Nov. 1, 1911 



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Wesley Foster, Boulder. Colo. 



BEES AND FLY-TRAPS. 



On the main street of Rocky Ford two 

 fly-traps containing a gallon or more of 

 flies were found, and among them were 

 great numbers ot dead or dying bees, com- 

 ])osing between one-third and one-fourth of 

 the mass. The waging of war on the fly 

 may nee:l watching, so that bees may not 

 be trapped in too great numbers. 



SUGAR-BEET SPRAY KILLING BEES. 



Several large apiaries near Rocky Ford 

 were almost totally destroyed last July 

 through a beet-spraying experiment con- 

 ducted by the sugar-factory. A louse had 

 been infesting the beets, so a mixture com- 

 posed of Paris green and syrup (the latter 

 to increase the sticking property) was used 

 on the leaves. Bees were found dead in 

 large numbers in the beet-fields that had 

 been sprayed with this mixture. The ex- 

 periment was an expensive one for the bee- 

 men, and was not successful any way, for 

 the syrup killed the leaves. The experi- 

 ment will probably not be repeated, as soap- 

 water answers the purpose better, and does 

 not injure the leaves of the beets nor attract 

 the bees to the poison. 



BAPTIZING QUEENS. 



Did you ever hear of baptism by sprink- 

 ling for bees, and baptism by immersion for 

 the queens? Well, such are the rites ad- 

 ministered by Mr. E. .1. Wallinger when in- 

 troducing queens. He uses a pan of water 

 that has been warmed in the sun, and 

 sprinkles the cluster of bees at the time the 

 old queen is killed. Then he immerses the 

 new queen, cage and all, in the water, and 

 after a moment releases her among the 

 sprinkled bees. By the time the bees in 

 the hive are dry ihey all smell alike, and 

 so are of one accord. Mr. Wallinger says 

 this is the most satisfactory method of in- 

 troduction he hi^s yet found. He operates 

 between 600 and 700 colonies of bees; is a 

 farmer, assessor of Bent County, secretary 

 of a new irrigation district to water 20,000 

 acres of land, and is secretary of the Bent 

 Co. Melon-growers' Association. 



WIDTH OF GLASS IN SHIPPING-CASES. 



Possibly I have said enough about the 

 width of glass in shipi)ing-cases. Dr. Mil- 

 ler, however, asks if I am not guessing when 

 I say that front strips one inch wide are not 

 strong enough. So far I have failed to see 

 any shipping-case for comb honey strong 

 enough to withstand the treatment accord- 

 ed to local shipments of honey. So far as 

 appearance is concerned, my reason for pref- 

 erence of a narrow glass to a wide one, such 

 as three-inch, is that the wide glass shows 



the unsealed cells and pop-holes too promi- 

 nently. The twentieth-century shipping- 

 case with the circular hole in the cardboard 

 is still another advance. It is unnecessary 

 to display as much of the goods in a double 

 tier as in a single tier, any way; and then 

 people can use their imagination a little if 

 they can not see all the comb that they are 

 buying. Before I try to answer Dr. Miller's 

 inquiry as to why any prefer the wider glass 

 in single-tier cases, I shall wait to find out 

 whether they do. 



DO THRIPS DESTROY THE NECTARIES OF 

 THE FLOWERS? 



Several years ago the alfalfa was bloom- 

 ing beautifully down in the Arkansas Val- 

 ley of Colorado, but the bees were getting no 

 honey. Some of the bee-keepers asked an 

 Agricultural College man who was in the 

 valley at the time what the trouble was. 

 He answered by plucking a few heads of 

 alfalfa and jarring them over his opened 

 palm. Twenty or thirty little mites, dark 

 in color and lively in movement, fell out. 

 These are thrips, of which there are many 

 kinds. They are so numerous that I have 

 been unable to find a single bloom in our 

 garden that did not have from one to half a 

 dozen of these little creatures within it. The 

 dandelions are the most densely populated 

 of the blooms that I inspected, no doubt be- 

 cause the thrips are veiy fond of pollen. 

 I wrote to the Agricultural College, and 

 Prof. S. Arthur .Johnson replied as follows 

 in regard to the thrips: 



The thrips live upon vegetable matter of various 

 kinds, usually living vegetable matter. They ap- 

 pear to be very fond of pollen and the tender parts 

 of flowers. It is believed that they are sometimes 

 responsible for reduction in the production of al- 

 falfa and onion seeds by injuring the stigma of the 

 flowers and preventing proper fertilization. The 

 onion-thrips, often called onion-lice by growers, do 

 serious injury frequently, by chewing the epider- 

 snis of the stems of the plants. In my garden I 

 have noted that thrips for the past two years have 

 injured the buds of cosmos and sometimes pinks in 

 such a way that the flowers failed to be fertile. 

 They are very hard insects to combat, because they 

 are so minute when they hide in the crevices and 

 folded parts of the plants in such a way that it is 

 almost impossible to reach them with any kind of 

 treatment, Greenhoiise thrips are often controlled 

 by means of fumigation. 



This letter indicates, that when the thrips 

 become numerous enough, they not only 

 eat the pollen in the flower but consume 

 some of the delicate parts of the flower. 

 This destruction carried far enough would 

 destroy the secretion of nectar, even though 

 the thrips ate none of the nectar. The 

 thrips are thickest when other insects 

 abound; and if we had only had a species of 

 grasshopper that ate nothing but thrips we 

 might have had a fine honey crop. But 

 the thrips did the fine-tooth work, and ' 

 then along came the grasshoppers and ate 

 the whole blossom, leaves, stem, and all. 



