88 THE ARGEXTIXE ANT. 
by thrusting a sharp stick into the nest and pouring in a sufficient 
amount of carbon bisulphid or gasoline, afterwards closing the hole 
with damp earth. 
On most city premises the ants can be further reduced by making 
use of winter trap nests or trap boxes, such as are described on pages 
95-96 under the caption ^Experiments with winter trap boxes." 
Mention should not be omitted at this point of the steps advocated 
by the Rev. Albert Biever, of Loyola College, Xew Orleans, who, 
by his constant advocacy of warfare against this pest, did much 
to enlighten the people of New Orleans concerning it. Father 
Biever's plan was to place sponges moistened with sweetened water 
hi locations visited by the ants, and when these were covered with 
the pests to dip them into boiling water. The sponges were then 
recharged and the process repeated as long as the ants would visit 
them. By this persistent destruction of the workers Father Biever 
expected so to deplete the colony that not enough workers would 
remain to care for the queens and larvae and the latter would perish 
from starvation. 
A most novel way of destroying these ants was described by Mr. 
Edwyn C. Reed, of the Museo de Concepcion, Concepcion, Chile, 
in a letter to the senior author. Mr. Reed says: 
The only sure cure would "be to take Biblical measures and root up the city infested, 
stone by stone, and strew it with salt. As such a radical cure is not practical, we must 
be content with palliatives, and I find the following very effective: This ant is very 
fond of olive oil, and so, in sardine tins, saucers, etc., I put a little olive oil in its runs. 
The ants flock to the oil and in eating it get clogged up, so that for a spoonful of oil 
I get about that quantity of ants, dead and harmless. In practice this so weakens 
the nests that I get rid of them. Last November I moved into a house sadly infested 
by them and at once applied the oil. They came to it by thousands and stayed 
there. In a month's time I could appreciate the result, and by the end of our southern 
summer very few were to be seen. 
CONTROL OF THE AXT IX APIARIES. 
The keeping of bees is made well-nigh impossible in sections 
heavily infested by the Argentine ant. Single colonies of the ants 
often contain more individuals than a colony of bees, and in addition 
the colonies of ants are by far the most numerous. The Argentine 
ants are not only exceedingly fond of honey but they attack the 
bee larvae in the cells with a ferocity that is amazing, Thousands 
upon thousands of the ants will enter the hive, carrying away honey 
and attacking the larvae. The bees themselves are unable to cope 
with such small enemies. The ants are too small for them to sting. 
and were they even to attempt picking up the ants in their mandibles 
and carrying them out of the hive they could make no appreciable 
headway against the thousands of intruders. The bees adopt what 
is perhaps the best method of defense under the circumstances, that 
