May, 191.ri. 



169 



American Hee Journal 



beetles, and finally in the fall the burst- 

 ing of the capsule sets free both the 

 weevils and the seeds (Fig. 3, No. 8.) 



Among the numerous beetles found 

 on the goldenrods are certain dull 

 black, oblong species, which when 

 dried and ground into powder may be 

 used tor blister plasters — they are the 

 blister beetles. At times they appear 

 suddenly by bushels and destroy in a 

 few days large patches of potatoes and 

 tomatoes. The larva; are brood-para- 

 sites on bees, grasshoppers and other 

 insects. When they first hatch they 

 are active, louse like forms called />-i- 

 atif^'ii/his because each leg terminates 

 in three claws. The eggs are laid on 

 the ground near the stem of a flower- 

 ing plant, and as soon as the triangu- 

 liiis are out of the egg they climb to 

 the flowers, where they wait for the 

 arrival of some insect. 



Unfortunately for them they are un- 

 able to recognize their hosts, and jump 

 aboard the first conveyance that comes 

 along, whether it is a bee or a fly, with 

 the result that they are often carried 

 far away from the nests they are seek- 

 ing to reach. There is nothing for 

 them to do but to keep on trying until 

 they either die from exhaustion, or by 

 a happy chance lay hold of the right 

 insect. Hundreds do perish, and to 

 compensate for this loss the female 

 lays some 2O00 eggs. If, however, a 

 triangulin is carried to the nest of a 

 host bee it feeds on the pollen until it 

 is transformed into a beetle. The ad- 

 v.'ntures of a triangulin are analogous 

 to those of a grain of pollen. Wasteful 

 as is this method it succeeds much bet- 

 ter than would seem possible (Fig. 3, 

 No. 5). 



The long-horned beetles, or Ceram- 

 bycidiE, are more important as flower 

 visitors than any other family of the 

 Coleoptera. The larvae are wood-bor- 

 ers, and many of the genera in the 

 adult form live wholly on flower food, 

 as Leptura, Typocerus and Strangalia. 

 They prefer nectar to pollen, and in 41 

 cases I found species of Leptura feed- 

 ing on nectar, and in only two eating 

 pollen. Beetles often use tubular flow- 

 ers as places of refuge, hiding in the 

 closed gentians, or reveling for several 

 days on the pollen and nectar of the 

 huge magnolia flowers before they 

 fully expand (Fig. 3, No. 1). 



In these war-like times we of New 

 England should not forget that a host 

 of June-bugs once put British soldiers 

 to flight near Boston. In John Trum- 

 bull's epic poem "M'Fingal," it is 

 stated that, absurd as it may seem, it 

 was a fact that some British officers, 

 soon after Gage's arrival in Boston, 

 while walking on Beacon Hill, shortly 

 after sunset were greatly frightened 

 by the sound made by flying June-bugs, 

 which they took to be the sound of 

 bullets. They left the hill in great 

 haste, alarmed their camp, and later 

 wrote home to England terrible ac- 

 counts of being shot at with air guns. 



"No more each British Colonel runs 

 From whizzing beetles as air-euns: 

 Ihink horn bugs bullets, or throuuh fears 

 Musketoes takes for musketeers." 



As pollinators of flowers the beetles 

 are of little significance. The enor- 

 mous devastation of foliage and blos- 

 soms, the absence of hairs for holding 

 pollen, and their inactivity and indefi- 



nite manner of flight are factors which 

 greatly reduce their value as pollen 

 carriers. There is no reason to sup- 

 pose that the structure of flowers 

 would have varied in any way had the 

 Coleoptera never acquired the habit of 

 anthophily (love of flowers) 

 Waldboro, Maine. 



The Queen-Bee— Is Egg-Laying 

 Regulated by the Bees ? 



BY E. M. KU.E. 



■ BELIEVE egg-laying by the queen 

 to be practically automatic, and 

 regulated largely by the amount of 

 nectar brought in from the fields or 

 manipulated by them in any way. I 

 doubt if a nucleus ever reasons, " We 

 are not strong enough to stand the 

 rigors of winter, and must keep up 

 brood-rearing," or if the queen decides, 

 " My family is too small, let us increase 

 it;" but that the queen begs her daily 

 bread whenever she can, and will 

 always be supplied with predigested 

 food if the colony is reaping a harvest, 

 or is handling honey in any way, and 

 whenever she is so supplied, egg-laying 

 is involuntary on her part. I think the 

 construction of the queen's ovaries 

 shows this, and whenever the supply of 

 food is cut off egg-laying ceases. 



I imagine the diflSculties of hastening 

 egg-laying in the spring by feeding or 

 having it start up or continue in the 

 fall, if egg-laying depended upon the 

 incliiiation of bees and queen, instead 

 of being involuntary on their part; the 

 bees always willing whenever manipu- 

 lating honey, to supply the queen with 

 the proper food, and the queen's ova- 

 ries always responding to the stimulus. 



Father Langstrothis emphatic in the 

 following : ' Some apiarists have sup- 

 posed that the queen-bee has the power 

 to regulate the development of eggs in 

 her ovaries, so that few or many are 

 produced, according to the necessities 

 of the colony. This is evidently a mis- 

 take ; her eggs are formed without any 

 volition of her own, and when fully 

 developed must be extruded. When 

 the number of workers is too small to 

 take charge of all her eggs, or when 

 there is a deficiency of bee-bread to 

 nourish the young she simply ex- 

 trudes them from her oviduct, and the 

 workers devour them as fast as they 

 are laid." "Hive and the Honey Bee," 

 1st edition, page -IlJ, -17. 



Both the " A B C in Bee Culture" 

 and " Langstroth Revised " assert that 

 in outdoor wintering, when, during a 

 cold spell, the bees have consumed all 

 the honey within their reach, they will 

 perish unless a warm spell comes and 

 enables the cluster to morr o^rr to 

 their stores. I believe this is an error, 

 and that the cluster rarely if ever 

 moves over to the honey, but shifts as 

 much honey as- possible ' o2'cr to Die 

 brooil-ncst, and right here .-arly egg- 

 laying will begin and continue as long 

 as the bees are able to renew their sup- 

 ply; the number of eggs laid depend- 

 ing upon the amount of honey handled, 

 the quantity of food the colonv is large 

 enough to supply, and the vigor of the 

 queen. 



Bees are slow to uncap honey except 

 for their own use, but will always use 



this open honey to nourish their brood, 

 and as the season warms up, more and 

 more honey is uncapped and moved 

 over to the brood nest. It is rapidly 

 consumed by the bees and brood, and 

 as the hatching bees add their strength 

 to the colony, the supply of food for 

 the queen is larger and egg-laying 

 steadily increases. 



The early honey-flows add still more 

 to the food supply and egg-laying is on 

 in full swing, and will continue as long 

 as the flow is on, or the bees are en- 

 gaged in ripening up or rearrang- 

 ing their stor.'S. Brood-rearing does 

 not necessarily increase during the 

 honey-flow, and may even diminish, 

 although egg-laying may continue 

 heavily. Father Langstroth says, 

 " Hive and the Honey Bee," page 203: 

 "She may often be seen restlessly trav- 

 ersing the combs seeking in vain for 

 empty cells until, finding none, she is 

 compelled to extrude her eggs only to 

 be devoured by the bees." 



It has been remarked that when an 

 apiary is moved to a distant location 

 egg-laying is often begun. I think it 

 would be automatically; the continued 

 jarring and disturbance causing the 

 bees to fill up on honey, thus providing 

 more prepared food for the queen. 



I have read that when the queen is 

 idle she must supply herself with honey 

 from the cells. I believe it is true, and 

 that she can lay few if any eggs when 

 compelled to digest her own food. As 

 the honey-flow slackens and stops, and 

 the bees finish ripening and capping 

 their stores, the amount of prepared 

 food the queen is able to get diminishes 

 and egg-laying automatically decreases 

 and finally stops. "How much longer, 

 if any, does a young queen continue to 

 lay than an old one?" I doubt if any 

 longer under like circumstances, the 

 difference being in the qnayitity she is 

 able to lay. In a strong colony egg- 

 laying might even discontinue earlier 

 than in a weak one, haying sooner 

 ripened up and capped their honey and 

 cons.umed their open stores. 



Egg-laying will also continue when 

 there is a large amount of uncapped 

 honey in the supers which the bees are 

 allowed to carry below. So I believe 

 egg-laying to be involuntary, neither 

 bees nor queen taking any thought of 

 the matter, the bees being always will- 

 ing to supply the queen with predi- 

 gested food whenever gathering from 

 the fields or manipulating stores in any 

 way, and her ovaries developing eggs 

 whenever she is so fed. I also believe 

 any seeming departure from this can 

 always be squared with it, if all condi- 

 tions in the hive are known. 



Audubon, Iowa. 



[Mr. Cole has evidently studied the 

 matter very thoroughly, and his article 

 is to the point. He is right in believ- 

 ing that the cluster rarely moves over 

 to the honey, when the honey in the 

 center is all consumed, and we agree 

 with him that the bees shift it over to 

 the brood-nest, and that it is this shift- 

 ing which helps start the queen to lay- 

 ing, but when the weather is too cold 

 to allow them to move their cluster to 

 the outer combs, it is also too cold for 

 the individual bees to bring it from 



