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136
My Studio Neighbors
·
W. Hamilton Gibson
126
An
interesting
incident,
apropos
of
our
embarrassed
bee,
was
narrated
to
me
by
the
late
Alphonso
Wood,
the
noted
botanist.
He
had
received
by
mail
from
California
a
small
box
containing
a
hundred
or
more
dead
bees,
accompanied
by
a
letter.
The
writer,
an
old
bee-keeper,
had
experience,
and
desired
enlightenment
and
advice.
The
letter
stated
that
his
bees
were
"dying
by
thousands
from
the
attacks
of
a
peculiar
fungus."
The
ground
around
the
hive
was
littered
with
the
victims
in
all
stages
of
helplessness,
and
the
dead
insects
were
found
everywhere
at
greater
distances
scattered
around
his
premises.
It
needed
only
a
casual
glance
at
the
encumbered
insects
to
see
the
nature
of
the
malady.
They
were
laden
two
or
three
pairs
deep,
as
it
were,
with
the
pollen
masses
of
a
milkweed.
The
botanist
wrote
immediately
to
his
anxious
correspondent,
informing
him,
and
suggesting
as
a
remedy
the
discovery
and
destruction
of
the
mischievous
plants,
which
must
be
thriving
somewhere
in
his
neighborhood.
A
subsequent
letter
conveyed
the
thanks
of
the
bee-keeper,
stating
that
the
milkweeds--a
whole
field
of
them--had
been
found
and
destroyed,
and
the
trouble
had
immediately
ceased.
I
am
not
aware
that
Mr.
Wood
ever
ascertained
the
particular
species
of
milkweed
in
this
case.
It
is
not
probable
that
our
Eastern
species
need
ever
seriously
threaten
the
apiary,
though
unquestionably
large
numbers
of
bees
are
annually
destroyed
by
its
excessive
hospitality.
I
have
repeatedly
found
honey-bees
dead
beneath
the
plants,
and
my
cabinet
shows
a
specimen
of
a
large
bumblebee
which
had
succumbed
to
its
pollen
burden,
its
feet,
and
even
the
hairs
upon
its
body,
being
fringed
deep
with
the
tiny
clubs--one
of
the
many
specimens
which
I
have
discovered
as
the
"grist
in
the
mill"
of
that
wise
spider
which
usually
spreads
his
catch-all
beneath
the
milkweeds.
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