12 Repoet of SIaetland Agbicultdbal Sooietz 



the past summer Mr. Abrams has found the work of this insect in honey 

 produced in Montgomery and Washington Counties. 



Braula coeca, the technical name of the bee louse, is a wingless, reddish- 

 brown insect about one-sixteenth of an inch long, with the body covered with 

 numerous spine-like hairs. The legs are quite long in comparison with 

 the body, and the last joint of each leg has a comb-like structure with 

 15 or 16 teeth on each side of the middle line of the tarsus. The insect 

 clings to the hairs of the bee by means of these comb-like structures. 

 The abdomen is considerably compressed and the whole insect is nearly 

 round in outline, including the outstretched legs. The newly emerged 

 adults are light tan in color. 



In heavily infested colonies the lice may be found throughout the year 

 in varying numbers. In early summer the lice appear to be more numer- 

 ous on worker bees than on any other caste, but in late summer, or early 

 fall, they may be found more numerously on queens than on workers. 



The eggs may be found under the newly formed cappings on honey in 

 the brood nests or in the supers. Argo reports that by tracing back 

 tunnels to their beginning he found egg shells in each case glued lightly 

 to the undersurface of the cappings slightly to the center as though the 

 egg had 'been deposited there just prior to the completion of the cap. In 

 addition to the empty egg shell, cast larval skins and pupal skins have 

 been found throughout the tunnels. These' tunnels have the same ap- 

 pearance as the very early larval tunnels of the wax moth. The presence 

 of these tunnels, of course, throws any comb honey out of first grade. 

 Whether the insect lives over winter in one of the immature stages, 

 emerging early in the spring, or whether it lives over winter as an adult 

 on the honey bees has not been definitely determined, but it would seem, 

 from investigations of Argo, that the latter supposition is the more ten- 

 able since he failed to find any living material in the tunnels when the 

 hives were first opened in the spring. Apparently gravid females were 

 collected as early as May 16, but no larvae were found until June 12. 

 This would seem to indicate that there was only one brood per year. 



The feeding habits of the bee louse have been observed by several workers. 

 The lice attach themselves to the hairs of the head near the upper lip and 

 seems to tickle the labrum or upper lip of the host with the l^s that are 

 used in holding on to the hairs. In a short time the bee extends the 

 tongue and the louse quickly moves forward so that it is able to place its 

 mouth parts at the base of the bee's tongue just beyond the upper lip, 

 and apparently sucks up such liquid as may be emitted by the bee. As 

 soon as the bee louse has obtained a sutHcient amount of the material 

 excreted by the bee it returns to its position on the thorax. 



The bee louse, therefore, is what is known as a commensal, rather than 

 a parasite, as was supposed in the early days. Beekeepers and observers 



