156 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



June 



attractive to the bees. I fiud the 

 shrubs alive with these little insects, 

 bearing away their heavy load of pol- 

 en and honey. As they bleom in late 

 March and early April, before the 

 sage and buckwheat are in blossom, 

 they are quite valuable as early bee- 

 forage. 'J'his is especially true in out- 

 apiaries away from the orchards. The 

 genus of the buckthorn is Ceanothus, 

 of which genus there are a large num- 

 ber of species. Like nearly all of the 

 bee plants of California, these buck- 

 thorns are a long time in bloom, and 

 are thus far more valuable as honey 

 plants than they would otherwise be. 



Orange Bloom and Bees. — Dur- 

 ing the last few days the hum of the 

 bees has been very constant and very 

 loud in all the region about Clare- 

 mont. The orange orchards are in 

 full bloom, and the odor is not only 

 very preceptible in the streets near by 

 the orchards, but is borne by the 

 winds to regions far distant, even to 

 apiaries miles away ; thus swarms of 

 bees are passing from the apiaries to 

 the orange orchards in quest of the 

 nectar. 



Appropos to the above, I would say 

 that 1 know of no honej^ more delici- 

 ous than that from orange bloom. As 

 we might expect the flavor reminds 

 one decidedly of the odor. 1 have 

 often secured enough fruit blossom 

 honey in Michigan, so that 1 could 

 test its quality. I always found it 

 very delicious. There was a delicate 

 reminder of fruit preserve which was 

 altogether agreeable. Thus I was not 

 surprised to learn how exquisite this 

 orange blossom honey is. 



Bee-Martin or Kingbird. — It is 

 a fact beyond question that the bee- 



bird, or bee-martin, or king bird, 

 lyranmis tyrannus, destroys bees, both 

 drones and workers, in the Eastern 

 States, often to quite an extent. We 

 also have a bird said to destroy bees 

 here in California. It belongs to the 

 same genus as the one already men- 

 tioned. These birds sit on a perch, 

 and as the bee comes towards the hive, 

 darts after it, catches it in its bill and 

 flies back to its perch. It is then seen 

 to go through certain motions, after 

 which the bee is swallowed, and it is 

 ready to repeat the operation. I am 

 very curious to know what becomes of 

 the bee's stinger. From what we know, 

 we should expect that the bird would 

 certainly get stung in the throat as it 

 swallowed the bee. I have seen toads 

 swallow bees, and, upon dissection, I 

 found just as man)- stings in the toad's 

 throat as there had been bees swallow- 

 ed. In this case, of course, the toad 

 is either callous against the stings, or 

 else not sensitive to the poison. Is it 

 possible that in the case of the king- 

 bird the sting is extracted before the 

 bee is swallowed ? True, this would re- 

 quire no little intelligence ; but I 

 think many of our lower animals are 

 brighter than we give them credit for 

 being. We should suppose that an 

 animal as highly organized as a bird, 

 and especially as these fly-catcher.«, 

 would be injured if stung so much in 

 the throat, mouth, oe.sophagus or stom- 

 ach. I wish those who have oppor- 

 tunity to observe this matter would 

 kill and dissect a bird and find what 

 is the truth in the matter. If, as is 

 'probable, the bees are found without 

 their stingers, then the latter should 

 be looked for in the interior part of 

 the alimentary canal of the bird. 

 Years ago I dissected kingbirds and 

 found worker- bees in their stomachs, 

 but I regret to say that I never 

 thought of the stingers, and so made 

 no observations in reference to this 

 point. 



Claremont, Calif., April 21. 



