646 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 15 



tera. These short, usually black, wasp-like 

 hymenopterons, lay an egg on leaf or twig, 

 and at the same time poison the tissue, so 

 that an extra flow of sap and extra growth 

 occurs, and thus we have the galls. These 

 galls serve the larvae that hatch from the 

 eggs both as home and food. The galls are 

 excessively bitter, so that they are usually 

 unmolested by other animals. The inchoate 

 gall-insect, like the beer-guzzler, is fond of 

 bitter, and thrives on the juice of the gall. 

 One gall-fly attacks the rose. Often the 

 galls are very beautiful. The spines on 

 some galls are simply the magnified hairs of 

 the old leaves or twigs. An extract from 

 galls is used in commerce, and forms a val- 

 uable part of most indelible inks. 



ECONOMICALLY IMPORTANT. 



Next to silk, no product from insects com- 

 pares with that from our honey-bees in val- 

 ue to man. I need not say to the readers of 

 Gleanings that honey and wax are very 

 valuable in commerce. While bees are far 

 more valuable as pollinators, yet the carloads 

 of honey and this carbohydrate food, par 

 excellence, should make us repeat our ' ' God 

 be praised for the bees. ' ' 



PREDACEOUS INSECTS. 



These rank in importance with parasites. 

 They pounce on their victim as the cat does 

 on the mouse, and he is no more. The many 

 families of wasps are all predaceous, and, 

 like the lady-bird beetles, the predaceous 

 bugs, the lace- wings, and the robber- flies, 

 they do incalcuable good. We may say, 

 then, without question, that all wasps are 

 our good friends. If undisturbed they rare- 

 ly sting, and they are ever doing us immea- 

 surable good. 



//^!^^HfUU///l 



Wttlc 



early QUEENS. 



"Hello, Doolittle! Started to raise any 

 queens yet?" 



"No, Mr. Howell, I have not. Have you?" 

 "No; but I thought perhaps you had." 

 " How should you thus think, when you, 

 living in Orange Co., much further south 

 than this cold part of Onondaga Co., have 

 made no attempt in the matter as yet. We 

 had a big freeze last night, and it has been 

 cold all the last half of April— se cold that 

 the bees could get out but very little. I 

 hope with day after to-morrow, the first of 

 May, it may warm up so that the bees may 

 have a better chance to prosper." 



"Your weather has been a little colder 

 than it has been with us, evidently; but I 

 did not know but you had some means of 



rearing early queens in a cold spring, so I 

 came up to talk the matter over with you." 



' ' I shall be glad to talk the matter over 

 with you, and to begin I will say that no 

 good generally comes in trying to rear too 

 early queens. In the first place, the queens 

 reared so early that there are few young 

 bees in the hives are not much good them- 

 selves. Next, there has been many a good 

 colony brought to the condition of ' no good ' 

 by trying to raise queens with the old bees 

 which came out of winter quarters, though 

 strong in numbers, and the labor performed 

 with these colonies was no good, because it 

 was worse than thrown away by heading 

 colonies with these no good queens, only to 

 result in the loss of honey, time, and pa- 

 tience, later on." 



' ' That is a dark picture you are present- 

 ing, I am sure. I do not w^nt poor queens; 

 but I do want to know the very earliest date 

 on which I can raise queens and have them 

 good." 



"My first commencing every year is at 

 about the time the apple-trees commence 

 to blossom, and I always go slow even then, 

 for some years the bees do not get as well 

 advanced as at others. Some years I can 

 get as good queens reared in apple- bloom 

 as at any other time of year. In other years 

 a cold spell strikes us when apple is in bloom; 

 and where this is so, it is uphill business try- 

 ing to raise queens, no matter how much you 

 lavish on them by way of feed, extra care, 

 etc. ' ' 



"How long before white clover blooms 

 does the apple- blossom open in your locali- 

 ty?" 



' ' Usually from 20 to 25 days. Apple- 

 bloom opens from the 20 th to the 30th of 

 May, and the clover opens from the 15th to 

 the 20th of June; but it is generally the last- 

 named date before the bees secure any hon- 

 ey from the clover bloom." 



' ' Can it be possible that you are so much 

 later than we are? Clover begins to open 

 with us by the last week in May; and by the 

 end of the first week in June it is in full 

 bloom. ' ' 



" It would seem that you are nearly if not 

 quite three weeks earlier than we are; and 

 if that is so, you should be able to commence 

 to rear queens from the 5th to the 10th of 

 May." 



"Will that be early enough to give me 

 queens for use in making colonies by the 

 Alexander plan the first week in June? ' 



"Yes, I think so— that is, if you use your 

 queens as soon as they begin to lay. Would 

 you wish to do this?" 



"As soon as they are laying well they 

 would answer my purpose as well as any 

 thing, for I am working my bees wholly for 

 honey. How long from the time of starting 

 the cells to the time the queen begins to lay?" 



"I generally figure from 20 to 22 days. 

 By using larger larvse this could be shorten- 

 ed a little; but it is not advisable to do this, 

 as queens from larvae two or three days old 

 are not so long-lived as those from younger 

 larvae." 



