Silk Weed or Milk Weed.
Well, Mr. Editor, I saw in the Bee Journal for July something concerning the injuriousness of the silk weed or milk weed. After reading the article it struck me that there was some of this weed in the vicinity of my apiary, and next day set about to search for it. On going out west, on the low ground on the prairie, I found ten flowering stems of this weed, and seven of the ten had bees fastened on them. Some of these bees were dead, and some still living, though they could not leave the flowers, being fastened in them by their hind legs. The bees seemed to have been gathering honey.
Last Monday, as I was going to a neighbor’s, I saw one of these flowers, three quarters of a mile from my home. I stopped to see if I could find any bees on it, and found an Italian just alive. I am glad there are not many of this species of plants in this neighborhood.
R. Miller.
Rochelle, Ills.
[For the American Bee Journal.]
Honey Dew.
Mr. Editor:—I have at last caught the chaps that rain down what is called honey-dew. In localities where the common willow grows, I found the most. On the Missouri river bottom, which is literally covered with willows, I find in June and July they are covered with small insects, which at a certain age get wings and fly off in large swarms, going for miles. Sometimes they will stop in the air, over some trees, and fly around in a circle for an hour. If you get them between your eye and the sun, you will see them discharging the so-called honey-dew. They will stop in one place, the same as gnats or mosquitoes, which you have often seen about as high as a man’s head.
Now, if any person really wants to test the correctness of this, let him go to a willow grove and he will find those insects (or willow lice) just before sun-down; and getting the willows between him and the sun, he will see them rising from every part of the tree, in small squads, and collecting till they form a large swarm. Then they will be seen discharging continually a fluid which resembles a fine sprinkle of rain. I have often seen those same insects discharging a fluid on a limb, where they were hatching; and then saw large ants, wasps, and yellow jackets working on it. And I often wondered how it got on the very tops of the trees, where no insects were to be found. I think this observation will settle the matter about the origin of honey-dew.