572 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1 



Of course, if they should happen to issue 

 when the air is free from other swarms, all 

 may go well; but if otherwise all may go 

 wrong. 



MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 



These, the gems of the organic world, are 

 aptly known as Lepidoptera, as this word 

 means scale-winged. Indeed, the wondrous 

 beauty of the moth and butterfly depends 

 upon the myriad of tiny scales that cover, 

 as do shingles a roof, the wings and bodies 

 of these "animal flowers." These scales 

 are as varied in pattern as they are beauti- 

 ful and varied in coloration. They are very 

 delicate and easily rubbed off, and thus we 

 understand why a moth or butterfly loses its 

 beauty when roughly handled or rubbed. A 

 perfect collection of these gems of nature is 

 incomparably beautiful. The mouth-parts 

 of the lepidopteron are fashioned for sip- 

 ping or sucking; and the tongue, or suck- 

 ing tube, which may be nearly obsolete, is, 

 in some of the moths like the "tomato- 

 sphinx," very long. This, when not in use, 

 is closely rolled up, and scarcely visible at 

 all. Of course, these insects all pass through 

 complete transformations as do all the high- 

 er orders. The larvae are known as cater- 

 pillars, and are unlike the imago or mature 

 insect, as they have jaws, and eat, as do 

 beetles and locusts. These larvse have, usu- 

 ally, sixteen legs, the last ten of which are 

 finger-like and without joints. They are 

 known as pro or prop legs. Some moths- 

 one family, Geometridas —have only ten legs, 

 and as these loop or bend up as they walk 

 they are known as * ' loopers, ' ' or measur- 

 ing-worms. Of course, they are not worms 

 at all, as worms never have any feet, and it 

 were better to call them measuring-cater- 

 pillars, as this would be strictly true. Some 

 of these caterpillars— indeed, many of them 

 —are as beautiful as are the moths, and it 

 is a most unfortunate prejudice (shall we 

 say unreasoning abhorrence?) on the part of 

 many that robs them of real pleasure in ad- 

 miring these exquisite forms of nature's fin- 

 est handiwork? They may be smooth, or 

 variously decked, and ornamented with fine 

 hairs and spines, often brilliantly colored. 

 In rare cases these spines emit a poison, and 

 so these irritate, much as does the nettle 

 when handled. 



All caterpillars, with a few exceptions 

 like the bee-moth and clothes-moth, feed on 

 vegetation, and so all are injurious to our 

 plants; and if the plants are useful, then 

 the caterpillars are injurious to man. Many 



of our most destructive insects, like the 

 cabbage-butterfly, the canker-worm, moth, 

 the gypsy and brown-tail moths, belong to 

 this order. As thejr eat or devour the foli- 

 age, they can be poisoned by the use of the 

 arsenites. 



If we except the honey-bee, which, in 

 view of its invaluable work of pollinating 

 plants, is the most important of all insects, 

 then we must say that in this order we find 

 the insect that is most valuable to man. 

 Commercially, no insect can at all compare 

 in importance with the silk- moth. The val- 

 ue of the annual silk product, of course, 

 runs away up into the millions of dollars. 



The insect that is best known as a univer- 

 sal pest to the bee-industry is the old bee- 

 moth, Galleria melonella, the caterpillar of 

 which infests the comb. The wee bee-moth 

 is a much less destructive insect. The in- 

 formed, cautious bee-keeper dreads not the 

 old bee-moth, as it does serious harm only 

 where ignorance and neglect give it a foot- 

 hold. 



THE GYPSY AND BROWN- TAIL MOTHS. 



Of course, all bee-keepers and everybody, 

 the country over, are interested in the fight 

 which now for fifteen years has been car- 

 ried on in Eastern Massachusetts against 

 the gypsy-moth, and which is now being 

 waged with more energy than ever before 

 against this insect and the equally alarming 

 brown- tail moth. The gypsy- moth is an in- 

 discriminate feeder, and so the great splen- 

 did parks and forests, and the so justly 

 famed street-trees of New England, seem 

 doomed unless man's interference puts a 

 stop to the frightful destruction of these 

 two insects. The brown-tail does not feed 

 so generally, but is mostly confined to rosa- 

 ceous plants like apple, pear, etc., and the 

 oak It is white, though the abdomen is 

 tipped with red or brown, and hence the 

 name. The female of the gypsy-moth does 

 not fly, while the brown-tail is strong on the 

 wing, so this latter spreads far more rapid- 

 ly than the other; yet the caterpillar of the 

 gypsy-moth, like canker-worms, has the 

 habit of dropping by a web or silken thread 

 which it spins at will, in the same way that 

 spiders suspend; and, of course, a passing 

 wagon or automobile catches them up, and 

 may hurry them off for miles to drop them 

 and their mischief in a new and distant cen- 

 ter of invasion and ruin. To-day nearly 

 30,000 acres of parks and woodlands in East- 

 em Massachusetts are attacked, nearly half 

 very seriously. Add to this the roadside 

 trees, and we have a picture that may 

 make us tremble. From 1890 to 1900 the 

 great Bay State expended nearly a million 

 dollars fighting the gypsy-moth. She so 

 lessened its ravages that effort ceased until 

 1904. Now the evil is twice extended, and 

 worse than ever. ' ' Putting the hand to 

 the plow and looking back " was a costly 

 mistake of our hubbite friends. The brown- 

 tail has now reached about half the State, 

 and has spread to Rhode Island, New Hamp- 

 shire, and even Maine. As yet the gypsy- 

 moth has reached only Eastern Massachu- 



