1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



407 



is made the bees will go, say, to the nearest 

 south, east, or west side as the case may 

 be— just as they had been doing before.— 

 Ed.] 



CIEANIJNCSfrom the PACIFIC COAST 



Bv ProF.A/J.CoOK. PoMClNACOl.UEaE.CAl.>, 



HONEY-DEW. 



In a recent foreign journal I find this 

 statement: Honey-dew is abundant when 

 the fruit is scarce, and the tree on the de- 

 cline. This would lead one to believe there 

 is still need of more knowledge regarding 

 honey-dew. While honey-dew may be oc- 

 casionally a secretion from the plant itself, 

 and possibly an exudation, yet practically it 

 is always a secretion from insects, either 

 plant- lice or scale - insects. It no doubt 

 serves them a good purpose. They secrete 

 this to attract wasps and bees, which insects 

 are fond of the honey-dew, and are quick to 

 appropriate it, as the insects scatter it up- 

 on leaf or twig. The presence of the wasps 

 and bees serves to repel the birds, for birds 

 do not work with pleasure where wasps and 

 bees abound. Unless they were thus kept 

 away they would feed upon the aphids, or 

 scale- insects. 



The honey-dew from scale-insects is al- 

 most always dark in color and rank in flavor; 

 therefore it can never make good honey. 

 On the other hand, that secreted by aphids, 

 or plant-lice, is often very delicious, and 

 honey from the same would be pronounced 

 by the epicure as of best quality. I have 

 never known better honey than that secured 

 from this source. Thus while the former 

 honey-dew honey could never be used as a 

 table article, there would be no objection to 

 the latter for such purposes. I once had a 

 large quantity of the dark rank honey, 

 which I sold to a baker who used it to make 

 honey-cakes, and raised no objection to it. 

 Indeed, I ate of the cakes myself, and found 

 them excellent. 



While it is true that the insects which se- 

 crete honey-dew are a great pest to vegeta- 

 tion, yet they are often too few in numbers 

 to affect seriously the plant or the fruitful- 

 ness of the trees and vines. Yet it must be 

 said that both families of these insects multi- 

 ply with great rapidity, and thus their pres- 

 ence is usually a menace to the plants that 

 harbor them. I have seen, however, ever- 

 green trees covered with honey-dew, and 

 thus thick with plant-lice, and yet the trees 

 were in the best of vigor, and were well 

 loaded with magnificent cones. 



In almost all cases of honey-dew the leaves 

 and twigs become very black. This black 

 substance is usually referred to as smut. It 

 is really a fungus that attacks and feeds up- 

 on, if we may use that term, the honey- 



dew. In California it is often necessary tO' 

 wash oranges and lemons because of the 

 presence of this smut. In fact, the worst 

 insect-pests we have in California are scale- 

 insects. A great many thousands of dollars 

 have been expended in fighting them. Yet 

 it is gratifying to know that the intelligence 

 and enterprise of our people are equal to the 

 task of their extermination. 



There is one more thing that will interest 

 all our readers. It is this, that we have 

 found insects in several cases that feed up- 

 on these scale-pests, and by importing them 

 into our orchards, we have been saved the 

 further expense of fighting the scale- pests. 

 In two cases such importation of such bene- 

 ficial insects to feed upon and destroy our 

 insect enemies has been of tremendous im- 

 portance. I refer to the vedalia, a lady- 

 bird beetle from Australia, which has entire- 

 ly overcome the white or cottony cushion 

 scale, an insect that seemed destined to wipe 

 profitable orange culture from our State; 

 and the other is the scuteUista, a chalcid fly 

 imported from South Africa, which, though 

 very tiny, is fast exterminating the terrible 

 black scale which has robbed our orchard- 

 ists of thousands of dollars to hold it in 

 check and save their trees and fruit. 



WHAT IS HONEY ? 



I was very much pleased with Mr. Gi'een's 

 article. It seems to me that we better al- 

 ways face the truth. The truth is that we 

 can never know the source of honey; and 

 why, Mr. Editor, do you pronounce against 

 honey from maple? The bees do not do so, 

 but accept it when opportunity offers. In- 

 deed, it is much like the nectar of flowers. 

 It, like that, is cane sugar, and, like the 

 floral nectar, it is flavored with vegetable 

 extracts. I can see no objection to such 

 honey; and even if there is, I do not see for 

 the life of me how we are going to eliminate 

 it any more than we can the honey-dew hon- 

 ey. As long as the bees have no prejudice 

 we shall have to accept all such contribu- 

 tions. Even an occasional lift from some 

 leaky sugar-barrel or molasses-keg, which 

 has been left exposed, would not shock or 

 disturb my conscience, taste, or sleep. I 

 think we must define honey as the sweet 

 that bees store in the comb, and that we 

 can never be sure of its source. 



DO BEES STORE WATER? 



I was interested in a suggestion by the 

 editor in the last Gleanings, that bees 

 store water in the hive. I greatly doubt if 

 this is true. I think the bees take the wa- 

 ter to use at once. In our own case, and 

 with all animals, water remains but a very 

 brief time in the alimentary canal. Almost 

 as soon as quaffed, it passes through the 

 walls of the alimentary tube to mingle with 

 the blood. Who of us has not proved this 

 in his own experience? We are very thirs- 

 ty, and feel that we can hardly drink too 

 much water at the instant; yet if we drink 

 but little, and wait a moment the desire for 



