620 



GLEANINGS IN liEE ClULTUUE. 



At TO. 



leaves, or is it something' else? On the 20th of May 

 I had 'U strong colonies; from that date to the 15th 

 of June all cast heavy swarms, and were hived as 

 follows: M swarm wliere 1st had issued from; lid 

 where ;.M had issued from, and so on, so that, by 

 the mth of .June, 1 had trained but one colony. Of 

 course, no after-swarming- was allowed. You can 

 Imagine the strength of the colonies on the Ifitli of 

 .lune. They were powerful. Up to that date they 

 liail done great work on fruit-bloom and white 

 clover. Ilasswood opened about .Tuly 4tli, and 

 some trees are still in bloom; there is also an abund- 

 ance of sweet clover, white clover, motherrt-ort, 

 and catnip, all of which the bees are working on. 

 During the jiast week 1 expected a great deal of 

 swarming and an immense croj) of honey; but as 

 something seemed to be wrong I went through all 

 the colonies and found very few bees in the upper 

 stories, and the brood-combs only nicely covered. 

 They all looked as though they had cast a swarm 

 the day l)efore. The queens are the best, nu)6t of 

 them hatched in 1H85 and '80; their combs are tilled 

 with healthy brood, no dead bees in the hives, or on 

 the ground in the apiary. Every thing seems to be 

 all right except the absence of the field-bees. The 

 new lioney is of good color andciuality; the cap- 

 ping is a shade darker than nsual. Part of the col- 

 onies are working for comb and part for extracted; 

 all are alfected alike. What the outcome will be 1 

 can not predict, but 1 will report later. I can not 

 believe that anybody is poisoning them, as T don't 

 know that I have an enemy in the world. 



I have sent Prof. Cook some of the basswood- 

 leaves. Geo. H. McGkk. 



Point Marblchead, Ottawa Co., O., July W, 18Sfi. 



Friend M., I hardly think the honey-dew 

 on the basswood-leaves has any tiling to do 

 with the missing bees. It may be iiard to 

 tell what has become of them ; but i.* it not 

 possible they worked themselves out, wore 

 out their wings, and perished V Tiiere is so 

 much water around you that a ragged -wing- 

 ed bee would be more a])t to perisli sooner 

 than he would be in a different locality.— Is 

 this the first season you have tried to return 

 swarms in this way, or have you practiced it 

 before? The effect is. you liave a great 

 (piantity of bees in each hive pretty nearly 

 all of an age ; and when they have livpcl 

 their allotted number of days during the 

 working season, they are g(me almost at 

 once. One fall I brought in a great quanti- 

 ty of bees from a neighbor, to save them 

 from beiug brimstoned. I divided them 

 around in my hives, so as to make tiiem tre- 

 mendously strong, and fed them to get them 

 ready for winter. Tliey used a great amount 

 of sugar ; but when the winter came, my 

 hives that had been overrunniug with bees 

 looked about as you describe yours. The 

 bees I brought home were late swarms ; and 

 as they had nothing to gather they were of 

 no use, there being plenty in the hive already 

 lo take care of all'the brood the ((ueen could 

 produce ; so when they died of old age I had 

 received almost no beneiit from them what- 

 ever. In your case I should have supposed 

 the swarms would have given you an im- 

 mense crop of honey before they wore them- 

 selves out; but you don't say a word about 

 the amoimt of h(mey you received.— The 

 sticky substance on the basswood leaves 



seems to be the ordinary secretion of the 

 aphides, only it does not seem to be very 

 sweet. Prof, (look replies to friend McUe'e 

 in the next article. 



PLANT NECTAR. 



Some Additional Thovights from Prof. Cook. 



IS IT IMtOliAIU.K THAT IT MAY KILL liKI'lS IN 

 WARM WEATHKIt ? 



fllE leaves sent by Mr. McGce are thickly 

 gummed with a nectar of very doubtful 

 character, if T may .judge from the taste. It 

 is as thick as syrup in cold weather; is very 

 abundant, and quite nauseating to^ the 

 taste. Upon the leaves I tind abundant cast skins 

 of spiders, though no living lice. There can be no 

 doubt but that the nectar is an excretion from the 

 lice. Lice have been very common this year, 

 doubtless owing to the severe and long-continued 

 drought, and have been pretty well studied here by 

 myself and students. 



Upon close examination we find that these plant- 

 lice not only emit drops of nectar from the necta- 

 ries, the long tubes on their backs, but also that they 

 pass a somewhat similar nectar from the alimenta- 

 ry canal through the anus. The nectar from both 

 sources is seen to be quickly a|)piopriated, and 

 seemingly relished by the many ants that are lured 

 by it to the same plants that are sacrificing their 

 sap and lil'e to thi^se myriad lice. 



Until last year I had thought that nectar from 

 aphides (ijlaiit-lice) was always wholesome, and of 

 good llavor, while that from scale, or bark lice, we 

 all knew to be bitter, and even nauseating. Last 

 season the blackberry bushes of Northern Michi- 

 gan were crowded with i)lant lice that furnished 

 much nectar in the late autumn, which was eager- 

 ly gathered and stored by the bees. This neclar, 

 though not so unpleasant as that from bark-lice, 

 was not fit to eat. Some thatl I'eceived early was 

 not very bad, doubtless owing to the liberal ad- 

 mixture f)f honey from tiowers. I thought this not 

 very bad, and said I should not fear to use it for 

 winter food for my bees. Later I got some proba- 

 bly neai'ly <u' quite pure that was decidedly un- 

 wholesome, and I said it was unfit either for table 

 or bees. It is thought that many bees died from 

 the use of this food last winter. 



The nectar on tlie leaves sent by Mr. McGee re- 

 minds me much of that from the blackberry 

 shrubs, and 1 should hesitate to ui-e it for winter 

 food for the bees. That it is killing off the bees at 

 this time, when they are on the wing every day, 

 and can freely void their feces, I much doubt. 1 

 should hardly accept it as a cause until I had 

 proved by thorough investigation that no other 

 cause was present, and, by experiment, by feeding 

 a few bees in a cage, on this nectar, that it was tox- 

 ic, or a poison to the bees. 



I have seen— yea, and tasted— of honey derived 

 from plant-lice, notably from larch-tree lice, and 

 from lice from evergreens, that was excellent in 

 color and flavor. May it not be possible that the 

 nectar from the nectaries and skin of lice is whole- 

 some, while that from the anus is bitter and nox- 

 ious, and that the in-esence or absence of this lat- 

 ter makes the dill'erence? I think the best test in 

 tlie mattei- is our own taste. Ntccr (jirr the /jt'tx 



