58 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 



BEE BOTANY AND ENTOMOLOGY. 



WATER LEAF AS A HONEY PLANT. 



fNCLOSED please find a specimen of a honey 

 plant. It blooms early in spring-, and is found 

 J in the valleys on very rich soil. I consider it A 

 No. 1, as it comes before white clover. Please de- 

 fine it in Gleanings. M. A. Gill. 

 Viola, Richland Co., Wis., Dec. 15, I87t). 



The plant is a beautiful one, both in leaf 

 and tlower. Here is the answer of Prof. 

 Beal in regard to it. 



This is Hydrophyllum Virginlcum, or water leaf. 

 There are several species found on rich land in the 

 woods and open places. Nemophila belongs to the 

 same small natural order. 



THE TOCHINA FLY; IS IT AN ENEMY? 



Friend Root:— Enclosed you will find some kind of 

 a bee, which is havering- around my hives and eats 

 honey like the bees. It has bristles on its body. 

 Please tell me if they will do any harm, when they 

 are plenty. D. P. C. Hambly. 



Spanish Ranch, Plumas Co., Cal., Nov. 20, 79. 



We sent the fly to Prof. Cook, and here is 

 bis reply : 



The insect is not a bee, but is a Tochina fly. It 

 has two wings. A. smaller fly of the same genus is 

 figured on p. 270, of my Manual. Thess Hies love 

 sweets, and so are often seen around flowers. They 

 are near relatives of our common house liies. but 

 differ widolv in their habits. These tlies lay their 

 eggs on other insects. The younyr, when they hatch, 

 enter and feed on the insects which receive the eggs. 

 Whether these insects were after honey, or were 

 stealing in to 1 y their eggs on the larval'bees is an 

 important question. If the former, their damage is 

 light: if the 1 ttter, then it is m «re formidable. True 

 it is, that some of these Tochina tlies are parasitic 

 on bees. T wish Mr. II. would send me several care- 

 fully packed in cotton. I am desirous to get all the 

 bee enemies I can for a monagraph. A. J. Cook. 



Dayton, Ohio, Jan. 5, 1880. 



PDRPLE THOROPGHWORT AS A LATE HONEY PLANT. 



Will some of your readers tell me, if they have 

 tried Eupatorium purpureum for bees? [ have seen 

 it covered with bees in the fall, when all other plants 

 had been killed by the frost. The flowers are purple 

 They are small, but numerous, like elderberry blos- 

 soms Perhaps Prof Cook would give some infor- 

 mation, as this is easily grown in anv swamp or wet 

 place. G. H. B. Hooper. 



Toronto, Ont., Can., Jan. 7, 1880. 



BLUE TniSTLE PLANTS. 



I have no seed of blue thistle, but will send you 

 plants by the thousand, if you will pay the express 

 on them. J. L. Bowers. 



Berry ville, Va., Jan. 10. 1880. 



That is too cheap, friend B. AVe do not 

 want anybody to work for nothing. If the 

 plants are very plenty, perhaps you can take 

 them up and put them in a little basket, for 

 -~»c. per hundred. I will pay you that for 

 100, and will pay for the basket'too. If any- 

 body else wants some, let them write you so. 

 sending the 35c. I suppose a basket will 

 cost you about a dime. 







BLUE THISTLE IN MICHIGAN. 



I see you speak about blue thistle seed. I think I 

 can get a quantity next fall, if you wish. I am well 

 acquainted with that kind of thistle. It commences 

 to blossom the second year from seed, about the 

 first of June, and produces honev in great abund- 

 ance, till frost comes, and then dies, root and all. 

 Sow the seed in the fall, and when it is once sown, 

 there is no more trouble; there will alwavs be plen- 

 ty of it. It will scatter all over the neighborhood, 

 and can t be beat for honey. 



_,, , . „ Curk Simpson. 



Flushing, denesee Co., Mich., Jan. 10, 1880. 



I was not before aware that the blue this- 

 tle was found north of Virginia and Tennes- 



see; but, if our friend has made no mistake, 

 it will probably grow all over the north. 



A VISIT FROM AN OLD I'KIKM). 



AND WHAT IIK TALKED ABOUT. 



ijp\JjOAlE to think about it, it was not ex- 

 %J) actly a visit after all, for he just wrote 

 it in a letter; but lie did once pay us a 

 visit that 1 shall never forget, for he not on- 

 ly talked bees to us, but before he went 

 away he talked a little, and in his letters af- 

 terward dropped a word now and then, on 

 the eternal life that is to come. There is 

 and always will be, friend M., a warm place 

 in the hearts of our household, for you or 

 any words from you. Well, here is the let- 

 ter I was going to talk about, that comes in 

 after the Jan. No., so like a visit: 



BEES DRINKING AT THEIR HIVES. 



You say you never saw bees drinking at their own 

 hives. One evening, last fall, T heard quite a com- 

 motion at one of my hives, the same as they make 

 when being fed. It was dusk, and, on looking close, 

 I found a puddle of rain-water on the alighting 

 board, and a row of bees crowded around it, the 

 same as they would crowd around honey. What 

 surprised me most was that it should create the 

 s:ime excitement as a like amount of honey would 

 do. 



It is a fact, friend M., that bees will some- 

 times take greedily great amounts of water. 

 Since our last, I have been filling some thin 

 sponges with water, and placing them with 

 lumps of candy over the frames and. under 

 the chaff. The water was taken entirely ev- 

 ery day, and the amount of candy consumed 

 when the sponges were full of water was 

 very greatly augmented. I do not know of 

 any safer way in the world to feed, than to 

 give candy aiid water in this way. I do not 

 think I would resort to steady feeding, as a 

 general thing, before the first of March. 

 During these mild January days, we have 

 fed until the young bees are' hatching out in 

 great numbers, but Ave do not know how 

 soon zero weather may make mischief, or at 

 least give us good cause to fear it. 



BEES AND GRAPES. 



I am reluctantly obliged to admit that my grape 

 crop suffers from my bees. I have 1 '■• acres in 

 grapes, and, last fall, the bees were very thick upon 

 them. I should like to say that they only finished 

 up those grapes which had been rendered worthless 

 by the wasps, but scarcely a wasp was to be seen, 

 and bushels of grapes were destroyed. There was 

 no bursting of the grapes with wet weather; it was 

 a Aery dry time, and each grape, when first attacked, 

 had a small slot or hole 1 16 to 1-8 in. long, very dif- 

 ferent, from the cleft in a bursted grape. Even if 

 the grapes were first punctured by the wasps, the 

 main damage was done by the bees, I think. I have 

 seen a bee entirely hidden in the shell of a grape, 

 having squeezed through a hole hardly large cnoa d h 

 to admit it. 



Now, friend M.. I am not glad to hear that 

 bees do eat grapes, but I am glad to sec 1 at 

 least one man stand up. and own up to his 

 conviction that it is a fact. There are more 

 of us who. in private conversation, have ad- 

 mitted that the bees did do the mischief, but 



