960 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 



handkerchief or hat over the glass, making a dark- 

 ness like that of the hive inside the glass, and then 

 the bee will immediately settle on the comb and 

 commence filling up on the thin honey. While the 

 bee is intently occupied in filling itself, remove the 

 glass and go off to one side, so you can have a better 

 chance to observe the movements of the bee when 

 it commences to circle. The first few circles will 

 denote the direction of the hive, and each succeed- 

 ing circle will swerve more and more in that direc- 

 tion, until finally, when on the last circle, it will 

 strike off in a direct air-line for its habitation, pro- 

 vided there are no clumps of trees in the way, when 

 it will often swerve to one side, misleading the bee- 

 hunter. 



When angling for bees you must move a few 

 hundred yards to either the right or left, and note 

 the direction of their flight. Where the two inter- 

 secting lines meet, there will be the hive also. In- 

 stead of using the glass, as I used to, I now use a 

 box made as follows: Take two pieces of %-inch 

 stuff, (3 inches long and 2 wide; two more pieces, 6 

 inches long and 4 wide. Use the 6x4 for sides, and 

 the 6x2 for ends; nail together lengthwise. Next, 

 take two pieces, 2 inches long, 2 wide, and % thick, 

 and put together thus: /\ Now bore a half-inch 

 hole in the middle, where they come together, and 

 insert it in the under side of the box, something on 

 the principle of Alley's drone and queen trap. 

 Now saw the box in two where this inverted 

 V-shaped piece reaches, and put on a small pair of 

 hinges. Next, nail a piece of wire screen across the 

 top, about 12 meshes to the inch, and you are ready 



CYCLOPEDIA SCIENCE NOT ALWAYS 

 RELIABLE. 



WATKINS' BEE-HUNTING BOX. 



for business. When you want to catch a bee, place 

 the trap down over it, and the bee will immediately 

 go to the top, where the wire screen is. You can 

 venture to catch any number of bees that you want 

 to. Now get your piece of honey-comb; open the 

 trap, and set it in— no danger of the bees escaping, 

 as they are too intent on trying to get out through 

 the wire screen. Close the trap and place a piece of 

 cloth over the screen to darken it, and make the 

 bees settle on the comb. When they are occupied 

 in filling themselves up, open the trap about half 

 way, in order to let the bees that are filling them- 

 selves get out. When you have found the course 

 of two or three bees, close the trap and move a few 

 hundred yards further along. By this method you 

 can soon find any bee-tree. S. W. Watkins. 



Placerville, Cal. 



(T<> be continued.) 



PROF. KOONS HA8 SOMETHING FURTHER TO SAY IN 



REGARD TO APHID^, AS SUGGESTED IN MISS 



QUILLIN'S LETTER OF NOV. 1. 



ISS QUILLIN was unfortunate in two re- 

 spects, at least, in her selection of authority 

 on aphidte, as printed In Gleanings for 

 Nov. 1st. In the first place, she went to a very 

 unreliable source, which in this case is 

 about as trustworthy as the statements concerning 

 glucose being extensively fed to bees, as quot- 

 ed from the American Cyclopedia in Gleanings 

 of July 15th. The fact is, that much of the sci- 

 ence, so called, in our cyclopedias, is compiled 

 by men who glean from all sources— good, bad, and 

 indifferent, and who are entirely incompetent to 

 judge, either of the accuracy of the statement or 

 the reliability of the source gleaned from; but they 

 conclude that, as they are found in print, the state- 

 ments must be true. 



I am constantly compelled to remind my students 

 that the science found in the general press, the 

 daily, weekly, and monthly periodicals, is very un- 

 reliable. As for myself, I never feel safe in accept- 

 ing a scientific statement unless 1 get it over the 

 name of a well-recognized authority, or in a book 

 from one of the masters in that special department. 

 Until within comparatively recent years, science 

 was in a very confused state, and, indeed,.' is still so 

 in many respects, some fact being mingled with 

 much fancy; but out of this "scientific Babel" a 

 more reliable literature is slowly growing. 



Webster's Dictionary was found to be so incorrect 

 in many of its cuts and definitions that it is now be- 

 ing revised by a number of specialists. For ex- 

 ample, one takes all the chemical words, another all 

 the botanical, another those of a physiological 

 character, and still another the zoological, or archi- 

 tectural, or law, etc., each being a well-recognized 

 authority, and standing high in his profession; and 

 thus we shall soon have a thoroughly reliable book. 



Again, besides going to an oft-unreliable source. 

 Miss Q.'s statements, when secured, were not entire- 

 ly correct; and I am constrained to call attention to 

 it because Gleanings, doubtless, is read by many 

 who are interested in hop culture, and consequent- 

 ly in the hop-pkutt louse. The true history, as 

 recently worked out, is as follows : 



The eggs are deposited on the plum in the fall by 

 perfect wingless females. In the spring, as the 

 leaves put forth, these hatch into wingless agamic 

 females; that is, females that can reproduce without 

 the aid of males ; and these bring forth a generation, 

 the second wingless like themselves. The third 

 generation, which appears during the early days of 

 June, are winged agamic females, and these mi- 

 grate to the hop, which by this time is far enough 

 developed to furnish food to the plant lice; and 

 these, after going to the hop, produce the fourth 

 generation, which are again wingless, and these in 

 turn produce other wingless forms, and thus on 

 through the summer, generation after generation, 

 till late in August or early in September, when a 

 generation of winged forms, about the twelfth of 

 the year's product, are brought forth. These, too, 

 are agamic, as all preceding have been; also at this 

 time all those produced by the surviving members 

 of previous generations, even as far back as the 

 fifth, have wings. In other words, all those pro- 



