1002 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 15 



over an inch, when they seek, a place to form a 

 loose cocoon of silk holding together the hairs 

 which they cast from their bodies. Within, this 

 loose silken and spiny cocoon, which, as you say, 

 is often found on the sides of the trees, may trans- 

 form into a chrysalis, and there remain, either 

 during the entire winter or dur- 

 ing a few days in midsummer, as 

 there are two broods per year. 

 After they emerge from the chrys- 

 alis the males fly; but the females 

 remain clinging to the old co- 

 coons, where they lay masses of 

 eggs covered with a white frothy 

 substance, which hardens and par- 

 tially protects them. When these 

 egg masses hatch, the little cater- 

 pillars which hatch out crawl to 

 the green foliage of the trees and 

 first eat very small holes in the 

 leaves, but later devour practic- 

 ally the entire leaf, almost strip- 

 ping the trees and causing con- 

 siderable damage. 



As they are leaf-eaters, or feed 

 by chewing their food, they can 

 be killed by arsenical sprays with 

 certainty. For this purpose, 

 w^cre a spray-pump is available 

 it is possible to use one-half pound of Paris 

 green in fifty gallons of water, or three pounds 

 of arsenate of lead in the same amount of 

 water. However, it is not easy to spray large 

 shade-trees, and it is more desirable to destroy 

 the pests while in the cocoon or egg state by 

 touching them with sponges fastened on the 

 ends of long poles and dipped into oil. Com- 

 mon kerosene or coal oil will do for this, but it 

 would be well to have it blackened by the addi- 

 tion of tar or some other pigment in order that 

 the cocoons that have been touched may be stain- 

 ed, so that the operator can see at once which he 

 has treated, and work more rapidly without hav- 

 ing to repeat his work as he goes around the trees. 

 In order to preserve the parasites it is a good 

 plan to gather the cocoons and egg masses by 

 hand, by using short ladders or step-ladders, and 

 placing them in boxes with wire screens over 

 them. The parasites can come out and be free 

 to escape through the coarse meshes of wire, while 

 if the larvas would hatch in such a place they 

 would not find the leaves, and perish. 



Harrisburg, Pa. 



lows movements of the palmar in more than one 

 plane, all the joints are constructed like hinges ; 

 that is, when one part is fixed, the movement of 

 the other is always in a plane. If the axes of all 

 8 joints were parallel, the movements of the legs 

 would be very much restrained ; but this is not 



FIG. 1. — SECTION THROUGH THE BASKET OF THE TIBIA OF 

 THE THIRD OR HIND LEG. 



the case, for the axes lie in different directions, 

 which allows the most complicated movements 

 of the leg. It is this construction which hns 

 been imitated by engineers, and it can be seen in 

 many branches of mechanics. 



The most important joint in any of the legs is 

 the tibia palmar, which shows in each leg a won- 

 derful apparatus of its own. This joint allows 

 movement in more than one pl.me. 



THE LEGS OF THE HONEY-BEE. 



BY DR. BRUENNICH. 



Every schoolboy ought to know that the bee 

 has three pairs of legs; but not every bee-keeper 

 knows that every leg is a wonderful mechanism 

 and has an apparatus of its own. Let us look at 

 the details of these wonderful parts of our little 

 insect. Every leg consists uniformly of 9 parts 

 and 8 joints. The first is the haunch, or coxa ; 

 the second, the trochanter; then come the femur, 

 the tibia, and the foot. The latter is composed 

 of 5 parts, of which the first is the longest. With 

 the exception of the tibia-palmar joint, which d- 



FIG. 2.- 



At the end are shown the two chiw 

 the pulvillus. 



FOOT OF THE BEE. 



between them. ;U 



In the case of insects the skeleton is not interi- 

 or, but quite exterior, and consists of the chiti- 

 nous membrane, or skin, which servesjto hold 



