28 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 1 



the bees had attempted swarming, the swarm 

 can be shaken out, giving it the trapped 

 queen. In an out-apiary, usually a glance 

 at the hives will show by clusters of bees on 

 the upper corners of the trap, just where 

 swarms have issued. If one is present it is 

 a very easy matter to hive the swarm. All 

 that is necessary is to see that the queen is 

 in the trap, which can easily be done if the 

 new Tinker zinc is used. Set the new hive 

 in the place where the old one stood; attach 

 the trap and open the back door so the queen 

 can run in with the bees when the swarm 

 returns. Usually the bees will miss their 

 queen in ten or fifteen minutes; but I have 

 known them to settle on a tree and stay for 

 hours. Generally one can be certain that no 

 queen is present if they cluster on a tree, by 

 that nervous movement among them, and by 

 seeing a few bees flying around under the 

 trees, as if hunting for something. After 

 the bees are hived I leave the trap on the 

 new hive for two or three days, to prevent 

 desertion. Sometimes swarms will come out 

 after being hived a day or two, and start for 

 the woods. It is a great satisfaction to see 

 them humbly returning in a short time. 



I am well aware that most of this is no 

 news to the experienced apiarist; but to the 

 beginner and farmer bee-keeper it ought to 

 be of value. When I read last year of the 

 thousands of swarms roaming over the coun- 

 try I thought how easily this great loss 

 could have been prevented with the new 

 queen-trap. This is by no means all the use 

 I make of the trap, and I will have some- 

 thing more to say in a future article. 



Milan, 111. 



LIZARDS AND BEES. 



The Small Lizards Friends and Not Enemies; 



Some Noxious Spiders in California; an 



Interesting Nature Study. 



BY C. W. DAYTON. 



The lizard described on page 658 as "at 

 least a foot long" is an entirely diflTerent 

 kind of reptile from the one referred to in 

 your footnote as being "very tame," or the 

 one that ' ' would rather watch the apiarist, ' ' 

 mentioned on page 981. The lizard ' ' a foot 

 long ' ' does not possess either of these traits. 

 When this hzardsees a person it gets out of 

 sight as soon as possible, but would eat 

 bees as soon as not. It crawls over the 

 ground leaving a crooked track like a snake, 

 except that it has four feet to help propel 

 its body along, and Hves mostly under 

 ground, while the other lizard lives mostly 

 above ground. The ' ' tame ' ' or smaller 

 kind seldom attain to a length of 8 inches, 

 and do not crawl, but hop over the ground 

 as clearly as a bird, leaving only the prints 

 of its feet. It can climb up the side of an 

 unpainted building, but the larger lizard can 

 not. The small lizard can creep to within 

 about three inches of a house-fly, and, by a 

 flying jump, take in the fly before it can 

 move; but the larger lizard must restrict its 



operations to a less wary kind of prey— a 

 honey-bee, for instance. 



The small lizard I consider a very good 

 friend of the bee-keeper, unless, perhaps, 

 they might become too numerous. Then 

 they might possibly learn to eat bees on ac- 

 count of a scarcity of other insects. But I 

 have watched them for over ten years, and 

 only once have I seen one molest a bee, and 

 that was owing to peculiar circumstances. 



I have never seen a cat that would not 

 catch a lizard of the small kind as soon as it 

 would a mouse; but cats do not catch the 

 larger one more than once or twice before 

 they pay no more attention to them. Chick- 

 ens will catch either kind whenever they 

 can. But if the apiarist has no chickens or 

 cats, let him place a warm board (either 

 soft wood or a board which has some fuzz on 

 it) on the ground on the warm side of a 

 building, and another board on top of this, 

 but separated by J or § inch blocks. Then 

 place around three sides a rim to close the 

 cracks up except on one side, which should 

 be left open for the lizards to creep in. This 

 will soon be used by all the lizards on the 

 place as a roosting-place. As lizards hiber- 

 nate through the night, in the early morn- 

 ing the top board can be lifted and the liz- 

 ards picked up in a dormant state unless it 

 should chance to be an unusually hot night. 



To show how the lizard may be a friend to 

 the apiarist I will describe a few instances. 



For two or three months last summer 

 there was a lizard which came into the 

 house regularly between noon and one o'clock 

 to catch flies and ants from the floor. There 

 was a very industrious nest of ants located 

 about thirty feet from the house, which 

 formed a black line of foragers to the porch, 

 and went up one of the porch-posts and 

 down a wire into our wire-screened safe for 

 fruit. I put tar on the wire, and then they 

 marched in across the kitchen floor to a can 

 of honey that was there for use on the ta- 

 ble. Whenever honey was drawn into a 

 dish a little would stick to the cap, and thus 

 attract the ants. I noticed that, when the 

 lizard caught a fly, it always turned and 

 picked up from two to four ants, so I made 

 him welcome. At the end of five or six 

 weeks the ants seemed to be entirely cleaned 

 out. 



At another time an open five-gallon can of 

 granulated honey was set on the stove to 

 melt. A coarse cloth was thrown over it to 

 keep robber bees out. The honey boiled up 

 suddenly on one side and oozed through the 

 meshes of the cloth. As I was at the din- 

 ner-table the honey was set off the stove on 

 the floor a few feet from my chair, and 

 about a dozen flies and five or six robber 

 bees pounced upon the oozed honey at once. 

 The lizard came in as usual, and immediate- 

 ly hopped up on the cloth among the bees 

 and flies, and, after catching a dozen flies 

 and not molesting a single bee, it climbed 

 down as quietly as it came in, and disap- 

 peared out the door. 



Although these lizards eat house-flies and 

 ants, yet they prefer the larger flies, spi- 



