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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1297 



in development as elsewhere. The egg is 

 much the same in all insects. The larval 

 locust, or grasshopper, is small and wingless, 

 but looks so much like the mature insect 

 that the novice would recognize that they 

 were the same. The next stage — the pupa — 

 is also active, and resembles both larva and 

 adult, though it has only rudimentary wings, 

 and, though larger than the larva, is smaller 

 than the adult or imago. Like the larva 

 and imago it feeds, ana so in habits the 

 insect is much the same in all three stages. 

 The imago is chiefly peculiar in its larger 

 size, fully developed wings, and in being 

 now sexually perfect. This mating of the 

 sexes and egg-laying are usually peculiar to 

 the adult or imago insect. 



In complete transformations it is quite 

 otherwise. The larval grub, or caterpillar, 

 is worm-like in form, and may or may not 

 have legs. The growth and usually the 

 feeding occur exclusively at this period. The 

 pupa is inactive, and resembles the imago 

 in a general way. Of course, one not in- 

 formed would not recognize these different 

 stages as belonging to the same insect. 



A word more about mouth organs before 

 I commence the description of the ouders. 

 Most insects like bees and beetles have sharp, 

 strong jaws or mandibles which they use 

 for biting. These move sidewise, and are 

 often strong and quite formidable. They 

 have other quite complex organs, which, 

 as in case of bees, may be transformed into 

 a sucking organ. Yet all these mandibulate 

 ii'sects, as they are called, can bite and de- 

 vour their food. The other insects have the 

 m>outh organs modified into a beak, or suck- 

 ing-tube, with which they can suck the juice 

 of plants or the blood of other animals. 

 Some insects, like butterflies and moths, bite 

 as larvje, or caterpillars, and suck when ma- 

 ture. Thus the caterpillar eats the leaf while 

 the parent moth can only sip the nectar or 

 dew drop. Sucking insects are called sucta- 

 torial or houstillate. It would seem that 

 it would be more serious to devour than 

 to bleed or suck the sap ; yet for a fact these 

 sucking insects are no small enemies, and 

 are really not second as pests. 



NEUROPTERA. 



The neuroptera, or lace-wings, are easily 

 told, as the wings are thickly covered with 

 veins. There are several main nerves or 

 veins, and very numerous cross-veins. They 

 always have biting mouth parts, and may 

 or may not have complete transformations. 

 This order is so diverse that most author- 

 ities would divide it into several orders. 

 Here we find the darning-needles, the only 

 one that is of practical importance to bee- 

 keepers ; the white ants, which are interest- 

 ing as they remind us strikingly of bees in 

 their life history. Here we have queen, 

 workers, and, in addition, soldiers. The 

 queen is even more prolific than is the queen- 

 bee. Indeed, it is said that the queen white 

 ant lays over 100,000 eggs a day. She is 

 hardly more than a vitalized egg-sack, and 



does nothing but lay eggs. She is fed, 

 groomed, and cared for absolutely by the 

 other members of this curious family. The 

 aphis and ant lions also belong here. These 

 latter pass through completed transforma- 

 tions, while the others mentioned above illus- 

 trate incomplete metamorphoses. 

 To be Continued. 



[Bee Keeping AMONG THE RockiES 



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SWEET CLOVER. 



Prof. Cook's remarks on sweet clover, page 

 TiJi, should perhaps teach me to have a little 

 more charity. In my own experience, those 

 who have talked that way have generally 

 been lacking in the faculty of observation, 

 and I have usually been able to show them 

 that they were mistaken. For instance, a 

 cousin once came to visit us. The talk turned 

 upon sweet clover, and she said, "But it is 

 such a perfectly worthless thing. Nothing 

 will eat it." I at once invited her out to the 

 barn, where her horse was eating sweet- 

 ciover hay with a very evident relish. He 

 had never had any before, but he ate it 

 greedily; and after he was hitched up to go 

 away he paid his respects to a tempting wisp 

 of sweet-clover hay in a way that showed 

 plainly what his sentiments were. I have 

 rever had a horse or cow that would not eat 

 it readily without any teaching, especially 

 when made into hay ; but I know that some 

 stock do not take to it readily at first. This 

 does not prove that it is not good forage. 

 Cattle-feeders tell us that stock just brought 

 in from the range will often refuse to eat 

 corn, and they sometimes have considerable 

 trouble to get them to make a start on it ; yet 

 I never heard any one argue from this that 

 corn is distasteful to cattle, or that it is not 

 good feed for them. 



COMB HONEY ATTACHED TO FENCES IN SUPER. 



It has been my experience that bees are 

 nnich more likely to attach the combs to 

 fence separators than to plain wood separa- 

 tors, and that both of these are more likely 

 to have such attachments built on them than 

 the tin separators. I confess to a strong lean- 

 ing in favor of the old-style tin separator, 

 which is what I use almost altogether. Some 

 bees are much more likely to build these at- 

 tachments than others. When you discover 

 this, of course the proper thing to do is to 

 rcqueen with better stock. 



WHY DOES COMB HONEY SOUR ? 



A perplexed subscriber asks on page 1142 

 why his comb honey sours. While it is quite 

 possible, as the editor has suggested, that the 



