.TANUARY 15, 1915 



71 



t)in^ Mr. Ant ajid showins: him tlie door 

 Mr. Ant ran risiht up to ]\Iiss Bc'c and 

 ^^rabbed for her! At tliis tho bee turned, 

 ran, and squealed, or whined, as Mr. Cooper 

 calls it. To nie it sounded like a squeal of 

 fear. "When the ants get hold of bees (thej' 

 usually get them by the leg), the bees seem 

 terrified, and usually ily away, ant and all. 

 Sometimes a bee will get up courage enough 

 to seize an ant, when they also Ily away 

 witli them. I cannot say positively, but 

 lliink from what obsen-ation I've had, that 

 tlie ant never lets go. His grip is that of a 

 bulldog, I believe, and while the bee rids 

 the hive of one ant by flying, perhaps, far 

 atield with him, yet it seems highly probable 

 that the ant also holds the bee in a death- 

 grip, so that she does not return. When we 

 found that the ants would in a short time 

 conquer the bees we got busy. We set one 

 or two of the worst besieged hives up on 

 stakes, painted around them with axle 

 gi'ease, and sent at once for kerosene. We 

 took a sprinkler and sprinkled kerosene 

 over all the ant-mounds, and along the main 

 trails Avhere they were traveling thickest, 

 and set it afire. We used up probably a 

 l)arrel of kerosene in getting the ants de- 

 .><troyed enough so that the bees were safe. 

 We found that the remnants of colonies of 

 ants would gather together and start busi- 

 ness again, a handful or so seeming to be 

 able to start a colony and recuperate again. 

 But as the bees built up and became strong 

 they would repel the few ants that would 

 occasionally reach the liives from these. By 

 prompt action we suffered no material dam- 

 age to the bees the first season; and the 

 next, while there were a few colonies of the 

 ants, they were not populous enough to 

 forage the beej-ard, so the matter slipped 

 our mind. 



La.st spring we again i)laced the colonies 

 at this yard on their stands, and noticed the 



ants were again quite numerous; so we 

 intended to go over and give them another 

 lound with kerosene; but something pre- 

 vented our going to this yard again for a 

 couple of weeks. When we did reach the 

 yard we found such a state of affairs as 

 exists in Europe. War was on. One colony 

 was gone completely — not a bee in the hive. 

 I suppose they liad swarmed out, and the 

 ants had dragged off the dead ones, as not 

 a bee remained, dead or alive. Several other 

 hives were about on their last line of de- 

 fenses, being huddled up on top of the 

 combs with the ants all about the entrance, 

 and dragging down a bee here and there 

 wlienever they could get hold of one. We 

 managed to save all these, however, by set- 

 ting the hives on clean bottoms, thus getting 

 most of the ants away, and stamping tho.se 

 coming and going to prevent their getting 

 into the hives. We again got kerosene, and, 

 setting some of the hives away, we sprin- 

 kled the leaves and grass around the hive- 

 stands with kerosene and burned it off. This 

 burned space bothered the other ants so 

 that it checked the attack on the hives, and 

 in the mean wliile we again gave their 

 mounds and runways the kerosene-and-fire 

 treatment. After that we kept a heavy 

 stamper, such as is used for firming the 

 ground before laying cement sidewalks; and 

 whenever we were at that yard we looked up 

 all the remnants of ant colonies and stamped 

 tliem with this stamper. 



Yet with all this warfare on them I think 

 there are yet enough ants within reach of 

 that j-ard to exterminate it within three 

 years, if left alone. We think these ants are 

 a little the most persistent and about the 

 '' ner\'iest " creatures yet encountered. We 

 are now debating whether to go on fighting 

 ants or move the yard. 



Dunlap. Iowa. 



A REVIEW OF TWO GOVERNMENT BULLETINS 



Obeervalions of the Temperature of the Hciraev Cluslter in Wimltcr 



r.V i;. F. HOLTERMANN 



Before me lie two bulletins, Nos. 9,'} and 

 9G of the United States Department of 

 Agriculture. The former is by E. F. Phil- 

 ips, Ph.D., and his assistant, George S. 

 Demuth, Washington, D. C; the latter by 

 Burton X. Gates. Ph.D., now of the Massa- 

 chusetts Agricultural College. 



In my estimation these two bulletins con- 

 tain the report of some of the very best 

 work ever done for beekeepere by govern- 

 ment agricultural experiment stations. There 



is abundant room for the beekeeper to find 

 fault with much of the work done by various 

 agricultural departments, if that work is 

 sujiposed to be done in the interest of bee- 

 keei)ei-s, but the investigations reported iii 

 these bulletins are of a nature bearing di- 

 rectly upon a problem which is of the 

 utmost importance to every northern or 

 northerly beekeeper. The investigations and 

 results recorded are none the less valuable 

 because they (with scarcely an exception) 



