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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



December 8. 



TIic Bees in America. 



I have been assigned a subject upon which, if I should 

 follow it exactly as it reads, it would have been Inapossible for 

 me to have said anything, (or the simple reason that we are 

 not equipt with sufhcient literature in the library of the Uni- 

 versity of Nebraska to enable one to hunt out matter and 

 write an historical paper on " Bees iu America," if we confined 

 ourselves to the honey-bee. While I have not prepared a 

 paper on the lines that you probably expected, I would say 

 that I have had considerable experience In squirming and still 

 remaining where I was. I have been able to get some notes 

 together on bees in America, and still not include all of Amer- 

 ica. Since meeting with you two years ago, in Lincoln, I have 

 spent one year in South America. Now, I do not intend to 

 speak about the bees of South America, still. South America 

 is a part of America. Neither do I wish to include Central 

 America or Mexico, but I shall confine myself to the bees of 

 America north of the Mexican boundary. In speaking of the 

 bees of America north of this boundary, I shall Ignore the 

 honey-bee entirely. I know that most of you are aware that 

 we have other bees besides the honey-bee. As an entomologist 

 — a student of bugs and other insects — I treat all alike. I try 

 to know something about each kind and its mission in life. 



Among the dififerent kinds of insects that we find in 

 America north of the Mexican boundary there are about 1,000 

 different kinds of bees, other than honey-bees, and on that 

 line of bees I expect to say a few words this afternoon. These 

 other bees visit blossoms just as the honey-bee does, and pos- 

 sibly for the same purpose. Itis a part of their mission in life 

 to visit flowers and select pollen from them. These 1,000 or 

 more kinds of bees that are found in America north of the 

 Mexican boundary are clast by entomologists into two distinct 

 families. Those families differ one from the other In some 

 minor characteristics which the ordinary person need not 

 know. SuCHce it to say that the members of both families are 

 fond of sweets, and they find the best of those sweets in the 

 blossoms of plants. It is a part of the mission of bees In life 

 to visit the blossoms of plants, carrying pollen from one to the 

 other, and in that manner fertilizing the blossoms. 



I have often been askt as a teacher o( natural history, 

 what is the use of insects in this world ? The ordinary person 

 is apt to imagine that anything that is not directly useful to 

 that particular person, has no use whatever in this world. 

 There is not a thing that is created in vain, we are told, and 

 I think that the naturalist knows this perhaps better than 

 anybody else, for he makes it his business to follow out the 

 life-habits and movements of these creatures in the world 

 about him. 



Some of these insects are equipt very much as the honey- 

 bee is for gathering both nectar and pollen from the plant, 

 and others are equipt for gathering the pollen solely, while 

 still others are equipt for gathering the honey simply. Some 

 of them use the pollen as food for themselves io a certain ex- 

 tent, but for food for their young almost entirely ; some use 

 honey aed pollen combined as food for their young ; none of 

 them use honey exclusively as food for their young. These 

 wild bees are some of them social, but most of them are soli- 

 tary, or live in pairs. Some of these bees, like the bumble- 

 bee, gather honey and store it. This honey is not used by the 

 mature bee as food to any greatextent. If we open a bumble- 

 bee's nest, we find an aggregation of large leathery cells of 

 which some are filled with honey and others with pollen, or a 

 sort of yellowish, brownish paste. They use this food for 

 their young, as the honey-bee does. They will take some pol- 

 len and mix it with honey, and have the proper food for their 

 young. The bumble-bee is found with males and females ; in 

 some instances they have workers also, or those that do the 

 office of workers. They are simply smaller females, perfect, 

 and not like the workers of the honey-bee. 



There is a great variation in the structure of the legs of 

 these different bees. If you will notice these pictures [point- 

 ing to certain figures upon charts displayed before the conven- 

 tion] you will observe this variation. These pictures repre- 

 sent only a very small percentage of the variation that is found 

 to exist in the hind legs of the bees. These variations are to 

 serve the purpose of gathering and carrying pollen under dif- 

 ferent circumstances. Some, instead of having the legs fitted 

 for carrying pollen, have the lower side of the abdomen 

 furnisht with a brush for carrying the pollen-grains. Some 

 bees are without pollen-baskets. That would indicate to the 

 entomologist that the boe is a parasite. We have parasites 

 amocg bees, and they are useful in some ways. They are not 

 useful to the bees upon which they are parasitic; neither are 

 the parasites of the human being useful to men; still, the 

 parasites among the bees are useful in other ways. Every 

 one of those collects a certain amount of honey for itself in 

 passing from one blossom to another, and carries a certain 



amount of pollen with it, and therefore is engaged in the 

 cross-fertilization of the plants. 



Bees are the fertilizers of plants. As flowers are so vary- 

 ing in their structure, and so different in size, it becomes 

 necessary to have insects adapted to carrying the pollen from 

 one to another. The insects must have different forms and be 

 of different sizes ; for that reason we can see very easily why 

 we have so many different species of bees. The genus Andrina 

 — we have a representative of it here — that one genus in North 

 America is represented by over 300 distinct species. We have 

 one species of honey-bee in this country, and two in Asia. 

 The species of the genus Andrina are usually found early in 

 the year, when the honey-bee Is not out, or in such blossoms 

 as the honey-bee docs not work. One will visit one blossom, 

 another will visit another blossom ; some visit the violet, some 

 visit the blossoms of one tree and some another tree, and they 

 have obtained their specific names from the plants they visit. 

 Suppose one species works on the plum-tree; we call that 

 Andrina prunus ; the next would be named after the violet, on 

 which it works, and so on. We know pretty nearly what bee 

 fertilizes each of the wild trees. Some of these have exceed- 

 ingly long tongues, and can work on clover and very deep 

 blossoms ; but few of that kind can ever work on alfalfa and 

 red clover. 



In this country we are not troubled as they were in Aus- 

 tralia about getting the fertile seed of the clover, because we 

 have a leaf-cutting bee. Some of the apiaries they make for 

 themselves are made in the earth, others In wood, others \n 

 the stems of plants. Some make earthen cells and plaster 

 them on the under sides of stones, and have them lined with 

 leaves. If you unwrap those little bundles that are there, you 

 will find the egg and the food, and a little later you will find 

 the young grub or worm. These leaf-cutting bees cut out of 

 the leaves of various kinds of plants little semi-circular pieces ;. 

 hence they are called leaf-cutters. They do not gather honey, 

 as I said before. There are probably 150 to 200 kinds of 

 leaf-cutting bees found In America north of the Mexican 

 boundary. Some are nearly as large as the worker bumble- 

 bee, while others are so small that the house-fly would be 

 large in comparison to them. All have the same general 

 habit, but they visit different flowers. As a rule they hav& 

 long tongues and visit deep blossoms. The thistle is one of 

 the plants they visit. Dae genus of the^e leaf-cutting bees is 

 possest of very bright colors. They have a bright, metallic, 

 blue body, or green, or green and red, all bright metallic 

 colors. A collection of those bees is very beautiful to look at; 

 but to know something about their habits is much more de- 

 lightful. 



I cannot dwell upon each one of those genera, or each one 

 of those groups, because we have over 50 different groups \a 

 which these wild bees are placed : some of the groups, like 

 Andrina, contain 100 to 300 species each ; others, like Bom- 

 bus, contain 40 or 50 different species. Since the last talk I 

 gave on this subject, there have been several species of bum- 

 ble-bees found that are entirely new. It Is a good thing that 

 we as bee-keepers study the habits and know something about 

 the wild bees, and know that if the honey-bee was not present 

 in the region in which we are, nature would still be cared for 

 and the work of nature would be carried on to a certain ex- 

 tent by the native bees of that region. And I want to say 

 right here that none of our wild bees have learned to properly 

 fertilize our fruit-trees. Our principal fruit-trees are an Im- 

 portation from the old world ; the h.jney-bee is an importa- 

 tion from the old world, and the honey-bee has learned its 

 work of fertilizing those fruit-trees In the old world, and 

 knows how to do it in the new world ; so we must have th& 

 honey-bee with us if we wish to have fruit. 



Some of our bees are extraordinary in their make-up. 

 The honey-bee is just an ordinary kind of a bee in its make- 

 up, and In its general appearance. Studying these wild bees 

 we find some in which the hind legs are excessively enlarged 

 and much contorted. Some of those contortions might have 

 been shown in these illusirations, but I don't happen to have 

 them. In some the first joint of the foot is much larger than 

 all of the leg put together, and is covered with hookt spines, 

 or long hooks or knobs of various kinds. They serve some 

 special purpose, doubtless, which does not exist in the case of 

 the others whose legs are not so specialized. 



There is one thing concerning the wild bees that I may be 

 wrong about : Some one visited me and said there was a wild 

 bee that came to his apiary every year and robbed his own 

 bees. I said It was probably the ordinary black bee, but he 

 said It was not, because he had both the black and Italian 

 bees in his apiary, and knew them well ; he said that the rob- 

 ber was a much smaller bee. I told him I didn't think any of 

 our wild bees would be guilty of doing any such thing, that it 

 must have been some bee that had been associated with maD 



