1434 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 1 



tions. I doubt if they will do any real harm. 

 They will kill off all wild bees, and apiaries poor- 

 ly attended to will suffer. They are carnivorous 

 ants to a great degree, preferring a meat diet, but 

 will eat sugar, honey, grain, etc. They like a 

 larva in preference to an old bee, hence they make 

 desperate onslaughts on the bees till they get at 

 the brood. Possibly they are a blessing in dis- 

 guise. — W. K. M.] 



BEE-KEEPING IN RIO GRANDE DO 

 SUL, BRAZIL. 



Much Loss, Probably Caused by the Hon- 

 ey from the Herva Lanceta; Some 

 of the Enemies of Bees. 



BY A. L. GREGORY. 



The last season here was hard on bee-keepers, 

 at least in many places. The writer, for example, 

 secured some pure Italians and got them off to 

 one side and began raising queens. All went 

 well until near the middle of our summer when 

 dry weather set in. We did not fear that, how- 

 ever, as the catclaw gives bloom right along; but 

 there is a plant here called Hernja lanceta which 

 we have nicknamed " Brazilian goldenrod. " This 

 soon began to bloom; then we noticed that our 

 bees began to die. Soon we found some dead 

 queens; then more disappeared, until the hives be- 

 came weak from loss of bees and queens; then 

 our hopes went down to the zero-mark. When 

 a queen died, the bees would try to raise another; 

 but finally they all had to die. Each hive was 

 left with more or less honey in it, so we extracted 

 this, which tastes excellent, and does not make 

 us sick. We noted that there was no disease in 

 the brood; but when young bees hatched they 

 soon died, or got so weak they could not walk 

 straight, then died. 



In our vicinity (near Santa Maria) all bee-men 

 fared badly. One old German who had 39 hives 

 now has 3; another, with movable frames also, 

 had 62 hives and lost 57. We could cite case 

 after case where bees died leaving hives full of 

 honey. 



When a hive got to be sufficiently weak, then 

 the little black wasps and small black bees which 

 we call irapiia (described below) would come by 

 thousands and attack the hive, actually laying 

 hold on Miss Apis Mellifica and dancing her out 

 of her home. 



Bee-keepers have noticed for some years that, 

 when the Heroja lanceta blooms, there have been 

 some losses in the apiary; but they have never 

 experienced as much loss before. Where the 

 writer had his Italians there was much of this 

 Hev-ua lanceta in some thrown-out land, hence 

 the loss in his case of all he had. There remains 

 much to be studied in this thing; and as the aver- 

 age Brazilian is too much at his ease to exercise 

 himself about such small matters, it remains for 

 foreigners to put themselves to the task. 



There are other theories for this year's loss. 

 One is that the locusts, which ate every thing in 

 the spring, left a poison behind. Another is that 

 the red bee-louse killed them; but these were very 

 few, so could not be the cause. Some of the 

 best bee-men are free to confess they do not know 



the cause. The writer thinks it was the Her-x'a 

 lanceta that caused the loss in his case. 



Bee-keeping is at a low tide in Brazil, though 

 now the governing powers are trying to interest 

 the common people in this marvelous industry 

 in which there are not only dollars and cents but 

 pleasure every day of the year. 



The climate in this most southern State is 

 about like that of South Texas. Seldom do we 

 have more than half a dozen frosts a winter, and 

 these are usually in July and August, the latter 

 of which is our most disagreeable month. The 

 poor Brazilian women have a saying that they 

 would like to be dead during this month. We 

 suppose they mean they would like to hibernate 

 during this month as does Mr. Bear. 



THE IRAPUA* BEES OF BRAZIL. 



These small, black, long-legged bees mention- 

 ed above are not provided with a stingas are bees 

 in general; yet they are not without a means of 

 defense, being given by the Creator a strong jaw. 

 They catch hold of the enemy like the ant, for 

 example. They carry on their hind legs a sticky 

 secretion which, coming on the wings and legs 

 of the insect antagonist impedes locomotion and 

 prevents fight. The irapua makes its nest usual- 

 ly in a small bush near the ground. The shape 

 is somewhat like a big gourd inverted. The 

 composition is the same as a wasp-nest, but has 

 compartments and several entrances. The hon- 

 ey is stored in round cells the size of a hen's egg. 

 The writer has not much love for the honey, as 

 the bees will visit any carcass; and from the hun- 

 dreds which go there it is clear they carry some- 

 thing away with them. This bee is one of the 

 enemies of our honey-bee when the hive becomes 

 weakened. When they decide to attack a hive 

 they come by thousands and boldly enter, catch 

 the honey-bees by the leg or wing, and drag or 

 chase them out of their hive, take possession, 

 station sentinels, and begin carrying out the hon- 

 ey. They even stay in the hive over night, so 

 sure are they that " might makes right. " One of 

 these little insects is more than a match for Miss 

 Apis Mellifica in a knock-and-scramble combat. 

 Many times has the writer seen a honey-bee pull- 

 ed out of its hive, glad to fly away from the in- 

 truder and victor. Sometimes one may see a dead 

 irapua hanging to a shy apis. 



There is also another enemy to our bees in the 

 small black wasps. These, however, are not so 

 bold as the bees we have described. They also 

 build a paper nest resembling that of the hornet, 

 divided into many parts, and store honey in the 

 same cells in which they raise their young. We 

 have other bee-enemies, such as the dragon-fly, 

 and many kinds of birds and ants. 



The bee business can, notwithstandingall these 

 enemies of our little pets, be made profitable by 

 the painstaking bee-man, of whom we need a 

 host in our big Brazil. 



Taquary, Rio Grande do Sul,*Brazil. 



[South Brazil can do big things in the bee line 

 when conditions favor. As to tropical Brazil, 

 that's another matter. Apis mell'fica is subject to 

 too many enemips to be a great success. The 

 stingless bees have the American tropics pre- 

 empted.— W. K. M.] 



* Accent on the last a. 



