814 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



A bumble-bee that was obliging enough to pose for its picture. 



although the operator did not intend it as 

 an experiment. The bees here are always 

 very s^jiteful during ti-tree bloom. This 

 starts about the end of March, and has three 

 sessions or lots of bloom, lasting in all until 

 the middle of June. During the time of 

 bloom the honey seems to be secreted in 

 cycles — that is to say, the honey will come 

 with a rush for tlu'ee days, and then let up 

 for two days, and during these spells the 

 bees become very savage. The man I refer 

 to was wearing an old pair of trousers all 

 gummed up with honey and dust, and he 

 got very few stings. Thinking, however, 

 that they were really too dirty to wear any 

 longer, he discarded them and put on a 

 clean pair. A little while after, the bees 

 chased him inside, and he was glad to get 

 into the old ones again. He repeated the 

 attempt to wear the clean one, three times, 

 and then gave it up, and kept to the old 

 ones until the end of the season. 



ARE REDWOOD HIVES MORE IMMUNE TO DIS- 

 EASE THAN THOSE OF PINE ? 



I think not. I have a lot of redwood 

 hives in use — California redwood — and also 

 thousands of redwood frames, and the bees 

 become diseased just as easily in one as in 

 the other — at any rate I can see no differ- 

 ence. 



I am writing from a semi-tropical climate, 

 and we get no American foul ])vood ; but we 

 do get black brood or what has been renam- 



ed the European variety. Paralysis, or Isle- 

 of- Wight disease, is also found. 



Away down soutli, 400 miles, where I 

 have my other apiaries, the American dis- 

 ease is found, and the other two as well, 

 although we have none of the former in the 

 apiaries, nor has there been any for many 

 years. Paralysis is not nearly as bad there 

 as here. Unfortunately we have no foul- 

 brood law in New Soutli Wales, so each one 

 has to look out for himself; and if his 

 neighbor's bees get diseased, and the owner 

 refuses to clean up, he must put up with it. 

 We have to be thankful that nature pro- 

 Abides a remedy for the disease in the bee- 

 moth and the ants. The latter eat the hon- 

 ey and the former the wax, and there is an 

 end of the foul brood. 



South Woodburn, N. S. W., Australia. 



A BUMBLE-BEE THAT WANTED ITS PICTURE 

 TAKEN 



BY HARRIS T. KILLE 



Who says that bees are not intelligent ? 

 One might tliink that the bumble-bee shown 

 in the accompanying illustration possessed 

 human intelligence by the way it behaved. 

 I was trying to get a photo of the queen ; 

 but no sooner did I get the camera focused 

 than Miss Bumble Bee came and posed her- 

 self right in front of it. Now, isn't that the 



