560 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



JUI.Y 15. 



what way the bees were removed from the 

 hands, and, being shown the usual method of 

 jerking them off by a downward shake, the 

 Prince of Wales jocosely observed, " And a 

 very good way too." It would be a rare sight 

 in the United States to see one so high in 

 rank as the Prince taking any interest in such 

 things. 



Mr. M. G. Dervishian, of the island of 

 Cyprus, makes a vigorous defense of the Cyp- 

 rian race of bees, as to their hardiness and 

 good qualities in general. He says the French 

 authorities have pronounced the Cyprians to 

 be " the bee of the future." 



In view of what has been said about bring- 

 ing bees/'rc;;; India, one reads with interest 

 what Mr. F. L. Sladen, of Ripplecourt, Eng- 

 land, has to say in regard to taking bees from 

 England to India. Perhaps nobody living is 

 better prepared to speak on this question than 

 Mr. Sladen. whose travels seem to have been 

 very extensive. He says, "Bees have been 

 sent successfully to India on several occasions, 

 but the conditions do not seem to favor them, 

 and sooner or later they become weak, dwin- 

 dle, and die. Failure has generall)- been at- 

 tributed to the bees' inability to resist the at- 

 tacks of various birds and insects which prey 

 on them and reduce their numbers faster than 

 they can be maintained by breeding ; but 

 probably faulty management has also had a 

 good deal to do with it. The chances of suc- 

 cess are greater in the hills than in the plains." 

 Concerning the time of carrying the bees to 

 India, Mr. Sladen says: "In attempting to 

 take a swarm of bees to India there would 

 have to be considered, besides the long and 

 trying journey, the risk of bringing them suc- 

 cessfully through the heat of the Red Sea. 

 October is the hottest month in the Red Sea. 

 In a swarm of Himalayan bees I brought home 

 from Darjeeling in February (the coolest 

 month in the Red Sea) the deaths that oc- 

 curred during the two days after we left Aden 

 amounted to nearly half of the total loss of the 

 three weeks' voyage between Calcutta and 

 Marseilles. On the whole I should recom- 

 mend one not to attempt to do any thing with 

 English bees in India, but to try the native 

 bees and take out only the hives and appli- 

 ances as are best got in England." As to the 

 kind of bees that can best be reared in India, 

 Mr. Sladen 5ays : " The only bee at present 

 admitting of cultivation is Apis mellijica, va- 

 riety Indica, various races of which occur in 

 the hills and plains, and in Ceylon. It may 

 be known roughly from honey-bets unsuited 

 to cultivation by its medium size. The large 

 bee A. dorsata (about )/% in. long), and the 

 srwoWh^Q A. fl ore a (about i\ in. long) both 

 of which build their combs out in the open 

 from boughs of t''ees and shrubs or from over- 

 hanging ledges of rocks, should be avoided 

 except for experiment. " In writing on this 

 subject, Mr. W. Horsfall says : "There 

 should be no difficulty whatever in taking 

 bees from England to India. A better time 

 than October, when the English bee activities 



are over, the queens having generally ceased 

 laying eggs, could not be." 



RELATIONSHIP OF BEE-LIFE TO AGR CULTURE. 



Are Bees Attracted to Flowers by the Color they 



Possess ? 



BY F. GKEINER. 



For the benefit of the readers of Gleanings 

 I will give in the following a synopsis of an 

 address delivered before the Australasian As- 

 sociation for the Advan -ement of Science, by 

 Prof. Albert Gale, on the subject of " Color of 

 Flowers, and its Influence on Bee-life." As 

 far as practical and advisable I will give the 

 professor's own words. Some things may not 

 be new to the readers, but it will h^lp to show 

 them the state of aff drs over there. 



" As I proceed I think I shall be able to 

 show that bee-life and blossoms are so closely 

 associated that, to interefere injuriously with 

 either, will at the same time injure both. An- 

 imal life can not exist without the vegetable 

 kingdom. Some forms of veg^-table life can 

 exist without the presence of animal life, but 

 others would cease to exist without the pres- 

 ence of some forms of insect life. Nearly all 

 insects aid more or less in fertilizing the veg- 

 etable kingdom. 



"Pollen is the fertilizing and vitalizing 

 agent in reproducing all classes of vegetables. 

 It is produced in abundance by all flowerings 

 plants, both by those of conspicuous and in- 

 conspicuous blos.'oms. As a rule, inconspicu- 

 ous flozvers are zvind-lovers, and those of more 

 gaudy tints are insect-lovers. It may not be 

 generally understood that there are male and 

 female elements in the vegetable organism 

 just as in the anim-il organism. Agriculturists 

 and those engaged in vegetable culture do not 

 as a rule know that plants are reproduced on 

 precisely similar lines as animals. Not one 

 out of a thousand has sufficient knowledge of 

 his occupation to understand that there exists 

 a sexuality in plants, and that fertilization is 

 as necessary in plants as in animals The one 

 great aim of all vegetable and animal life is to 

 reproduce its species. Both sexes in all the 

 higher orders of animal life possess locomo- 

 tive powers to enable them to c )me together 

 for procreative purposes. L'comotive powers 

 in plant life arc very rare. 



"The higher oriers of animals are uni sexu- 

 al ; occasionally there are malformations tt rm- 

 ed hermapiirorlites ; but in the plant world 

 the higher orders are uni-sexual, bisexual, or 

 hermaphrodites — unisexual when the male 

 and female organs are on separate plants ; bi- 

 sexual when male and female organs are in 

 separate flow ers but on the same plant ; her- 

 maphrodite when the procreative organs are 

 both on the same blossom. Yet, nevertheless^ 



