Gleanings in Bee Culture 



These peach-trees make 

 a line chistering - i)lace 

 for swarms. 



I liave pivoted end- 

 pieces in my excluders, 

 which permit of an uj)- 

 per entrance when need- 

 ed, or of extra ventila- 

 tion. Fig. 1 shows this 

 feature. 



The extracting - house 

 in the back -ground is 

 built in a side-hill so 

 that the honey "runs 

 through it " on "the grav- 

 ity plan. The walls of 

 the building are of wood while the roof is 

 of iron. A honey-store beyond is built of 

 concrete, with a comj)osite roof. 



My work-shop is a skeleton construction, 

 with removable felt i)anels and an iron roof. 



Arateatree, N. Z. 



THE BEE-LOUSE (BR AULA CCECA) 



DR. BRUNNICH. 



On page 118 of the Feb. 15th issue for 1910 

 there is a reproduction of a bee with a louse 

 on its thorax; but I see that in the state- 

 ment accompanying the photograph the 

 idea of the mode of nourishing this little in- 

 sect is not exact. The error is excusable, 

 for I find in a very good book on insects, in 

 the description of the bee-louse, the follow- 

 ing passage: "In the mouth there is a suc- 

 torial sting (?) in a sheath, and the louse is 

 often sitting for hours quite still on the bee, 

 the suctorial sting (?) bored in, sucking the 

 vitals of its host." Cowan, in his "Guide- 

 book," p. 160, in his description of the i)ar- 

 asite, does not mention the manner of tak- 

 ing its food. 



The queen, which harbors sometimes 50 

 or more lice, would be indeed a deplorable 



THE BKE-LOrSE. SOMETTMEP FOT'XD ON YOUNG BEES, QUEENS, 

 AND DKONES. 



being if it should be stung and sucked out 

 \)y so many parasites without being able to 

 defend herself against them; and I think 

 she would soon be killed if this were true. 

 But, hapi)ily, the bee-louse does not possess 

 a suctorial sting, and the parts of its mouth 

 are constructed for sucking only liquid food. 

 In most of our (Jerman bee-books the man- 

 ner of nourishing the parasite is mentioned 

 as taking i)lace when the queen or bee is fed 

 by some" brood-bee, and this supposition is, 

 indeed, the most probable, though to my 

 knowledge no one has observed the act till 



The chitinous harness of the bee's thorax 

 is so strong that it would be almost impos- 

 sible for a suctorial sting to penetrate it. 

 Again, the parasites are to be found only on 

 queens, young bees, and drones — never on 

 old bees which are tlying out and taking 

 their food themselves. The bee-louse must 

 have a very good instinct for picking out 

 the young bees and the queen. 



The structure of the bee-louse is rather 

 intricate, as the accompanying photo shows. 

 Like all insects, the body is eomi)osed of 

 three parts — the head, the thorax, and the 

 abdomen. The form of the head is very ir- 

 regular, with many hollows and protuber- 

 ances, and, like the whole body, it is of a 



