NOVEMBER 15, 1915 



937 



Leaf nectaries of cotton. 5. Outer involucral gland. 6, a, b, c, d, e, nectaries on leaves. 

 From Bulletin 131, Bureau of Plant Industry.) 



ers and fruit of many species of eucalyp- 

 tus are eiven in Bulletin 225, Agr. Exp. 

 Station, Berkeley, Cal. The picture of the 



flower and nut-like fruits of the bluegum is 

 natural size. 



Waldoboro, Maine. 



BEES IN THE HONEY -HOUSE 



BY FRANK L. POLLOCK 



Bee-escapes on the honey-house windows 

 at extracting time have proved a two-edged 

 sword with me. The escaping bees return 

 and hover about the screen windows as long 

 as they live, and sometimes succeed in find- 

 ing a way in through some tiny unsuspected 

 hole. I was forced to adopt the Townsend 

 method of closing the escapes till after 

 extracting, and then can-ying out a big 

 cluster of bees all at once. But it is annoy- 

 ing to have the honey-house full of bees 

 while extracting is going on, crawling over 

 the floor, getting into the honey, and caus- 

 ing innum.erable stings, especially to the 

 uncapper. 



I have hit upon the following device, 

 which turned out very useful. In each 

 upper corner of the screen window is a 

 cone escape, with a pretty large opening. 

 This does not lead into the open air at all, 

 but into a box about a foot square, hung on 

 the outside of the honey-house by two 

 hooks. This box has two sides of wire 

 cloth, and one of the wooden sides is on 

 hinges, and can be opened out like a door. 



The large cone escapes keep the window 

 well clear of bees all the time, and they go 

 out into this box and no further. A few 



may possibly come back. At the end of the 

 day the box may be unhooked, carried into 

 tlie yard, and the bees dumped out, without 

 any danger of their locating the screen 

 window. 



I was forced to this expedient by my bees 

 developing a peculiarly ingenious form of 

 robbing this summer. The bees that were 

 earned into the honey-house on the combs 

 presently seemed to content themselves 

 pretty well, and I discovered that they were 

 doing a lond-ofifice business by carrj'ing 

 honey to the screen window and passing it 

 through to the bees on the outside. Having 

 unloaded in this way they went back to ihc 

 uncapping-box for more. 



I sat and watched them at this for some 

 time, and I obsen^ed that almost every bee 

 that took wing loaded from the cappings 

 ejected a fine spray of fluid before reaching 

 the window. This has often been observed 

 when bees wei'e taking thin nectar, and is 

 supposed to be the superfluous water; but 

 this was very thick well-ripened honey- 

 Where did that surplus water come from? 



Incidentally I would venture to say that 

 I think the plain wire cone is the best form 

 of bee-escape yet devised. An escape-board 



