68 



'HE AMERICAN BEE JOURiVAL. 



reasoning or delihemtcly mis'-^tates. Varro says 

 tliat expert bee-kf'cpers need uothiug to space 

 the frames, &s. Bat how if all bee-keepers 

 should not be thus expert ? All men are not 

 born great men; nor do all who engage in tiiccul- 

 tivalion of bees at onee overleap the stars, or 

 reach at a single bound like this the very pin- 

 nacle of Bee-dom Most of us are common 

 folks, and need some instruction to perform our 

 ■work Tv'cll. And not having this very learned 

 and luminous savant always at hand to iufal- 

 lilily point oat the right wa}^ are fain to invoke 

 other aid. And such aid is given in M'\ Allen's 

 Mve, by the due arrangement and security of the 

 frames, which neither hang swinging and sli- 

 ding about, nor kill the industrious denizens of 

 the hive, either in being taken out or returned, 

 by the rubbing together of their sides. 



But enough for the present. If I have failed 

 to make myself understood by this very learned 

 Professor, who T fear has pored over dead lan- 

 guages til) he is blind to live facts, I at least 

 hope to be intelligible to such as understand 

 our mother tongue and use common sense in its 

 interpretation. 



Not Anonymous. W.m. A. Bennett. 



Syracuse, Sept. 5. 18G7. 



Translated for the American Beo Journal. 



The Carpenter Bee. 



The splendid South African insect, the Car- 

 penter 'Bee(Xt/loGapa Cape!isis)\s a wood-boxer I 

 of great power. She sets about her work in a j 

 curiously systematic manner, each action being | 

 exactly calculated, nothing left to chance, and I 

 all useless labor saved. ! 



When the insect has fixed upon a piece of; 

 wood that suits her purpose, usually the trunk ' 

 or branch of a dead tree, an old post, or a piece i 

 of wooden railing, she bores a circular hole I 

 about an ineh-and-a-half in length, and large 4 

 enough to admit her to pass. Suddenly she i 

 turns at au angle, drives her tunnel parallel 

 with the grain of the wood, and makes a bur- 

 row several inches in length. None of the ! 

 chips and fragments are wasted, l>ut are carried ' 

 aside and carefully stored up in some secure ; 

 place, sheltered from the action of the wind. 1 



The tunnel having now been completed, the 

 industrious insect seeks rest in change of em- 

 ployment, and sets olf in search of honey and 

 pollen. With these materials she makes a" little ; 

 heap at the bottom of the tunnel, and deposits 

 an egg upon the food which she has so care- 

 fully stored. 



Having now shown her powers as a bui-rowcr 

 and purveyor, she exhiljits her skill as a builder, 

 and proceeds to construct, above the enclosed 

 egg, a ceiling, which shall be also the floor of 

 another cell. For this purpose, she goes olf to 

 her store of chips, and fixes them "in a ring 

 above the heap of pollen, cementing them to- 

 gether with a glutinous substance, which is 

 probably secreted by herself. A second ring is 

 then placed inside the first, and in this manner 

 tlic insect itroceeds until she has made a nearly 



fiat ceiling of concentric rings. The ceiling 

 bears some resemblance to the operculum of the 

 common water snail. The ceilings constructed 

 by the ant are made on similar principles. Tlie 

 thiclcness of each ceiling is about equal to that 

 of a penny. 



The number of cells is extremely variable, 

 but on the average each tunnel contains seven 

 or eight, and the insect certainly makes more 

 than one tunnel. As each tunnel generally ex- 

 ceeds a foot in length, and the diameter is largo 

 enough to admit the passage of the wide-bodied 

 insect that makes it, the amount of labor ]ier- 

 formed by the bee is truly wonderful. The 

 jaws are the only boring instruments used, 

 and though they are strong and sharp, they 

 scarcely seem to be adequate to the work foV 

 which the}' are destined. When all is complc 

 ted the entrance is closed, with a barrier formed 

 of the same substance and in the same manner 

 as the ceilings. 



Several s))ecies of Xylocopa are indigenous to 

 th« United States. The Virginia Carpenter bee 

 is as large as the Humble-bee, but not covered so 

 denselj'- with hair. The larvre strongly resem- 

 ble those of the Humble-bee, though'less bulky 

 in body and more pointed at the ends. 



Bees Settling on a Man's Hat I— On Mon- 

 day last, while some men were engaged on the 

 highway in our village, a swarm of bees were 

 heard above their heads. They at once set 

 their wits at work to capture them. Old pans 

 wert beaten, tea bells were rung, bushes held 

 up for them to light on, but nothing attracted 

 them to " come down," till the queen bee es- 

 pied a straw hat on the head of Mr. Daniel 

 Callahan, one of tlie workmen on the highwaj\ 

 As soon as the queen lit on his hat the whole 

 swarm followed, and in a minute Mr. C's hat, 

 face, hair, and shoulders were covered wirh 

 the buzzing bees. He did not exactly like 

 their familiaritj, and fought them with dirt 

 furiously for a considerable time, before he 

 could drive them from his person. But by 

 throwing off his hat, he finally rid himself of 

 the bees and succeeded in hiving them. Won- 

 derful to say, that during iiis fierce battle, ho 

 received only one sting. — Littleton (Ja^xitc. 



[For the Bee Juiirniil.] 



Albinos in a Bee-Hive, 



Five bees as white as unbleached cotton cloth 

 were seen in a hive of black bees at swarming 

 time. The old queen had been removed at the 

 time ; and all the young queens produced, five 

 in number, Avere saved in hopes to get the color 

 permanently fastened on other young bees, but 

 failed, They were seen before tlie introduction 

 of Italians. James M. Marvin. 



St. Ch.\rles, Illinois. 



Send us the names of Bee-keepers, with their 

 Poat Office address. 



