Farm And Garden

ruóse wdo aro unacqnainceu witn ÍJfiUiuis are ofteu desirous to know how they can be recoguized. Di. O. C. Miller explains the matter in National Stockman and Farmer, vvith the aid of a cut showing tbe abdomen of a worker: Bees don't have a framework of bones inside, like dogs or horses, but a bony case outside, ruude of a hard substance called chitine. The abdomen haü for its covericg seveial bands of this chitinous subttance so joiuted as to move freely one upon the other, telescope i'r.shion. In tho (Dmmon black bee these rings or ban . ts are black. In the Italian worker the first three bands, A, B and C, are yellow. The first band, A, is small and does not show so distinctly in the mg specimen as in tne eniarged picture. If the bee is filled with boney, the bands all show more plainly, and if the bee is crawling up a pane of glass in the window it looks somewhat transparent where Jhe yellow bands are. If very empty, as in the case of a dead bee, you may not notice the yellow bands. These bands are not uniform in appearance. The front part of each of the three bands, as at A, B and C, is a distinct yellow, the other part, as at J K, less so, because this part is covered with a kind of hair or feathers. These hairs or feathers are sometimes rubbed off, as in the case of robbers or diseased bees, and then all the bands of the black bee and the black bands of an Italian bee will be a shining black. By selection in breeding bees have been produced that have more than three bands. Five banded bees are quite common in America, for this increase of yellow bands has been made in tJiis country, and some bees have the abdomen yellow to the very tip.