2 frames of brood in 

 the old hive. The nuclei were then left 

 to rear their own queens from the cells 

 given them with the brood, and later to 

 build up as best they could during the 

 season. Good results were obtained. 

 The nuclei nearly always built up 

 strong, and some of them gave a little 

 surplus. 



