796 



GLEA:N'1KGS IK 13EE CULTURE. 



Oct. 



liave taken it from apple, wild and tame cVierry, 

 i)rtSswood. and tliorn. Now we must add tulip. 



Mr. John Burr, of Braceville, Til., sends a wasp— 

 often called the white-faced hornet. He says he 

 found it in his hive, and he desires to know through 

 Gt-EANiNGS its character. These are our largest 

 paper-making wasps, Vespa macuhttn. Their liabits 

 ai'c much the same as tliose of the still more com- 

 mon yellow-jacket, Ve^pn vulgaris. Both are social, 

 like our bees— that is, live in colonies, and, like our 

 bees, thej' have queens, workers, and males. They 

 make large, more or less globular paper nests, oft- 

 en more than olie foot in diameter. On one side of 

 this is a circular opening, leading to the parallel 

 banks or galleries of hexagonal cells. These nests 

 are usually formed in trees, sometimes under the 

 cornices of buildings, and more rarely in boxes. I 

 have known this white-faced wasp and also the yel- 

 low-jacket to build their nests In an unused bee- 

 hive. The yellow-jacket's nest is similar, except 

 that it is smaller and has smaller cells, and is often 

 formed in some underground cavity. 



The paper-making wasps cut wood from old trees 

 and boards, and make a pulp of it with which their 

 nests are made. These wasps are like bees in their 

 reproduction. The males come from unimpregnat- 

 ed eggs; and as is the case with the bumble-bees, the 

 fertile female alone survives the winter, and so she 

 has to commence operations alone in early spring. 

 The first brood produces, as in case of bees, only 

 workers; later the drones and queens appear. The 

 larva?, like those of the honey-bees and bumble- 

 bees, are fed prepared food. 1 presume this, like 

 the same in bees, is digested food, or chyle. The 

 larvie are longer than those of bees in their de- 

 velopment. The eggs are a week in hatching; the 

 larviP are feeding for two weeks, and are in the 

 pupa; state a week and a half ; so it takes a month 

 or more to develop the workers. How long it takes 

 to develop the queen or drone I know not. 



The food of these wasps is very varied. They eat 

 meat from scraps in the butcher-shop, kill and eat 

 flies and other insects, and, as Mr. B. discovered, 

 are not averse to eating honey, for which they oft- 

 en enter the hives of honey-bees. One summer I 

 had a nice colony of yellow-jackets in a bee-hive in 

 my apiary. While I was working with the bees, the 

 wasps would often alight on the frames and sip the 

 honey. They got so used to me that I could push 

 them aside, and could raise the cover from tlieir 

 hive, and examine their nest, without distui-bing 

 them, or myself receiving harm. I do not think 

 these wasps do any serious harm. I know they kill 

 some of our worst insect-pests, and so do good. Al- 

 though they have very cruel stings, they will rarely 

 use them unless provoked to do so. A. J. Cook. 



Agricultural College, Mich. 



While this study of insects does not al- 

 ways pertain directly to bee cnltnre, it 

 seems to help the bee-keeper to work more 

 intelligently when he becomes acquainted 

 with insects nearly related to honey-bees. 

 In the same way it helps us to work more 

 intelligently when we become acquainted 

 not only with the habits of the bee moth, 

 but also other moths— the cut-worm and 

 even the butterflies. I confess I never 

 knew, until 1 read it above, that wasps, 

 hornets, and yellow-jackets, have queens, 

 drones, and workers, as do honey-bees. We 

 are to presume, then, that the drone yellow- 



jackets, like drone bees, can not sting. The 

 next time I tear down a yellow-jacket's nest 

 I am going to look for drones. I suppose 

 the ([ueen wasp and queen yellow-jacket, 

 after once behig fertilized, lay eggs that 

 produce workers and queens for a year or 

 more. The only great difference, then, be- 

 tween these insects and the honey-bees is, 

 that the queens hibernate, and thus live 

 over winter without any workers to keep 

 them warm, while the queen bees do not 

 and can not. By the way, friend Cook, 

 haven't I struck on a new distinction be- 

 tween hibernating insects and those that do 

 not hibernate? True hibernation embraces 

 the power of keeping alive through winter, 

 without the assistance of a body of insects 

 to keep up the temperature. 1 suppose the 

 queen bumble-bee lives safely through the 

 winter, in a temperature even below zero, 

 and this, too. alone by herself, not being in- 

 side of a cluster of living insects. 



A TEXAS LETTER. 



PATENT MOTH-PROOF (?) hive; SOME REASONS FOR 

 PUTTING HIVES ON BENCHES, IN THE SOUTH. 



X^ AST year you and I had a tilt about an adver- 

 1^ tisement of a honey-e.xtractor. You seemed 

 ^l^ to doubt my honesty. The consequence was, 

 -*" my advertisement did not appear in Glean- 

 ings last year. This year I had it inserted 

 two times only, and I am well pleased with the re- 

 sult. My patrons hardly ever asked any questions, 

 but simply sent me the money and told me how to 

 send the machine. I suppose it is because your 

 readers know you don't advertise humbugs. 



I was born and raised here in a wild country, 39 

 years ago; I was a cowboy and farmer, and had 18 

 months' poor schooling in the English and German 

 languages. I learned the carpenter trade, married 

 at 20, and started a small country store; yes, and the 

 credit system soon nearly bankrupt me. I had to 

 shove the plane and saw alongside of my little 

 store, and begin to invent, and take out patents, 

 with which 1 have had tolerably good success, so 

 that up to now I have four farms and some city 

 property, besides my business and little home. I 

 inclose you a photograph of myself, rough and 

 ready, as I am at work, 

 with pencil behind my ear. 

 I send you, also, another 

 photograph of my little 

 apiary, taken about April 

 10th. I suppose you will 

 say, "Confound these pat- 

 entees! they will always 

 try to have things differ- 

 ent from anybody else, 

 and contrary to rule;" but 

 let me tell you that I am 

 no bee-hive patentee, nor 

 is there any patent hive in the apiary, except the 

 old discarded one you see in the front on the 

 ground. It was claimed to be a moth-proof hive, 

 with a drawer underneath to catch moths; but I 

 don't like it. It raises more moths and ants than 

 any other I have ever seen. I used to have all my 

 hives on the ground, or a few inches only from the 

 ground; but the weeds and t;rass grow so rank and 

 fast here that it is much trouble to keep them down. 



