250 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Apr. 15 



nothing of the effective- 

 ness of the smoke that will 

 come therefrom. I keep 

 the fire well off the marble 

 by providing a few brick- 

 bats for the fire-pan to rest 

 on, as shown in the cut. 



COMBS INJURED BY BEES. 



It is astonishing to see 

 how bees will sometimes 

 gnaw to pieces combs that 

 contained honey. Last 

 year I had a colony decimat- 

 ed for some cause, I know 

 not what, as I had not been 

 giving the apiary the at- 

 tention that a well-regulat- 

 ed bee-yard should receive. 

 It fell a prey to robber bees. 

 When bees are properly 

 looked after they are not so 

 apt to play the pranks 

 shown in the accompany- 

 ing illustration. 



It is possible that the col- 

 ony that built the combs 

 had left some sealed stores, 

 and robber bees found it out 

 and at once greedily set up- 

 on securing the abandoned 

 honey. At such times the 

 avaricious bees will pull the 

 cells all to pieces in their 

 mad rush to get at the new- 

 found treasure. In this 

 they resemble human be- 

 ings. I have known boys 

 who, breaking into a store 

 or even into a cherry-or- 

 chard, did more damage 

 while stealing the fruit than 

 the articles stolen were 

 worth. 



manzanita; a winter- 

 ]fl,ow^ering honey- 

 plant. 



Manzanita is a plant pe- 

 culiar, I believe, to Califor- 

 nia, and is found in several varieties, all 

 assigned to Arctostaphylos, of the order 

 Ericacem. The plants or shrubs are 

 found in patches on the hills and moun- 



FIG. 2. — COMBS TORN TO PIECES BY ROBBER BEES. 



tains, as shown in the larger cut, made from 

 a photograph taken above New Almaden, 

 Santa Clara Co. A peculiarity about the 

 plant is that seldom a piece of its wood 

 (trunk or limbs) , even 

 if only a foot long, can 

 be found without some 

 sort of a turn or ttvist in 

 it. Perhaps for this rea- 

 son it is the crookedest 

 wood in the world. 



It has a special inter- 

 est to the bee-keeper of 

 the Golden West inas- 

 much as it is a good 

 secreter of nectar dur- 

 ing the winter and ear- 

 ly spring months. In 

 some localities it yields 

 considerable bee - for- 



age. 



Oakland, Cal. 



FIG. 3. — MANZANITA-BLOSSOMS. 



