1896. 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



43 



this description they acquire a taste 

 for robbery and violence. They re- 

 cruit whole companies, which get more 

 and more numerous, and finally they 

 form regular colonics of l)rigand bees. 



But it is a still more curious fact 

 that these brigand bees cau be pro- 

 duced artificially by giving working 

 bees a mixture of honey and brandy 

 to drink. The bees soon acquire a 

 tastes for this beverage, which has the 

 same disastrous efifects upon them as 

 upon men. They become ill disposed 

 and irritable and lose all desire to 

 work, and finally, when they begin to 

 feel hungry, they attack and plunder 

 the well su^iplied hives. 



There is one variety of bees — the 

 sphecodes — which lives exclusively 

 upon plunder. According to INIar- 

 chall, this variety is formed of in- 

 dividuals of the halyetes species, 

 whose organs of hidification were de- 

 fective, and which have gradually de- 

 veloped into a separate variety, living 

 almost exclusiv^ely by plunder. They 

 may thus be said to be an example of 

 innate and organic criminality among 

 insects, and they represent what 

 Professor Lombrosso calls the born 

 criminals — that is, individuals which 

 are led to crime by their own organic 

 constitution. — Forum. 



HOW TO DESTROY MICE IN A 

 BEE HOUSE. 



We do not believe in advocating 

 cruelty to animals, but we are forced 

 from last years experience to advocate 

 most strongly the use of any and every 

 means to rid the hives from mice. It 

 is very important indeed that this 

 should be closely looked after — equal 

 quantities of arsenic, white granulated 



sugar and flour mix-ed dry, put on 

 little pieces of paper about the hives 

 or apiary, where it can remain for 

 some time without being exposed to 

 dampness, is a very sure way of ridding 

 the place of mice, yet in some instan- 

 ces where they can feed on bees in 

 hives they seem to care little for the 

 poison. Another plan we have adopt- 

 ed, which frequently gave us good 

 satisfaction : Take a pail half full of 

 water, scatter a little wheat chaff on 

 the top to make it look like a chaff bin. 

 A board from two to four feet long, 

 with one end on the floor and the oth- 

 er on the side of the pail, in fact bet- 

 ter one on each side of the pail, then 

 scatter a little bran, meal or flour, dust 

 it lightly on the board. 'J'he mice 

 will run up and look down upon the 

 chaff where you have the meal scat- 

 tered, they will jump down off the 

 board on the chaff in the pail to get 

 the meal, the chaff will sink around 

 them, and the mice drown. We have 

 caught five or six in a pail in one 

 night this way. We recollect once, 

 that in one of our own apiaries having- 

 several deer-mice and a chipmouk, 

 which had gone into the bee-house 

 from a neighboring wood about twen- 

 ty rods away. They were so anxious 

 to investigate the pail business that 

 they got into it. Perhaps rats might 

 be caught in the same way. 



"How to Manage Bees " is a 50c 

 book for beginners in bee keeping. 

 We will send it postpaid for 25c. 



