150 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 1 



the cry of the bees becomes louder and more 

 frequent— so much so that I have frequently 

 heard it fully fifty feet away. The ants usu- 

 ally worry the bees continually for several 

 nights, when suddenly the whole colony of 

 ants starts in on a battle royal, which con- 

 tinues for hours or even a day or two, until 

 every bee is disabled or driven out. A great 

 many of the ants will also be killed; but how 

 the bees do this is a mystery to me. 



When the battle has once been joined, the 

 bee-keeper has a difficult task to save the 

 bees; but this can usually be prevented. 

 When the ants become plentiful enough at 

 the hive to begin worrying the bees there 

 is usually a trail of going and returning ants 

 from their nest to the hive, and this can usu- 

 ally be located and traced to their nest, 

 which, when found, should be left undis- 

 turbed until the following day, when all the 

 ants will be at home. If the nest can not 

 be found the first time trying, I try again 

 and until it is found. As soon as the nest is 

 found, or search for it is given up for that 

 night, I sprinkle some insect powder on their 

 trail near the hive; also wherever on or 

 around the hive I can do so to worry the 

 ants and not injure the bees. This will usu- 

 ally keep the ants from doing any more 

 harm that night. 



The next day, when all the ants are at 

 home, I take a kettle of boiling water, tear 

 open the nest, and, if possible, kill every 

 ant and egg. If a few of them are left they 

 are likely to gather together, increase in 

 time to their former strength, and again at- 

 tack that same colony of bees. Whenever 

 the nest is found in a box or piece of wood 

 that can be easily moved with all the ants, 

 the easiest and best plan is to carry them 

 into the chicken-yard, break open the nest, 

 and the hens will gladly do the rest of the 

 business. They are very fond of both ants 

 and eggs; and they not only find them good 

 to eat, but give their owner lots of fun 

 watching the old rooster especially, kick and 

 scold every time an ant bites one of his feet. 

 I have had many a hearty laugh watching 

 this performance. 



These ants are a great pest here in Flori- 

 da. They destroy in the aggregate a great 

 many colonies every fall. I know of one 

 entire apiary which was entirely lost, large- 

 ly, I judge, from what I hear, by these ants. 

 At the best they are a great nuisance be- 

 cause of their compelling the bee-keeper to 

 remain at home watching them at a season 

 of the year when nothing is doing in the apia- 

 ry, and the apiarist could, but for them, be 

 away on a holiday or some outside business. 



Stuart, Fla., Dec. 9. 



[This is one of the most interesting and 

 valuable contributions to our bee literature 

 that we have ever given in our columns in 

 many a day. If a minute and accurate ac- 

 count of the work these bee-enemies as they 

 exist in Florida has been given in these col- 

 umns before I do not recall it. It not infre- 

 quently happens, however, that a matter 

 that is of common knowledge with ourselves 



is so common indeed that we suppose all the 

 rest of the world is equally familiar with it. 

 I suspect that a good many Florida bee-keep- 

 ers are in ignorance of the work of this in- 

 sect, the ant, particularly the manner in 

 which it sets about with the utmost deliber- 

 ation to carry out its diabolical scheme of 

 robbing a colony of other insects of the prod- 

 uct of their hard-earned toil. Criminality 

 in the courts of human affairs is judged 

 largely by the fact whether the crime under 

 consideration was premeditated. In the 

 case of the ants here described we shall 

 have to conclude that their crime ought to 

 receive the extreme penalty of the law, 

 which, in this case, ought to be death. But 

 the crime known and proven, apparently, in 

 this case, is not so easily expiated as one 

 might wish. 



Mr.. Popple ton supposes that the condition 

 here described is peculiar to Florida; but I 

 suspect that the same species, or one close- 

 ly allied to it, is doing much the same de- 

 structive work in other States. Indeed, 

 there have been various intimations of it by 

 our correspondents at various times back. 

 We should especially like to hear from all 

 those who have any thing to offer. 



I expect to go to Florida some time in 

 February or March; and I hope Mr. Popple- 

 ton will give me the supreme delight of see- 

 ing chickens take care of those red ants, and 

 the red ants take care of the rooster's legs. 

 Perhaps it will be the wrong season of the 

 year, but I really should like to see the 

 "varmints " at all events.— Ed.] 



BUYING BEES. 



Timely Advice on Buying and Moving Colonies, 



and Selecting Hives; Sugar Syrup vs. 



Honey for Stimulative Feeding. 



BY W. R. GILBERT. 



Some advice on this subject may not be 

 out of place, seeing the sad havoc careless 

 purchasers have wrought in many districts 

 through the introduction of colonies affected 

 with that fell disease, foul brood. 



The safest course in all cases is, when 

 making a start, to purchase new hives and 

 colonies. If stocks are bought, it should be 

 only at a period of the year when breeding 

 is in progress, and when an examination of 

 the brood will prove the healthy or diseased 

 condition of the colony. 



Presuming that disease is absent, we must 

 endeavor to secure a strong lot of bees on 

 fairly new combs, and with a queen not 

 more than a year old. The combs should be 

 almost wholly built of the small worker- 

 cells. This fact should be noted at the time 

 the stocks are examined, and any frames 

 containing a superabundance of the large or 

 drone cells would afterward be worked out- 

 ward, and ultimately be removed from the 

 hive by inserting in the middle of the stock 

 new frames in which a full sheet of worker 

 foundation has been securely fastened by 

 wires. 



