46 



|l BGE-KILLER. ITS TENACITY OP LIFE. 



devouring its prey by eating (piercing) a hole into the body and in a short 

 time entirely consuming it (sucking out the fluids and soft internal viscera) 

 and leaving only the hard outer skin or shell of the bee. Upon the ground 

 beneath some favorable perch for the fly near the apiary, hundreds of these 

 shells of bees are found accumulated in a single day — whether the work of 

 one fly or of several I am not able to say. I have just returned from a pro- 

 fessional tour through the northern portion of our Territory, taking Nur- 

 sery orders ; and in many things this business and the apiary are closely 

 connected. In no case have I found a hive of bees that has thrown off a 

 Bwarm this season ! The dry weather, bad pasture and other reasons were 

 assigned as the cause. But many persons, since they have found this fly 

 at his work of destruction, now believe it to be tlie cause of the non- 

 swarming of their bees ; and I am led to the same opinion. I have only 

 to add further, that this Bee-killer delights in hot, dry weather, and is very 

 invulnerable and tenacious of life. I have observed the honey bee and 

 also the hornet sting it repeatedly, but with no other effect than to cause it 

 to tighten its liold upon them. Once when I forced the assassin to release 

 his prej', he gave me such a wound in the hand as has learned me ever 

 since to be cautious how I interfered with him. He will live an hour with 

 a pin thrust through his body which has been dipped in the solution of 

 cyanuret of Potassium. 



