82 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



Api il 



sniallness were not before adapted? 

 You are all familiar with the fact 

 that our common red clover is not so 

 well adapted to our hive-bees as it is 

 to the longer-tongued Bombus or bum- 

 ble bee. Plants with such long tubu- 

 lar blossoms as the trumpet-vine, gen- 

 tian, etc., and which are rich in honey, 

 but whose nectaries are beyond the 

 reach of our hive-bees, ar© numerous 

 enough everywhere in our land. We 

 know that they secrete nectar, for 

 wild bees — particularly the large Bom- 

 bus — visit them freely ; moreover wild 

 bees and other insects often bite open 

 these tubular corollas near their bases 

 and then our hive-bees are on hand to 

 secure the nectar through these artifi- 

 cial openings. Our common cultivat- 

 ed nasturtiums furnish a good illus- 

 tration of another large class of plants 

 which in size of parts are such as to 

 permit the visits of the large wild 

 bees and our hive-bees as well, but 

 perhaps they are of most value to 

 Bombus. Various species of the lat- 

 ter visit our garden larkspur and get 

 the nectar which our hive-bees can- 

 not reach in the long spur-like projec- 

 tihn of the lower part of the corolla. 

 Primroses are more frequented by 

 Bumbus. Many of the compositae, 

 such as the Sunflower, Thistles, Cone- 

 flowers, etc., are frequented more by 

 wild than hive-bees. The same may 

 be said of some of the nettles, and 

 also of certain nembers of ttie mint 

 family. And all of these plants are 

 wholly or partially lost to our bees be- 

 cause the latter are too small or the 

 former are too large, or because our 

 bees' tongues are too short or the cor- 

 ollas of the flowers are too long ! Pray, 

 why were these plants and our hive- 

 bees so thrown out of harmony with 



each other ! What is to hinder our 

 bringing a bee that is in harmony 

 with and adapted to these blossoms? 

 Would anyone venture to denominate 

 such a scheme, as Mr. Cheshire has 

 done, "an ill considered and unscien- 

 tific fancy?" I repudiate as unscien- 

 tific the view which Mr, Cheshire 

 evidently meant to bring forward that 

 should Apis dorsata be brought to 

 England or to our country it would 

 find no flowers adapted to it. On the 

 other hand, until experiment shall 

 have proven his theory to be true I 

 shall hold to what seems to me far 

 more profitable, namely : That as far 

 as regards the flora of the country 

 this bee, as Apis mellifica has done 

 under similar circumstances, would 

 easily adapt itself to its changed sur- 

 roundings. 



Mr. Philip Baldensperger has ex- 

 pressed opinions concerning Apis dor- 

 sata which I shall not review here, 

 not having seen his last article in full, 

 but a few facts will serve to a certain 

 extent to guide those who read what 

 he says in estimating its value. Mr. 

 Baldensperger has never been east of 

 Palestine, hence has never seen Apis 

 dorsata in its native land, for its west- 

 ern limit is Hindostan. In Palestine 

 Mr Baldensperger saw a few colonies 

 of Apis dorsata which Mr.Rudolf Dathe 

 brought from India in 1883. Mr. Dathe 

 visited India after my return from 

 that country and procured colonies of 

 Apis dorsata from the same localities 

 where I first found them. On his re- 

 turn he stopped for a few weeks in 

 Palestine, and, leaving his East In- 

 dian bees in «harge of a German resi- 

 dent of Jaffa, went sight-seeing him- 

 self. The bees were not intrusted to 

 Mr. Baldensperger, and he himself 



