50 



G L K A XI N ( ! S I X BEE CULTURE. 



J \ V. 



admire lips of cherry red. The tiger beetle has one 

 of finest white. The upper lip i Fig. 2, Li is called the 

 labrum. Notice its white color, and the three 

 points in front. Those points would hardly be the 

 thing if kissing were in vogue among tiger beetles. 

 I Buppose this upper lip serves as does our own. to 

 keep the food in the mouth. 



We next note the terrible jaws (Fig. 2, 3>. There 

 are two. sharp, and armed with cruel teeth, and mov- 

 ed with tremendous muscles. Observe that these, 

 like the jaws of all insects, move sidewise. We call 

 these the mandibles. These are to catch and crush 

 their victims; and the tiger itself is not better arm- 

 ed for such work. Alack the day for the poor cat- 

 erpillar, when it and these jaws attempt to occupy 

 the same space at the same time! But this is not 

 all: Our tiger beetle, like other insects, has a sec- 

 ond pair of jaws— the maxillae. These are more 

 slender, but far more complex and nimble than are 

 the mandibles. Just note how they are armed with 

 points as sharp as needles. I imagine that, while 

 the jaws hold the insect-victim, these second jaws 

 play back and forth like a trip-hammer, piercing 

 the body as by scores of sharp needles, and literally 

 making hash of it. The base, or hinge joint, of this, 

 C, is the cardo; next comes the stipes, S. and then 

 the three lobes from within the locinia. L; the galia, 

 G, and the maxillary palpus, M P. The piece at the 

 base of the palpus, P, is the palpifer. But, why so 

 many parts? May they not be the hands that do 

 the stirring and turning in this wondrous hash-mill 

 or sausage-cutter? But, why does not the food fall 

 out while it is thus twisted and turned? Below is 

 the under lip— the labium. This is just opposite the 

 upper lip. but is thrown forward in the drawing so 

 as to show. This labium has a base, sub-mentum, 

 SM,and two jointed pieces, L P, the labial palpi. 

 Note the three spines which, like sled-stakes, would 

 tend to retain an overload. The labial palpi, like 

 two fingers, may aid to retain the food or to move 

 it about. Thus we see what a marvelous structure 

 this mouth is. How different from that of a bug, 

 which is only a sucking-tubel The beetle, then, is 

 higher than the bug, as shown by its more compli- 

 cated structure, just as the bee, the wasp, and the 

 ant, are higher than both. We see that the form of 

 the beetle is also peculiar, and not easy to mistake. 



These exquisite drawings were made under my 

 direction by one of my students, Mr. A. B. Cordly. 



Agricultural College, Mich. A. J. Cook. 



NOTES FROM THE SHARON APIARY, 

 SYRIA. 



FRIEND BALDENSPERGER TELLS US MORE ABOUT 



THE ORANGE-BLOSSOM HONEY. AND SEVERAL 



OTHER THINGS. 



R. ROOT:— 1 always read Gleanings with 

 interest — of course, what is good and appli- 

 cable for ourselves. 1 never followed the 

 section question very closely, because in 

 our place it is of no great avail. We never 

 tried exporting sections, fearing the great danger 

 of having every thing arrive in a muss after 10 days 

 tossing about by the sailors, who are not good 

 hands to handle such goods. No heed is taken of 

 " This Side l"p, with Care," etc., on tops of boxes. 

 We therefore hold fast to the extractor, and extract 

 as often and as much as possible. This year was 

 nothing in the line of extracting. After a dry win- 



ter, the orange- blossoms failed, almost; we then 

 had a still drier summer, full of east winds, which 

 dried up every suggestion of dampness, both in the 

 ground and in the flowers. In Europe they all com- 

 plained of rain, ruin, rain, while we here must call 

 it sun. sun, sun. 



COLONIES TO THE SQUARE MILE. 



Much has been said in Gleanings as to the num- 

 ber of hives per square mile. When I read the arti- 

 cle of Mr. E. France, in Jan. 1st Gleanings, I was 

 rather discouraged, for we had t>,^ i hives on one 

 spot, and our range is only the Jaffa gardens, con- 

 taining very nearly 500,000 orange-trees, it is true; 

 but then, such a number of hives located all on the 

 same spot! 1 thought the bees might all visit the 

 next gardens, and thus lose time. Now, this is a 

 problem which some more experienced bee-keeper 

 might answer: " Do bees of the same hive visit the 

 same tree or the same row of trees? Do they fly in 

 one direction?" I am inclined to think so. In ISX'2 

 I had a hive of bees which propolized the combs all 

 over with a brown gummy propolis which they 

 gathered from a peach-tree, not very far off; the 

 other hives had none at all. But as to gathering 

 honey, I can't tell of any experience, as it is always a 

 difficult task to follow bees of one hive, unless you 

 use the " strewing meal " system, which I never 

 tried, except in a few cases of robbing. Do you 

 think that bees of a hive, finding a party busily at 

 work on a group of trees, will continue to hunt for 

 some unexplored ones, and then keep goingto that 

 place, owning it by the right of having been the 

 first to take possession? 



Now, very likely we have not the best locality for 

 bees, neither could we put our hives anywhere else, 

 as only here orange-groves are to be found, and 

 thus we could not distribute them as you would to 

 different basswood ranges, but must keep them all 

 here. We could divide the number of hives, and 

 set each apiary in an opposite direction. The bees 

 would not interfere: but, unfortunately, this year 

 failed, so 1 can not find out, and must try again an- 

 other year. 



Going through the gardens informer years, we 

 very seldom saw a bee here and there lost among 

 the millions of white flowers, and we always take 

 it as a good "omen " where we find very few bees, 

 for then we conclude the secretion is abundant, and 

 no reason for bees to overcrowd. 



In the mountains, again, it is different. Agricul- 

 tural progress restrains our fields of operation, as 

 we depend on wild thyme, growing on uncultivated 

 land; and as the nomadic Arabs living in the Ju- 

 dean wilderness advance, thyme goes back, and 

 then the question arises, How many hives to a 

 square mile in such a locality? for a place crowded 

 with orange-trees certainly is far superior, and can 

 support a greater number of colonies of bees than 

 the same extent covered with thyme. When going 

 over the fields I noticed great numbers of bees on 

 the same shrub, and at once concluded that it was 

 either a failure altogether, or too many hives were 

 on the same spot. When I say " going over the 

 fields," I ought to say scrambling up and down the 

 rocks of the steep and barren-looking mountains of 

 Judea. It is only lack of earth that has not turned 

 all into cultivated terraces. Centuries have passed 

 over these uncultivated slopes, and the heavy rains 

 have carried all loose earth down the valleys. The 

 increase of inhabitants at Jerusalem and Bethlehem 

 has demanded a great deal of lime and wood. The 



