882 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 1. 



the French language, — that he has seen the queen- 

 bee phice herself in such an attitude as to strike the 

 bees motionless, — that he has seen the queen-bees 

 lor six consecutive nights eiigag'ed in a duel,— that 

 he has seen forlitications erected by tlie bees; we 

 affirm, that the man who will tell us, and call upon 

 us in a dogmatical tone to believe him, that ten 

 hives will warm an apartment, and twelve a green- 

 house if the bees be well shaken, — that the queen- 

 bee is sometimes afflicted with the ague, — that he 

 has seen a bee construct a cell from tlie foundation 

 to the coping, with numerous other similar fooleries, 

 possesses but a very slight claim indeed to the 

 character of a profound or accurate naturalist. We 

 are bold enough to declare, tfuit the discoveries of 

 Huber are not only improbable, but even inijinssihle; 

 and it is on the basis of that knowledge tiiat we 

 have unequivocally expressed our dissent to the 

 principal points of the theory of Huber. We have, 

 however, fearlessly thi'own down the gauntlet to 

 the advocates of Huber; and although we may 

 stand single-handed in the contest, we fight under 

 the banners of truth, and as such we despair not of 

 the victory. 



Two more pages like this follow; but the lash 

 falls upon later writei'S who have "blindly" 

 followed Huber, even against the evidence of 

 what he did not have — eyesight. 



The disputes between the old bee-masters 

 seem to have been entirely in regard to the bee 

 itself, and especially the sex of the worker. Hu- 

 ish says he is positive that workers have noth- 

 ing to do with the procreation of their kind. He 

 says, "We deny in the most unequivocal man- 

 ner that any ovarium exists in the common 

 bee." From this he argues that an egg laid by 

 a queen will invariably produce a worker (if it 

 is a worker egg), and that no amount of "royal 

 broth," as he sneeringly translates the original 

 French word, can make a queen from such an 

 egg, any more than a hen's egg can produce a 

 turkey. Certainly here was a far bigger mis- 

 take than Huber ever made; for workers cer- 

 tainly do have what might have been an ovari- 

 um, or egg-sheath, if properly fed with royal 

 jelly, and given plenty of room. Here is a won- 

 derful instance of an insect undergoing a I'adi- 

 cal change by a change of food. 



Huber claims that some bees secrete wax, 

 ■while others make comb of this raw material. 

 Mr. Huish ridicules this as contradictory, by 

 saying. "That is, although the silkworm spins 

 its cocoon, still it makes no silk." The point is 

 not well taken. If some silkworms were known 

 to take cocoons that other worms had fur-jished, 

 and were to draw these cocoons out into hand- 

 kerchiefs, the analogy would be complete. Bees 

 do not secrete wax in the shape of comb, but it 

 is elaborated by the bees into cells after secre- 

 tion; and that bees of one age might do one 

 thing while others do the other is not absurd of 

 itself — at least, not so hard to believe as that a 

 bee manipulates no wax secreted by another 

 bee. 



Huber's theory, that workers lay eggs that 

 develop into drones, is objected to by Huish on 

 the ground that, in that case, we should have 

 some 1.5,000 females, all laying male eggs, and 

 these females rendered fertile by females! — a 

 bad state of affairs truly. Mr. Huish distorts 

 Huber's meaning in places, and makes fun of 

 the idea that what might have been a queen 

 was distorted into a worker by circumstances 

 connected with its egg-life. It seems sad that 

 these men should have been so widely apart, 

 when a full knowledge of what is now called a 

 *' laying worker" would have reconciled most of 

 their discrepancies on this score. Of course, the 

 dispute was ail on one side, for we do not know 

 that Huber ever heard of Huish, for the latter 

 must have been very young, perhaps not born, 

 when Huber's works were first printed. 



As an instance of how greatly Mr. Huish 

 misundi rstands Huber, I can not refrain from 

 mentioning the following: Huber speaks in one 



place of having seen combs 8 inches ivide. Mr. 

 Huish, understanding depth, or thickness, for 

 ividtli, immediately makes fun of comb with 

 cells 4 inches in depth, as that would necessi- 

 tate bees 4 inches long to till them! 



To-day the efforts of bee- men are directed al- 

 most entirely to the management of the bee, 

 with the view of getting the most honey; and 

 in this respect our bee-books present a complete 

 and refreshing contrast to tiie old ones I have 

 described. True, there are some things about 

 bees we should like to know. For instance, do 

 bees hear? do they make real honey of all 

 sweet substances which they consume or im- 

 bibe? and the use of some of their organs is not 

 yet, I believe, fully settled. But these are not 

 now divisive questions. We are discussing dif- 

 ferences in perforations in zinc, so small that a 

 hair seems like a beam in comparison, and in 

 settling on the best size of a frame within the 

 thirty-second of an inch. 



For vigor of language, Mr. Huish's book is a 

 marvel. He draws one on by his energetic log- 

 ic with almost irresistible force. Of course, we 

 of to-day can take a bird's-eye view of the con- 

 tested points, and sift out the chaff from the 

 wheat, and read the arguments with perfect 

 impartiality. Perhaps the time will come when 

 we shall all see our points of difference in a new 

 and better light, and find that we have all been 

 partially right — that the shield was red on our 

 side and blue on the other; when HUfJif shall 

 have as much in common in love as in name. 



A fine picture of the author, in copperplate, 

 faces the beautiful title-page. 



Medina, Nov. l.'J. W. P. Root. 



THE NON-USE OF THE BEE-ESCAPE. 



HOW AN EXTENSIVE BEE-KEEPER REMOVES 

 THE BEES. 



Agreeably to a call for bee-escape experience, 

 from the editor of Gleanings, I would say for 

 one that 1 gave the article in question a trial 

 on a small scale; and, while I have no doubt of 

 the efficiency of the invention, and know that 

 there is a very great deal in getting um d to a 

 thing, I think, as in the beginning, that, while 

 it might pay some people, it would not pay me. 

 I use shallow frames in the cases (my crop is 

 m-arly all extracted), and tier up empty combs 

 on the hiv(!s, case after case, until the close of 

 the honey season, and then extract. My modus 

 operandi, briefly given, is as follows: 



I have a hive-cart similar to the California 

 styles illustrated in back numbers of Glkan- 

 ings. Provided with a large-sized Bingham I 

 begin at the end of a row of hives, pry otf the 

 cover, start the bees down with smoke; \)vy up 

 the top case; dislodge what bees I can. a la 

 Heddon, with a shake in front of hive, and set 

 the case on the cart. I then remove all the 

 cases in this way (if any contain brood I leave 

 them until fall), and replace the cover on the 

 hive; repeat this operation until the cart is 

 loaded. At convenient locations in the apiary 

 I set bee-spaced bottom-boards, and on these I 

 pile my cases, bees, honey, and all, to a con- 

 venient height, and place on top a cleated 

 board, with a large wire cone opening outward 

 in the center of the same, the hole at the apex 

 the right size to permit the passage of a single 

 bee; the bees rise to the light, pass out, and 

 return to the hives. If robbers are troublesome 

 I throw a cloth over the cases on the cart. A 

 better plan than this is, to pile the cases in the 

 honey-house at once near a screen - covered 

 window, at the top of which are arrang(id bee- 

 escapes. In a large apiary, however, there is 

 seldom room for this last way. 



