1S9S. 



THE AMEBIC Aiir BE^-KEEPEB. 



59 



live-oak, too, and Spanish moss, which 

 hangs from its boughs, often in mas- 

 sive festoons, twenty feet or more in 

 length, both bloom during the winter 

 months, and secrete sparingly of honey 

 in the early morning hours, and yield 

 an abundance of pollen; attracting the 

 bees in swarms, even before Old Sol 

 has risen out of the ocean, which 

 stretches away to meet the eastern sky. 



These sources of supply all have a 

 beneficial effect upon the building up of 

 stocks for the regular honey season; 

 though they are of minor importance 

 in comparison with the wild penny- 

 royal, which grows in great profusion 

 in the southern counties and blooms 

 from December until April. Penny- 

 royal is quite a bountiful yielder, and 

 the honey is of extra heavy body, al- 

 most water-white and of delicious fla- 

 vor. This continued flow of honey 

 stimulates the bees to swarming about 

 the beginning of March and fills the 

 hives with workers, ready for the har- 

 vest from palmetto in April and May. 



It is not all smooth sailing, how- 

 ever, even in this "sunny southland," 

 and some of the unpleasant conditions 

 that exist there, and from which no 

 country is exempt, must be reserved 

 for future notice. Chilly nights are 

 not so uncommon as to relieve the api- 

 arist of the necessity of contracting 

 the brood chambers and entrances of 

 the weaker colonies during the winter 

 and bestowing the same care as that 

 requii-ed in such cases during May in 

 the North; and the same loss will re- 

 sult from neglect alike in both coun- 

 tries. 



In certain localities near the sea, 

 mosquito hawks, or dragon-flies, are a 

 great pest, coming, as they do, by tens 

 of thousands, and filling the air about 

 the apiaries, catching and devouring 

 the busy workers by wholesale. There 

 seems to be no practical means of deal- 

 ing with this enemy, which is no small 

 factor in reducing the working force 

 of an apiary in localities where they 

 abound. 



The appetite of these voracious pests 

 is seemingly without limit, as they will 

 capture and munch down several bees 

 in immediate succession. We have on 

 several occasions endeavored to satisfy 

 their ravenous greed by catching two 

 of them, while devouring bees, and al- 

 lowing one to eat all that was eatable 

 of the other; then turning the long, 

 slender posterior of the still-eager 

 gourmand to its head, it would imme- 

 diately proceed to consume its own 

 body with the same apparent avidity 

 and relish that it had shown for its 

 earlier victims — the bees. By the use 

 of a shingle or similar weapon, thou- 

 sands of these hungry pests may be 

 slain in a short time on a summer 

 evening, without any perceptible de- 

 crease in the swarm still darting in all 

 directions to intercept the flight of 

 laden workers. 



The apiary shown in this number of 

 The Bee-Keeper is located in the pen- 

 nyroyal fields of South Florida, about 

 260 miles south of Jacksonville, which, 

 in favorable seasons, is a very produc- 

 tive location and a popular rendezvous 

 of the festive dragon-fly. 



THAT "COMING BEE"— APIS DOR- 

 SATA. 



As our forests and white clove fields 

 are being superseded by ' cultivated 

 fields, the necessity of developing a 

 larger bee, with proportionately in- 

 creased length of tongue, has impressed 

 Adrian Gataz, as shown by an article 

 in the American Bee Journal. He is 

 confident that, by careful selection in 

 breeding, and the use of foundation 

 having slightly larger cells, a red clo- 

 ver strain may be developed. That the 

 introduction of apis dorsata would 

 prove a valuable acquisition to Ameri- 

 can bee-keeping, he has little doubt. 

 As apis dorsata build no drone comb, 

 one obstacle foreseen by Mr. Gataz is 

 the difficulty in controlling a possible 

 over-production of drones. 



Does any one know that it would be 

 at all necessary to restrict bees of this 



