No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 679 



THE HABITS OF THE BEE AND SOME MISAPPREHENSIONS. 



By Evkbitt F. Phillips. Ph. D., (Fellow for Research in Zoology, University -of Pennsylvania). 



Of all animals, aside from man himself, there are very few that 

 have been the object of more admiration and interest to men of every 

 age than the common honey bee. The domestic animals have, of 

 course, been the objects of much study, but it is much to be doubted 

 whether they surpass the bee in interest. On account of its value 

 to man as a honey producer, as well as because of its most interest- 

 ing habits, but few insects are as well known as is the hive bee, Apis 

 mellifera. 



It may be profitable for us to review together for a short time 

 some of the things that we know about bees, and it has occurred to 

 me that possibly it might be even more profitable to find out what we 

 do not know. There yet remains much to be done along the line of 

 observations on the habits of the bee, and lest we forget that we do 

 not yet know all that is to be known, let us first examine the diffi- 

 culties in the way of observation and then hastily review our present 

 knowledge in so far as our time will allow. 



First of all, let us give credit to the men who in the past have 

 spent their time in observation, for by their labor we of the present 

 are enabled to read in a short time the results of years of work and 

 profit in the practical work of apiculture by their recorded results. 

 He would be an ignorant bee-keeper indeed who would fail to oc- 

 knowledge his debt of gratitude to the men who have worked on 

 the habits of the bee, for apiculture is founded on their work and 

 would not exist to-day as a science were it not for such workers. 

 The names of Aristotle, Swammerdam, Reaumur, Bonnet, Schirach, 

 Huber and others well known to you, must ever be venerated by bee- 

 keepers for the light these men threw on the activities in the hive. 

 Huber, with his loss of sight, stands out among these as an example 

 of a man who could do work of the greatest value in spite of an 

 affliction which would make most men of little value to mankind at 

 large. Later we come to the names of Dzierzon, the founder of the 

 theory of Parthenogenesis, Von Berlepsch, Von Siebold and Weis- 

 mann. We must also include Langstroth, Cowan and possibly Ches- 

 hire in the list, for they have done much in apiculture. There are 

 many more men whose work has helped, but we cannot enumerate 

 all of them. I regret to say that relatively few Americans have done 

 much toward a scientific study of the bee, but what this nation lacks 

 on that side has been more than made up in practical appliances and 

 methods. The source to which every bee-keeper should go for a 

 knowledge of the habits of the bee is not a book written by any of 

 the men that I have named, nor of any other man, but the one place 

 to study the habits is beside a bee hive. First-hand information, 

 properly obtained, is worth more than any amount of second-hand 

 facts and here, as everywhere, we can profitably follow the advice 

 of the celebrated naturalist Agassiz, "Study Nature, not Books." 



