560 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July ]5. 



egg with the subtile principle of life within. 

 What a pity that the egg which Mr. Rusden 

 saw on his hand didn't have a lime shell around 

 it! The error arose from the fact that they as- 

 sumed that the queen is a true male, the work- 

 eVs true females, each meeting the king in the 

 hive, and that the drones were designed simply 

 to keep the brood warm.. What a pity that 

 somebody in those days did not happen to see a 

 queen and drone on thi'ir wedding-flight, and 

 thus have given him a hint as to the true othce 

 of the drone and the sex of the queen I No one 

 thing helped to confiiin them in their error 

 more than the idea that the colony is made and 

 fashioned by the Almighty after the model of 

 the British government. This is seen in those 

 passaLfes where those old writers refer to the 

 loyally of the bees to their monarch— as if bees 

 had any idea of loyalty, in the human sense! 

 This talk was all to please the king and to gain 

 his favor. If the analogy were to be carried 

 out, why did they not wind up by saying that, 

 when the bees find their monarch has outlived 

 his usefulness, his most dutiful subjects, for the 

 good of the commonwealth, run him through 

 with spears, and put in a new ruler, regardless 

 of his being a Stewart or of the house of Han- 

 over? That would not do — it would savor of 

 disloyalty. But after all it was of but little 

 consequence to them, in the production of hon- 

 ey, whether the queen was believed to be a male 

 or not. The bees themselves understood all 

 about that, and that was the main thine. But 

 it makes a great difference in our day 



The only disease that bees seemeii lo huvc in 

 those days. 2;i.5 years or so ago, was what we 

 call dysentery — at least, the description seems 

 to tally exactly with what we call that. 



Mr. Rusden claims that bees have the same 

 senses that men do, and there seems no room to 

 doubt the coriectness of his argument, especial- 

 ly in regard to hearing — the only disputed 

 point. He maintains that bees do nothing in 

 their work except by the direct command of 

 their king. I presume he meant to except ball- 

 ing and assassination. ' He says they never 

 swarm except by command of their ruler. I 

 will here quote a few words: 



"The king's government is just, because he 

 oppresseth none ; the consequence of which is, 

 unity throughout the whole kingdom. His gov- 

 erment is absolute, because his orders are never 

 disputed, but obeyed, as well in swarming, and 

 executing their drones and young princes, as in 

 watching and working." 



I strongly suspect that Moses meant the quo- 

 tation above as a gentle hint to certain two- 

 legged kings of his day. 



As for hives, it was the old straw skep, every 

 time; but for all that, they seem to have had 

 about as little trouble in wintering as the boys 

 do in our times. 



At the end of the book the author says, rath- 

 er boastingly: 



If any man knows any thing 



More true than 1 impart, 

 Let liira disclose it; 

 Otherwise impiove with me this art. 



Right under these words somebody has writ- 

 ten (I rather guess it was Mr. Henderson, who 

 formerly owned the book) — 



Thousands of men, since you wrote this 



Conceited book of lies. 

 Where ignoraiire is tjliss 

 'Tis folij' to be wise. 



Standing on the superior plane of to-day, it is 

 certainly interesting to follow the gropings of 

 men in fihose dark times as they worked toward 

 the light. The progress has always been up- 

 ward, and some day other people will look down 

 on us for some of our Jollies. But progress in 

 natural science during the next 300 years will, 



in all probability, not be so great as it has been 

 during the last two centuries; for our progress 

 has been largely due to the present condition of 

 the microscope, which enlarged our range of 

 view into the little world as much as the tele- 

 scope did into stellar space. 



In this book I was pleased to see that the au- 

 thor frequently refers to Mr. Purchas, 1(5.57, and 

 to Mr. Butler, 1609, the authors of the books I 

 have previously mentioned. 



One very commendable thing Mr. Rusden had 

 in view was the abolition of the old system of 

 bnmstoning bees to get their honey. This was 

 so distasteful to him that he says of it. " It is 

 like the method of the Devil, who pays his most 

 industrious servants with the greatest ruin." 

 He enjoins his readers, if they have been bene- 

 fited by his work, to " give God the glory, in be- 

 holding his wonderful works in these small and 

 admirable creatures." How much better that 

 sounds than to attribute it all to a blind an un- 

 knowing force, with no intelligence back of it, 

 called nature! It is all of a piece with every 

 English bee-writer whose books I have so far 

 examined. I wonder whether, that has any 

 thing to do with the stability and general ex- 

 cellence of the British government as compared 

 with the ever-shifting and revolutionary char- 

 acter of some who have said in their national 

 decrees, "There is no God." 



Mr. Rusden dates his book. "Near the vSign 

 of the King's Arms in the Bowling Alley, in 

 Westminster, near the Abbey. Julv 18. 167it]" 



Medina. July 8. W. P. R. 



HOW TO INCREASE THE WHITE - HONEY 

 CROP. 



now TO CONVERT UNFIXISHKD SECTIONS INTO 



CAPITAL,: A VALUABLE ARTICLE BY 



B. 'TAYLOR. 



What a splendid thing it would be if we 

 could increase the white-comb-honey crop 40 

 percent! I was in St. i^aul some years ago, 

 and had a small quantity of section honey to 

 dispose of. A certain dealer was recommended 

 to me who was said to buy nice honey. I found 

 him, and offered my goods. 



" Is your honey white?" he asked. 



I said it was very good honey. 



He answered, " i don't care anything about 

 whether it is good or not; what I want to know 

 is, is your honey white? If it is white it will 

 sell whether it is good or not. I know that 

 dark honey is_ sometimes better in eating 

 quality than white, but it will not sell. If your 

 honey is not strictly white I do not want it; if 

 it is white, bring it along and I will give you a 

 good price." 



My honey was not strictly white, and I failed 

 to make a sale. Three poor crops have left 

 St. Paul and Minneapolis markets bare of 

 white-comb honey; and yet dark goes begging. 

 White-comb honey is what we want; and in 

 this article I propose to tell how I expect to 

 increase my crop 50 per cent this year. Last 

 year, at the end of the white-honey flow, I took 

 off all my supers of sections, whether they 

 were finished or not. I picked out the finished 

 sections that were properly sealed, crated them, 

 and then extracted the partly finished ones. 

 This extracted honey I sold readily for 133^ 

 cents per lb. This was more than it would 

 have brought if the sections had been left on 

 the hives and finished with dark honey. I set 

 those empty sections of comb into supers; 

 spread a sheet of paper between each super; 

 covered all tight to keep out mice; and now at 

 the commencement of the flow of honey from 

 white and alsike clover. I have nearly 100 

 supers, of 34 sections each, filled with empty 



