566 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



year. I do not think that there will 

 be a bushel of seed in this county. 

 They cut off the blossoms, so the black 

 bees worked on the red clover. 

 Marion,© Ind., Aug. 26, 188.5. 



GteaninKS. 



Gall-Mites on Plum-Trees, 



PKOF. A. J. COOK. 



A few days since 1 received some 

 plum leaves covered with galls on the 

 under surface. They came from F. 

 A. Snell, of Milledgeville, Ills., who 

 writes that they are very abundant 

 on some wild plum-trees in his yard. 

 He asks whether there is any danger 

 of their attacking the leaves of his 

 tame plum-trees. I at once recog- 

 nized these galls as the excrescences 

 formed by the gall-mite, a species of 

 Phytopius. These are injurious to the 

 trees which they infest ; and as the 

 wild and cultivated plum are so 

 closely related, there must be danger 

 that an insect which attacks one will 

 also attack the other if in the vicinity. 



The galls are on the upper side of 

 the leaves, and are hairy, teat-like 

 processes, often so crowded as to be 

 in clusters of five or six in a place. 

 They are yellowish or brown in color, 

 though the color may have changed 

 somewhat, as the leaves were con- 

 siderably dried up. The leaves ap- 

 pear as seen in Fig. 1. These galls 





Fig.]. 



are often on the under side of the 

 leaves, so that the mites can leave the 

 galls and pass out to a new place on 

 the leaf, where by irritation a new 

 gall is formed. The mites which, for 

 these galls, are so minute that they 

 are hardly visible to the unaided 

 vision (they are oblong, Fig. 2), have 

 four feet and four pairs of hairs on 

 the body. These mites lay eggs in 

 the galls, which produce other uiites, 

 and thus the gallsbecome very numer- 

 ous during the season. 



It is of more interest to bee-keepers 

 to know ttiat our maples and bass- 

 woodn suffer from species of Phytop- 

 tus. Phytoptus a6non)iis, Garman, at- 

 tacks the basswood. P. quadripes, 

 Shinier, the soft maple, and P. aceri- 

 fota, Garman, the sugar maple. A 

 soft maple in our College apiary is 

 badly attacked by these mites. 



These mites, as will be seen above, 

 have only four legs, while all other 

 mites (mites are the lowest order of 

 the subclass Arachnoids) have eight 

 legs. There are many mites of in- 

 terest to us. The sugar and cheese 

 mites work on the articles of food 

 which gave the names. The itch mite 

 causes the pustules on tiie hands, 

 usually between the fingers of per- 

 sons suffering from that disgusting 



disease. The red spider is a species 

 of mite, which is often very injurious 

 to house-plants when kept in very dry 

 rooms, and to evergreens, and other 

 plants and trees in very dry seasons. 

 Frequent and copious drenchings 

 with pure water will usually destroy 

 these red spiders. 



The remedies for the Phytopti are, 

 sprinkling with sulphur, and picking 

 and burning affected leaves, or burn- 



FiG. 2. 



ing the entire plants and tree. Pick- 

 ing the leaves is the best plan, if com- 

 menced as soon as the galls are seen. 

 Agricultural College,? Mich. 



For the American Bee JoumaL 



Human Enemies of Bees. 



HENRY ALLEY. 



In adding my name to the list of 

 those who have joined the " National 

 Bee Keepers' Union," I would like to 

 say a few words concerning an ex- 

 perience which Mr. John Gould and 

 myself had, here in Weuham, some 19 

 years ago. 



Mr. Gould, at that time, kept the 

 largest number of colonies for the 

 production of comb honey in Essex 

 county. His success for awhile was 

 rather better than the average bee- 

 keeper in New England. One season 

 he succeeded in getting an extra large 

 crop of comb honey, and increased his 

 apiary to about double what it was in 

 the spring. This was more than his 

 neighbors could stand. They said that 

 as Mr. Gould had but one acre of 

 land, the larger part of his crop of 

 honey was stolen from the flowers 

 grown on other peoples' land, and so 

 they commenced the meanest kind of 

 a warfare upon the bees and their 

 owner. One of Mr. Gould's neigh- 

 bors, quite early in the spring, opened 

 wide a chamber window and placed 

 some honey in the room, to entice 

 the bees to enter it. As there was no 

 forage in the fields, the bees entered 

 the window for the coveted sweets, 

 and when they were entering the 

 room, by thousands, the window-sash 

 was lowered to witliin half an inch, 

 thus leaving ample room for the bees 

 to enter, while they could not readily 

 (ind their way out. As the bees 

 gathered on the window, our " chris- 

 tian " neighbor inside killed them 

 by threshing them with towels. This 

 kind (V) neighbor claimed that he 

 killed the bees by the bushel ! Al- 

 though the bees were being slaugh- 

 tered before the owner's eyes, Mr. 

 Gould was powerUss to prevent it, 

 and not being a " fighting man," had 

 to " grin and bear it." This sort of 



warfare had not long continued when 

 the idea struck this enemy of the 

 bees, that poison would be a much 

 quicker and more effective method 

 forgetting rid of them, so poisoned 

 honey was set in several places ; but 

 not understanding how to prepare 

 food for feeding bees, it was not 

 much of a success ; still our friends 

 did not give up the idea of poison 

 until I inquired of some of them 

 whether or not the same poison used 

 for destroying the bees would not be 

 equally as effectual in killing dogs, 

 cattle, horses, etc. They soon dis- 

 covered that the game of " poison " 

 could as well be played by two per- 

 sons as one. 



Then another idea struck him : 

 " Let's call a town meeting, muster 

 our forces, and vote to have the bees 

 removed from the town." This was 

 a partial success. The meeting was 

 called, and a vote was passed to have 

 the bees removed from town. Who 

 was to remove them, where they were 

 to be taken, etc., were questions that 

 caused considerable trouble to the 

 howlers. Finally, -nothing was done 

 about it, as each one was afraid to 

 undertake the job to remove the bees, 

 and each one stood back waiting for 

 some one to commence operations. 

 We were hoping some one would 

 have attempted it. Wouldn't there 

 have been " a circus V" I think there 

 would, for I certainly should have 

 offered my services, and I am quite 

 sure that I could have put the bees in 

 proper condition, so that none of the 

 performers would have lacked suffi- 

 cient energy in any of the antics they 

 would have undertaken to make the 

 thing a complete success. 



The argument used by the howlers 

 against the bees, was about as fol- 

 lows : They claimed that the bees 

 were a nuisance anyway ; that there 

 was great danger of people and horses 

 being stung while passing Mr. Gould's 

 apiary, though no person or animal 

 liad been stung ; they also claimed 

 that tlie bees destroyed the fruit by 

 taking the honey from the blossoms ; 

 also that they ruined the ripe fruit. 

 Every thing that could be brought 

 against the bees was hunted up and 

 made the most of, though nothing at 

 all was proven by a particle of evi- 

 dence. 



So far as destroying fruit by taking 

 honey from the (lowers, that is non- 

 sense ; in proof of which I will invite 

 any one (who entertains the above 

 opinion) into my garden to look at my 

 fruit trees with" their heavy loads of 

 fruit. Although tlie fruit is but about 

 half-grown, the trees are breaking 

 down from the heavy weight upon 

 them. 



When I state the fact that I had in 

 my apiary, this year, more than double 

 the number of colonies that Mr. 

 Gould ever had, certainly any one 

 would say (as sucli is a fact) that the 

 bees are a great benefit to all growers 

 of fruit, in fertilizing the blossoms. 

 One old farmer, who had kept bees 

 for forty years, made the remark in 

 our town meeting, that " lie had seen 

 the bees on his barn-yard manure 

 sucking the honey from it, and he did 

 not believe the manure was as good on 



