Mouth Parts

Thorax

12

Coxa

:00

Trochanter

16 Front Wing

Abdomen

Trochanter

Femur

and this work is still being continued. This extract is taken from an 80-page paper which deals with the first two enumerated questions. Of the 24 figures given in this paper only 5 will be reproduced here.

Dugés, in 1838, was the first actually to try to prove that the olfactory organs lie in the antennæ. He cut off the antennæ of two male moths and then these insects were unable to find a female that they had previously been able to locate while their antennæ were uninjured. He also cut off the antennæ of many blow-flies, and then these flies were unable to find putrid meat as before. Dugés, like the later observers, failed to study sufficiently the behavior of his mutilated insects so that it could be compared with the behavior of unmutilated ones. The insects with amputated antennæ used by him certainly did not live long, and it is not reasonable to suppose that an animal, however low or high it may be, I would go courting or hunt food when it has lost two appendages as important as the antennæ.

Since 1838, many observers have

tried to prove experimentally that the organs of smell in all insects are located in the antennæ. Not until

1880 were scientists convinced that the olfactory organs really lie in these appendages. At this date appeared Hauser's large and comprehensive paper which seemingly settled all doubts on this subject. When we critically examine this paper, however, it is easily seen that his results are not infallible. Hauser studied the behavior of various insects before and after the removal of the antennæ. When these appendages were cut off many individuals soon became sick and died, although some of them lived thereafter for many days. In insects with the antennæ dipped into melted paraffin, the behavior was similar to that of those with the antennæ amputated.

After performing many experiments with a certain genus of beetles, he conIcluded that these insects lose the olfactory sense by the removal of the antennæ. Experiments with several other genera of insects gave the same results, but other beetles belonging to three genera gave less satisfactory results.

These never completely failed to respond to strong-smelling substances. Experiments with Hemiptera (bugs) gave a still less favorable result. After the loss of the antennæ these insects reacted to odors almost as well as they did before their antennæ were amputated.

The following results were obtained by the writer. To study the behavior of bees and to test them with odors under conditions which permitted of their close observation, triangular cases were used. These were made of three narrow wooden strips, two of which were 10 and the third 6 inches long, each strip being half an inch thick. Cheesecloth served as a bottom and glass as a top for each case. Nine middle-aged workers, a queen, now and then one or more drones, a lump of candy, a small piece of comb, and a piece of cotton wet with water were put into each case. Thus confined, workers live on an average of 9 days and 3 hours, queens 161⁄2 days, and drones 3 days and 9 hours. The following sources of odors were used: Essential oils of peppermint, thyme

Psn Sc

and wintergreen, honey and comb, pollen, flowers of honeysuckle, leaves and stems of pennyroyal, spearmint and sage, and bee stings. After testing many workers, queens and drones, with these odors it was found that they have an acute sense of smell. Drones smell slightly better than workers, and workers smell considerably better than queens.

To study the behavior of workers with mutilated antennæ, and to see if the antennæ carry the olfactory organs, the following experiments were

performed: One antenna of each of many workers was pulled off. Thus mutilated bees are not entirely normal in behavior. They live only two-thirds as long as unmutilated ones, and seem to smell one-half as well as normal workers. Workers with one antenna pulled off and with two to eight joints of the other one cut off are still more abnormal in behavior and respond less slowly to odors. Workers with both antennæ pulled off, cut off, covered with shellac or celloidin are entirely abnormal in behavior and live less than

one day. They fail to respond to all odors. The antennæ of 95 workers were burnt off with a red-hot needle. These workers were also abnormal and lived only 17 hours on an average. Seven of them which lived longest were tested with odors. They responded one-half as rapidly as normal workers. The antennæ of many workers were covered with liquid glue. Twentyone were obtained which were fairly normal in behavior, but they lived only 24 hours on an average. They responded to odors practically as well as unmutilated workers.

From the preceding experiments it is evident that bees with mutilated antennæ are not normal, and that their slowness in responding to odors or their entire failure to react when tested is due to the injury caused by the mutilation. It seems, therefore, that the antennæ have nothing to do with the sense of smell. Since bees have an acute sense of smell, and as the antennæ do not carry the olfactory organs, we must look for them elsewhere.

A few years ago the writer described some organs found on the appendages of spiders. It was proved experimentally that these are olfactory organs. After failing to prove that the antennæ of bees carry the olfactory organs it was only natural to examine these insects to see if they have organs similar to the olfactory organs of spiders. At once the same organs were found.

Looking at Figs. 1, 2 and 3 it is easily seen where the olfactory organs are located. Groups 1 to 5 lie on the bases of the wings as indicated by the numbers. Groups 6 to 18 lie on the legs. Groups 19 to 21 lie on the sting (Fig. 3). The same organs are found on all mouthparts, but they are not discussed in this paper. The antennæ of the bee do not carry any of these organs.

Drones have an average number of 2604 olfactory organs, 606 which lie on all six legs and 1998 on all four wings. Workers have an average total number of 2268 olfactory organs, 100 of which lie on the sting, 658 on all six legs, and 1510 on all four wings. Queens have an average total number of 1860 olfactory organs, 100 of which lie on the sting, 450 on all six legs. and 1310 on all four wings. Those on the legs are rather large, but those on the wings and stings are quite small.

Under the microscope these organs appear as bright spots. At the first glance they resemble hair sockets (Fig. 4, PorApHr) from which the hairs have been pulled, but after a closer examination a striking difference is usually seen. Each bright spot is surrounded by a dark line, the pore wall (Figs. 4 and 5, PorW). Outside this line the chitin or "skin" (Fig. 4, PorB) may be light or dark in color, but inside the line the chitin (Figs. 4 and 5, ChL) is almost transparent, and at the center there is an opening, the pore aperture (Figs. 4 and 5, PorAp).

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In order to study the internal anatomy of these organs, pieces of the appendages bearing the groups were pickled " in a special fluid, and these pieces were cut crosswise into many extremely thin slices called sections. These sections were mounted on strips of glass, called microscopical slides,

and they were then stained with dyes. Looking at one of these stained sections under the microscope, one or more of the olfactory organs split open is always observed. From Fig. 5 it is seen that one of these organs is an inverted flask in the chitin (Ch). It has a wide neck (NkFl) and a flaring mouth (MF1), and its bottom is two-thirds filled with a hollow chitinous cone (Con). A sense cell (SC) lies just beneath the flask. Its outer end (SF) runs all the way to the opening (PorAp) in the chitin, and its inner end (NF) runs to the main nerve in the appendage. It is thus seen that the substance (Cyt) in the sense cell comes in direct contact with the air containing the odor, and odors do not have to pass through a hard membrane in order to stimulate the sense cells in the antennæ.

responded only slightly, more slowly than unmutilated bees. The wings of 28 workers were pulled off. When tested with odors, these bees responded one-eighth as rapidly as normal bees. The bases of the wings of 20 workers were covered with glue. When tested, these bees responded also one-eighth as rapidly as normal bees. The organs on the legs of 20 workers were covered with a mixture of beeswax and vaseline. When tested, these bees responded two-fifths as rapidly as unmutilated workers.

The wings were pulled off and the organs on the legs of 20 workers were covered with the beeswax-vaseline mixture. When tested with odors these workers responded one-twelfth as rapidly as unmutilated workers. All of the workers with mutilated wings and legs lived just as long in the observation cases as did unmutilated workers, and they were absolutely normal in all respects except they reacted to odors more slowly.

Judging from the anatomy of these organs, and from the preceding experiments it is only reasonable to regard these structures as the olfactory

A

BY DR. BRUNNICH.

BOUT 10 years ago I marked my queens with a mixture of glue of isinglass and color, but I was not contented with the results. The odor of this glue was very disagreeable, and the bees certainly detested it as well as I. It required several minutes for the glue to dry, and it was not possible to give a nice mark to a queen. Holding the marking of queens a very valuable thing, I was therefore glad, when, in a convention of the Swiss bee-breeders, a friend of mine gave us a better method, which I will describe at once. In a cup of porcelain I grind some color powder (a teaspoonful), adding by little and little some good lacquer until the consistency is half liquid. It is a matter of experience to get the best consistency; at all events the lacquer must not be too thick, because then the marking is impossible and does not remain.

To give the mark of color to a queen, I always hold her by the wings in my left hand and let her take hold on a table. With a little instrument, which consists of a thread-like wire which is bent one-sixteenth inch at the point at an angle of about 45 degrees, I make my marks on the thorax. With this little instrument I am able to make a great number of very different marks. Sometimes I give one point, two, three, or four points, a longitudinal bar, a transversal one or oblique one, or I combine those bars with one or two points; sometimes I make a cross in two different positions; sometimes a H or a U, etc. With the colors I vary every year; white (not very good), red and yellow (excellent colors), green. I never tried blue, silver, or golden bronze. Every four years the same colors come again. If the marks are well made, they may remain clearly for four years.

The advantages of the markings are various and considerable. How easily a queen with a bright mark may be recognized from a great distance, and how agreeable it is to seek such a queen! It is a very valuable thing, if a queen has to be superseded by a young one; only if a queen is well marked may I be absolutely sure that the superseding has succeded.

I know from a large experience that many a beekeeper believes the superseding a success, while it was another young queen bred from the bees of the hive which deceived the beekeeper. Even clipping is not sure, because it

may happen that the wings are injured in a manner that it may seem as if the wing had been clipped. I am very mistrustful when the excellent results of any new method of superseding are praised by the beekeepers. I think I have tried all methods (always with colored queens), and have seen that every method gives a failure under certain circumstances, even if performed with all precautions. Often the hive will not be looked after in three or four weeks, and of course a young queen will have brood in all stages, and the happy bee-man is proud of his

success.

The marking of queens, bees and drones has given me a great many very interesting experiences. Often I saw, at my mating stations, that a queen was not in her own nucleus, but in a strange one; she had flown into the false hole and had been kindly accepted. Once I had an excess of queencells in a dequeened colony in my beehouse. When I came to take the cells they had disappeared; but instead of them I saw a young fertile queen. Noticing the colored mark on her back, I immediately recognized a queen which had been before in a not very distant nucleus, where now she was no longer to be found. Similar examples I have often seen. It is a nice thing, which I have often observed, to see in a hive an old queen with her mark, and not far from her her daughter with a different colored mark. For knowing exactly the age of a queen there is no other means than a good marking. I have sometimes read of queens 6 years old. I, for my part, am distrustful of such statements, having never seen a queen older than 4 years.

Sometimes nice things may be observed by marking young bees. We may then exactly know their age, when they fetch pollen, honey or water. Once I saw a bee which fetched wax from a little lump lying aside; quickly I marked it with yellow color, and could then observe for some days the same bee fetch from that wax. My son and I have marked quite differently a number of water-carrying bees and then noted the time of their sucking and the time they needed to bring the water home, etc. For the exploration of certain scientific questions the marking of the bee is quite an indispensable matter. Zug, Switzerland.

European Foulbrood at Dr.
Miller's

BY DR. C. C. MILLER.

N the season of 1913, I had 24 cases of European foulbrood in my apiary. Almost all of them were very light; I think none would be called very bad; but if a single diseased cell was found in a colony, that colony was called a "case." As there were 83 colonies, spring count, that made 29 percent of them affected.

The first case was spotted April 22; 15 cases were found at different times in May; and the balance in June, the last being June 18. Whenever a was found, it was marked in red ink in the regular record-book, and any en

case

try made at any time referring in any way to the disease was marked with red. That made it easy to tell at a glance whether any colony was affected, and what pertained to the disease without having to read over the whole record.

HOW EUROPEAN FOULBROOD WAS TREATED.

June 2 and June 10 were the dates on which nearly all the cases were treated. The treatment was simple. As the cases were mild and the queens good, there was no need to destroy or remove any of the queens. (In very bad cases it is better to destroy the queen. Not that the queen herself has the disease, but she has become poor, perhaps because of having lived in such a bad atmosphere. In mild cases she is not affected.) In all but a few cases the queen was caged in the hive for 8 or 10 days, and then fed. That's all there was of the treatment; just stopping the queen from laying for 8 or 10 days. Possibly a week would be long enough, but I wanted to be on the safe side.

In the remaining cases the queen was allowed to remain without being caged. In four cases, in the middle of the day or a little earlier, all the brood and adhering bees were quietly removed (and put elsewhere in an upper story over an excluder), clean brood from elsewhere was given to the queen, allowing the returning field-bees to care for the brood. That was all the treatment they received. The nurse

bees had been quietly removed so they would not be made to fly and return to the hive, the field-bees had no foul food for the babies, and could get none from the clean brood, so there was nothing to continue the disease. This plan allowed the queen to continue laying, but taking away all the younger bees stood over against that, and caging the queen is less trouble.

In two cases the treatment was simpler than the last given. All the brood, with adhering bees, was put in an upper story over an excluder, and the queen was left downstairs to start a new brood-nest. If this plan should prove generally successful, as it did in these two cases (one of them was, I think, the worst case in the apiary), it may be the best plan to use with extracting colonies. It has the advantage that it is nothing more nor less than the Demaree plan to prevent swarming. For section work the caging plan is all right for mild cases. For severe cases the queen should be killed and replaced after 8 or 10 days by a vigorous laying queen of best Italian stock. Still better it may be to introduce a ripe cell or just hatched virgin at the time of removing the old queen.

One thing that has not been mentioned should be strongly emphasized: In all cases treated the colony was strong or else made strong before treatment by the addition of brood and bees.

FOLLY OF DESTROYING COMBS.

I know there are those for whom I

have great respect who have bitterly denounced the practice of trying to save the combs in treating European foulbrood. In my first dealing with the disease I destroyed hundreds of brood-combs. If I am forgiven for it I'll never do it again. Please be sure to note that I'm talking about European, not American foulbrood. The loss of the combs is not all there is of it. Indeed, I think that's the smaller part. The greater loss is from the setback in the work of brood-rearing. It seems to knock things endways for weeks if not for the season. Far less is the interference when egg laying is suspended for 8 or 10 days.

I think I hear some one say, "But your treatment doesn't seem effective, for you keep on having the disease, while with the orthodox treatment and the combs destroyed there's an end of it." Pardon me; that may be true with regard to American, but not as to European. I treated the disease after the most approved orthodox fashion, destroying, as I have said, hundreds of combs, and so far as I could see the disease was just as willing to return as with the less drastic treatment. I think I'd rather keep brood and combs.

EFFECT OF EUROPEAN FOULBROOD ON THE HONEY CROP.

Some curiosity has been expressed to know what effect the disease had upon the 1913 honey crop. Is not the fact that the apiary holds the world's record for the largest average of sections (266.47 per colony) from so large a number as 72 colonies enough to show that European foulbrood did not greatly interfere with the crop? But it may be more satisfactory to go into particulars.

Part of the diseased colonies worked on extracting combs, and no account was kept of their work; we can consider only the 17 that worked on sections. These 17 averaged 232.29 sections each. And now I'm just a little at a loss to know how to figure. There were 72 colonies, spring count, that worked on sections, but another colony was made out of these 72, making 73. I don't know whether to take 17 out of the 72, leaving 55, or out of 73, leaving 56, or take some other number as the number of entirely healthy colonies to which credit should be given for the rest of the sections. If we take 55, then the average for the healthy colonies was 277. If we take 56, then the average was 272.1. Even this smaller number is 39.81 more than the average of the diseased colonies. If this difference be wholly due to the disease, then the average of the 72 would have been at least 272.1 instead of 266.47, and a loss of 676 out of the total crop should be charged up against

European foulbrood. That may or may not be right, but it certainly looks as if something should be charged up against the disease, even though it was mild. And it is a consoling thought to know that the disease can be so kept down.

1

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Three of the diseased colonies gave respectively 305, 326, and 336 sections. The poorest gave 112 sections. The poorest of the healthy colonies gave 68 sections, showing that there are worse things than foulbrood. In this case I think it was pure cussedness." Number 39 began by killing its own queen the last of May, and killed everything in the line of a queen given to it up to Sept. 1, when it accepted a virgin. I used the politest and best forms of introduction I knew, including Arthur C. Miller's smoke plan, but all was no use.

Marengo, Ill.

F

Our Wild Bees

BY JOHN H. LOVELL.

EW beekeepers know much about our wild bees, yet they play a most important part in the pollination of both wild and cultivated plants, the pollen and nectar of which our domestic bees are compelled to share with them. Our younger beekeepers, both boys and girls, would find it well worth their while to collect and study the wild species of their neighborhood. By exchanging and corresponding with each other this work might be made intensely interesting; and much practical information would be obtained. When Darwin was at Good Success Bay, Terra del Fuego, he wrote home that he thought he could not employ his life better than by adding a little to Natural Science. But it is not necessary to go to the antipodes for this purpose; you can find an ample field for investigation near your own home, for the wild bees of this country are fairly well known in only a very few localities.

Some 8000 species have been described

throughout the world, of which 2000 belong to Europe, and an equal number to North America. There are about 200 species in England, 400 in Germany, while in the warmer climate of Algeria there are 413. In southern Maine there are not far from 135 species, while Hamilton, Ill., the home of the American Bee Journal, could probably furnish 250 species. The wild bees of the southern States are almost wholly unknown, and the information available in regard to the bee fauna of many northern States is exceedingly scanty.

The wild bees are now classified into families, in the same manner as plants, but for the purpose of this

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a

journal we shall follow an older division of them into two great series called the long-tongued bees and the short-tongued bees. The latter is the older group, and as flowers with the nectar deeply concealed were gradually developed, the long-tongued bees were evolved pari passu (with equal pace).

Of our native long-tongued bees no genus is more familiar to every one than the bumblebees. They are sometimes called humblebees, but their cheerful boom well deserves the sonorous term Bombus or bumblebee. The common American bumblebee (Bombus americanorum, Fig. 1) has a tongue 14 millimeters long, or more than twice as long as that of the honey-bee (6 mm.). The following lines by Emerson well describe the economy of species:

'Hot midsummer's petted crone, Sweet to me thy drowsy tone

Tells of countless summer hours,

Long days and solid banks of flowers.

Wiser far than human seer,
Yellow-breeched philosopher!

When the fierce northwestern blast
Cools sea and land so far and fast,

Thou already slumberest deep;

Woe and want thou canst outsleep."

There are many flowers which are adapted to pollination by bumblebees, and are hence called bumblebee flowers. This is true of no other genus of bees. Common bumblebee flowers in gardens are the columbines, larkspurs, monkshoods and snapdragons; while the turtlehead, butter and eggs, gentian and red clover flourish in the mead

Ows. I once placed several flowerclusters of white turtlehead about 4 feet in front of a bee-hive; the honeybees ignored the flowers entirely, but presently the bumblebees found them and one of them visited every flower.

Bumblebees are social insects during the warmer half of the year, but only the impregnated queens survive the winter and are on the wing in the spring. All of the other wild bees indigenous to the northern States are solitary insects; each female, as a rule, constructing her own nest and stock