580 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 



hygrometer and thermometer, and the hers can ap- 

 preciate the meaning- of a constant, mild, dry, pure 

 atmosphere. What is the use in making: the bees use 

 up their honey, worth 15e per lb., to develop the re- 

 quisite heat to keep them alive, when it cau be done 

 with lime, worth less than one cent per lb., and which 

 1* almost as valuable ajlcr this slaking- as before? 

 D >u't believe ine when I say, not one of theten hives 

 above mentioned used over 15 lbs. tit" hon<-y (all they 

 had; in wintering- ■ ut of doors, even if it was a mild 

 ■winter, for I can hardly realize it myself, even when 

 I see the figures In my yard-book now before me. 



When you tr.v the experiment of slaking- the lime, 

 notice the heat devefopefl, but not with jour flng-er 

 (unless for a cartoon). I used the lime in a feeder a la 

 Van Deusen, made Hat and laid broadside next the 

 bees undercushion; this wastroubles me, requiring 

 frequent r« filling. I will use, this winter, on my 

 weak stocks, a box made like your chaff-cushion 

 division-board, and to hold about half a peck of lime. 



Chloride of calcium (calcined) will absorb much 

 more water than lim^, and I expect much from it 

 for these same purposes; but it will have to be con- 

 tained in a water-proof vessel, as it is one- of the 

 most deliquescent substances 1 know of. Absence 

 of actual experiment is the only reason that prevents 

 me from recommending this substance to the careful 

 bee-keeper, although 1 am certain it would be a suc- 

 cess. C. Lover. 



Reisterstown, Balto. Co., Md., Oct. 18, 1880. 



SOME ITIOKE NEW BEES. 



CHINESE BEES, OB BKBS FROM THE VICINI- 

 TY OF CHINA. 



M FRIEND in a neighboring town fur- 

 Jrfi, nishes us the following very valuable 

 — J letter. We first give Lis own letter 

 as a sort of introduction : — 



I inclose a letter which I have just received from 

 my brother, C. D. King, who is a missionary. He 

 wrote me some time ago about the naiives bringing 

 in honey, and I asked him to hunt up some bees and 

 see if they were like our bee« here. You will see by 

 his letter that they are not like ours. Now, there is 

 a probability that he will be called back to America 

 to stay a year, and I very much want some of those 

 bees. Do you think it possible for him to bring 

 them so far, and keep them in confinement so Ion* 

 without their djinar off on the way? It takes six 

 weeks or two months to make the trip. You have 

 had some experience in shipping bees long distances. 

 Please write out and send me just such instructions 

 as you would give if you were having them brought 

 for yourself. It may be possible that he will have 

 an opportunity to stop once or twice on the way; 

 and if so, would it not be best to let the bees have 

 ally? If he succeeds in getting them. I will keep 

 you posted as to their welfare, honey-gathering 

 qualities, habits, etc. C. T. King. 



New London, O., Nov 2, 1880. 



Here is the letter from the missionary : — 

 I am ready to tell you about the swarm of bees 

 that I have been observing and playing with for 

 nearly half an hour. Some of them are still flying 

 about in a disconsolate, disorganized state, lighting 

 here and there on the prostrate fig-tree on whieh 

 they clustered this morniner, or on the branch of a 

 lime-tree, which lies entangled with the branches of 

 the fig-tree. Others of the colony are imprisoned in 



a large glass bottle, or jar, which stands before me, 

 on the table. This is the first opportunity I have 

 had for telling you anything about Assam bees, aud, 

 as you perceive, 1 am inclined to make the most of 

 it. 



I am more and more convinced that the theory 

 which 1 caught at months ago is, in a far greater 

 measure than I then supposed, the true explana- 

 tion of the almost utter absence of bees about our 

 houses and grounds. The ants have the monopoly 

 in the business of gathering svveets. They, instead 

 of bees, are found swarming about every shrub and 

 every blossom that has anything sweet about it. 

 They industriously pick up every grain of sugar that 

 falls from the hands of careless servants. They lick 

 up every drop of syrup that is left on the table or 

 floor or di-h, and if perchance one gets a drop on 

 his clothes the ants take that also, and he finds a 

 hole in the cloth, to tell the slory afterward. The 

 bees have but very little chance. But the natives 

 protest that there are plenty of them in the jungle. 

 My own conviction is, that there are many more 

 bees in the hills than on the plain. The Nagas at 

 one time carried on quite a pretty extensive trade in 

 beeswax, aud they used often to bring in honey 

 when 1 was at Samaguting. 



This swarm that I found settled before my very 

 door this morning as I came out after a ten-o'clock 

 breakfast, was a very small swarm of very small 

 bees. I should hardly have recognized them as 

 honey-bees at all if they had not been clustered 

 after the manner of bees. I first scraped off a part 

 of the cluster into my bottle to examin them. Hu- 

 nai admitted that they were hiru (small), and when 

 asked if there are larger ones, "Dongor nikam as- 

 sene?" he replied, "Dongor assc" (large ones there 

 are.) And others of the natives say the same thing. 

 There are two kinds of bees in Assam,— a large kind 

 and a small kind, with babiis alike, so far as these 

 people can tell. I have not time to tell you their 

 story of how the creatures are born. But they, or 

 at least some of them, think that some other insei-t 

 places the little worm (larva) in the cell prepared 

 by the bees. 



These bees in the bottle before me are more slen- 

 der and but little longer than the comm >n house-fly 

 which is so plentiful with you. This Uuter pest is as 

 scarce here as are the bees themselves, if not more 

 so. The head and thorax of these bees before me 

 arc bhick. Their waists are a reddish yell >w, but 

 the abdominal portion for more than half 1< s length 

 is black, marked with three white stripes across the 

 back, with a slight pencil-mark, apparently meant 

 for another stripe, near the extremity. On the un- 

 d-r side, the yellow predominates, and takes the 

 place of the white, so that they seem to have black 

 stripes across the yellow. Their wings are white 

 and transparent, with a very delicate brown stripe 

 along the outer edges. By looking closely, one can 

 also see a brown network traversing the delicate 

 white wing. On the underside, their black heads 

 and thoraxes seem to be covered with a white down 

 or fuzz. 



What more do you wish to know about them? I 

 have not told you, though, that I made a sort of an 

 attempt to hive the swarm. I made a very small 

 hive out of a small Assam tea-chi-st, and shook my 

 bees into it; but they were all in the air again in 

 less than ten seconds. They were easily disturbed 

 and driven from their chosen pi tee of rest; but 

 would soon settle again somewhere on the same 



