524 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 



ing- a passion for bees I thought to derive some 

 pleasure and pei-haps a little profit this season, for a 

 sick man at my ag^e (09) can not look forward with 

 anycorlaiiity. E. Perrv. 



Glenwood, Mass., July 9, 1884. 



I am sorry to publisli sucli a letter, and 

 would not do it were it not for the great 

 number of similar complaints from those 

 who have sent Mrs. Cotton ticcnty dollars for 

 a colony of bees. One singular thinj;- about 

 it is, that almost all com])laiii that tlu-ir col- 

 ony was queenless ; and it would see-ui that 

 her singular request, to let them alone until 

 after ten days, was, that a queen might 

 hatch out by that time. One would think, 

 that after paying the above price for a col- 

 ony of bees in the summer time, he should 

 surely have one with a full set of cond)s full 

 of brood, and a1)0ut as nice a tested Italian 

 queen as coidd well be found. 



HONEY-DEW, AGAIN. 



THIS TIME NOT FROM THE BARK INgECTS. 



fOR the last few days I have noticed the hees 

 working very hard for a couple of hours in 

 the morning, although we have a severe 

 drought and no bloom. This morning I no- 

 ticed they all went in one direction, so I took 

 their line, and followed them. They led me across 

 a large wheat-stubble, and to the edge of a woods, 

 where they would rise to the tops of the trees, 

 where I could hear a big roaring. On entering it I 

 found the underbrush glistening with the honey- 

 dew, with lots of bees licking it up. The trees were 

 soft-maple, so I began to look for the insects, what- 

 ever they might be. At first I could not discover 

 any; but after a while I found the white cottony 

 aphides; but on close examination they seemed to 

 be merely the old dry shells, where the insect had 

 spent the last days of its life. I also noticed that 

 the maple-leaves were covered with a warty bunch, 

 or knot-like substance, and I counted over i;iO of 

 them on a single leaf. They are about the size of 

 half a grain of wheat; some are fresh and green- 

 looking, and others black and dried up. 1 send you 

 by this mail, samples of them. On splitting them 

 open and examining with a glass, I find they are 

 more or less inhabited with living insects; some 

 contain only one or two, and others a dozen or 

 more. Perhaps they will yet be fresh enough for 

 you to find them when you get the sample. 



After laying them aside I again took up the glass, 

 and began examining the under side of the leaves, 

 and, to my surprise, I find that a leaf that looks 

 smooth and clean to the naked eye, the glass will 

 reveal numerous nits, or eggs on it, and also living, 

 crawling lice. 1 believe these leaves I send you all 

 contain them ; if you look along the veins, or ridges 

 of the leaves, you can find them lying along by 

 the side of the ridges. " There, can't you see themV" 

 I have come to the conclusion that this is the source 

 of our " bug honey." 



I also send you a stem with buds and bloom of a 

 bush that grows on low wet ground, that the bees 

 delight in. What is it? A. A. Fradeneurg. 



Port Washington, O., July 31, 1884. 



Friend F., I have been well satisfied that 

 there were more than one kind of insects at 

 work on the maple. I have sent the maple- 

 leaves, with the excrescences on them, to 



Prof. Cook, who will tell us more about 

 them. A few days ago, in passing some 

 elm-trees, I heard such a roaring that at 

 first I thought it must be escaping steam, 

 for I thought it was not possible for any 

 body of bees to make such a racket. Still, 

 it sounded very much like bees, and so I in- 

 vestigated. It was bees on the leaves of 

 the elm-trees. There had just been a light 

 shower, enough to wet the leaves just suf- 

 licieut for them to work, and the bees were 

 literally covering the trees. I examined the 

 foliage", but coidd find nothing on it except a 

 greenish sort of fly, with long feelers and 

 transparent wings that met at a sharp angle 

 above the back. Our boys say the bees have 

 been gathering enough so that they do not 

 trouble by robbing at all, although we are 

 parched up with one of the worst droughts 

 ever known.— The plant you inclose is the 

 Avell-known button-ball, figured and de- 

 scribed in our text-books. I believe it 

 grows only on marshy or swampy grounds, 

 and therefore would be a little difficult to 

 cidtivate for lioney. Some writers have es- 

 timated that it furiiishes more honey in pro- 

 portion than bahSAvood. It seems we are 

 not yet through with the lioney-dew busi- 

 ness. See what our next friend writes: 



HONEY-DEW FROM RED CLOVER. 



There has been no rain to amount to any thing 

 for five weeks, and the bees are not doing much in 

 consequence. We have found bees that can work 

 on red clover, and they are not all Italians or hy- 

 brids either. Bees in this neighborhood have made 

 most of their living and some surplus from red clo- 

 Acr this year. They would begin work by daylight, 

 and continue until dark, bringing in big loads. 

 But the trouble with it was, it was " bug juice " in- 

 stead of nectar; for in nearly every field the whole 

 plitnt, leaves, stems, and all, was covered with little 

 green lice that secreted a Clear, thick, gummy dew 

 that looked something like glucose, but was very 

 much sweeter, and of a rather rank, raw taste, not 

 enough to spoil the honey, but enough to give it a 

 real green "clover" taste. It is very thick; so 

 much so that, when cut across the corners, it will 

 hardly run at all, and its clear sparkling appear- 

 ence is very tempting. G. W. Williams. 



Economy, Ind., July 1!», 18S4. 



WANTED! 



a STItAIN OF BEES THAT "DROP" AS THEY COME 

 INTO THEIR HIVES. 



AVE you any bees that " drop"? There is no 

 ^^^1 dropping among mine. They come home 

 gaily, alight nimbly at the entrance, and 

 walk in without a sign of fatigue. They fill 

 up the hive fast enough, but I want to see 

 them nuike hard work of it, as if they were doing 

 their best. Perhaps I never had as good bees as 

 some. My depajted blacks were gentle, but inefli- 

 cient, and apt to get " millered up." Then I had a 

 batch of queens from a prominent writer and ad- 

 vertiser in Gleanings, that gave me the most 

 vicious and spiteful set of reprobates that I ever 

 saw. No more of that sort for me. They were 

 good fighters, but they needed a servile race to feed 

 them, like a chivalrous class of people. Next I 

 got my " Old Squaw," a russet queen that gave me 



