iyo5 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



29 



ders, cockroaches, crickets, moths, canker 

 and cut worms, and grasshoppers, all of 

 which I have often seen them catch. 



At the apiary, in the mountains, near the 

 town of Chatsworth, it being a somewhat 

 desertlike locality, spiders are scarce, I sup- 

 pose because flies are scarce. There is one 

 representative, however, and this of an un- 

 usual size, being about | or | of an inch in 

 length. It spins webs like a bunch of cot- 

 ton, only to hide in. It approaches its prey 

 stealthily, and springs upon it unawares. If 

 it were not for lizards these spiders might 

 become a formidable enemy to bees. 



At Florence, forty miles away, and in the 

 damper coast atmosphere, we are troubled 

 by at least three varieties of spiders. Our 

 hive-covers being of the ventilated kind, in 

 the spaces two kinds of spiders establish 

 their homes. The small one is not more 

 than J inch long, and lives on flies; but it 

 often spins its webs before the entrances of 

 the hives, and entangles the bees ; but its 

 webs not being strong the bees usually kick 

 themselves free. The other spider is about 

 I inch long, and has a bright-red spot on its 

 thorax. This one makes a business of eat- 

 ing bees, and a bee seldom gets out of its 

 net if once entangled. I often find its web 

 before the entrance, so as to make it almost 

 impossible for a bee to enter. It also con- 

 structs a mass of webs like a small bunch 

 of cotton, with an entrance on one side, in 

 which it hides from its enemies. I have 

 seen lizards pull at one of these nests until 

 the spider ran out and then catch it. 



But last of all is the worst spider of all. 

 This one is brown all over, and its body is 

 about f inch in diameter when full grown, 

 and has a small thorax, and head attached 

 to one side. This spider does not spin a 

 web to hide in, but secludes itself by creep- 

 ing closely into a corner and depending upon 

 its resemblance to the surrounding materi- 

 al. Thus on a dark surface it may be of a 

 dark-gray brown; on redwood, the exact 

 color of the wood, while on a brick its back 

 would be a red brown. As soon as night 

 comes, this spider begins by casting a web 

 from the eaves of the building under which 

 it is secreted all day, to the branch of a 

 tree— often from the ridge-board or chim- 

 ney—to other parts of the house. In my 

 apiary were 150 grapevine-trellises, eight 

 feet high, and rows of trees around the 

 outside, making good facilities for attach- 

 ing their webs. They do not weave a net, 

 but cast five or six threads near by, with 

 one or two extending to a distant object. 

 These webs are strong, and very sticky. 

 When an insect strikes a single strand its 

 fate is fixed. They will hold a bee by a sin- 

 gle foot or the end of a wing, and it is only 

 a few seconds until several feet and wings 

 are caught. As the bee struggles, the sin- 

 gle strand separates into several fine strands 

 which have the quality of finally inclosing a 

 bee so thoroughly that it is difficult to de- 

 termine whether it is a bee or some other 

 insect. The spiders remain secluded until 

 about sunset, and then draw in the webs, 



which they devour, together with bees, flies, 

 and other insects. During the following 

 night they arrange more webs. I have oft- 

 en found five or six bees in the web of a 

 single spider. Those which are caught are 

 the earliest and most industrious bees, as 

 one or two hours of sunshine dries the stick- 

 iness out of the webs so that they are en- 

 tirely harmless. 



There are several buildings adjacent to 

 the apiary ; and, after an absence of a 

 month, I have found more than a hundred of 

 these big fat spiders located about them, 

 but never one below the eaves within reach 

 of the lizards. Lizards regard them as such 

 a rare delicacy that they are taken before 

 they are half grown. I go at the high fel- 

 lows with a board about four inches wide, 

 and a handle on one end, and land a good 

 number clear over into the street or against 

 another building "on the fly." The great- 

 er part of them can be crushed in their hid- 

 ing-places in daytime; but a few secrete 

 themselves in inaccessible places, which can 

 be poisoned by dusting a small amount of 

 Paris green on a captured insect or on a 

 moist web. 



At one time these spiders became so nu- 

 merous, and were so persistent, that I be- 

 gan to despair of maintaining the apiary in 

 that location. Before my courage entirely 

 failed we sold the chickens, and the old cat 

 died, which allowed the lizards to increase 

 so that the spiders have hardly needed any 

 of my attention during the past summer. 



Chatsworth, Cal., Nov. 10. 



HOFFMAN FRAME AND FOLLOWER DE- 

 FENDED. 



How the Frame Should be Used. 



BY M. A. GILL. 



I have watched with a great deal of inter- 

 est the criticisms upon the Hoffman frame 

 during the past year, and am wondering if 

 the words of condemnation heaped upon it 

 by the so-called experts would cause the 

 manufacturers to stop making them and take 

 a step backward by again offering to the 

 trade that old nuisance the finger-spaced 

 frame. As one who is handling 1000 colonies 

 in Hoffman frames and about 200 with the 

 old finger-spaced frames, I can not under- 

 stand how any one can claim that the latter 

 can be handled with more ease and speed. 

 Three of us go over this amount of bees 

 every six days during the swarming season, 

 controlling all swarming by the shaking plan; 

 and I know we could not do it with the old 

 loose hanging frames, nor do I believe any 

 other three people can if they will agree to 

 keep their combs as straight as we do with 

 the Hoffman frame. 



Now, this may sound harsh; but I think if 

 some of the people who are so severe in 

 their criticisms of the Hoffman frame could 

 attend your correspondence school for a year 

 and learn how to have combs built in Hoff- 

 man frames, and how to manipulate them 



