1901 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



831 



for the moment over the Rood. In the orchard or 

 friiit-farm the conditions are very different . Here a 

 man may feed the bees which belong to somebody 

 ■else, and he does not, like the cncnnilier-grower, see 

 that the bees actually save him the wages of a work- 

 man, which would be nearly as necessury without the 

 bee. Most men do not, I think fully understand who 

 the bee is and what he really does. Let us state his 

 case fairly. I understand, of couise, that common 

 facts about the bee must be an old story to those who 

 are here. The greatest value of such a meeting is the 

 fact that one may talk over your heads or through 

 you to the thousands who will never join either soci- 

 ety, ?nd jet who will profit by j'our work. 



THE BEE AS A CITIZEN. 



Man has never tamed the bee as he has the horse or 

 dog or ex. These animals have surrendered their 

 freedom, and tamely submit to man's dictation, 

 changing even their shape and vital functions at his 

 will. Turn them loose, and after a few hours of 

 clumsy freedom they will come back and beg to be 

 taken under shelter into slaverj-. Even man h'ln- 

 self loses the savage independence and love of liberty 

 he knew when free as the hills, and at the behest of 

 civilization puts his neck under the heel of those who 

 are morally his inferi ir. Not so the bee. He has 

 never surrendered the freedom that goes with wild 

 things .ind wild life Man coaxes and partly directs 

 him, but he is still untamed, and still retain* the cour- 

 age and fearles.*ness which civilization takes from 

 the heart of mo t animals, including man. Left to 

 itself the swarm of bees will not come beeging shel- 

 ter from man, but gladly and fearlessly fly off into 

 the wilderness, to live as its ancestors lived. 



The bee starts with the scope and purpose of its 

 life-work clear. It does nnt need to go to school. 

 From the first gleam of consciousness the bee knows 

 that it is born to toil, without reward without hope of 

 posterity. Instinct, heredity, spirit, call it what you 

 will, drives the bee on to labor without ceasing, with- 

 out holidays or hours of lazv ease, and for what? 

 Simply for the future — that dim mysterious time for 

 •which he is ever prompted to provide. I said that the 

 mental side of this question will present itself to any 

 thoughtful man. Truly the les'on of the hive goes 

 detp into the human heart and soul. 



THE BEE AS A WORKER. 



As a boy I was brought up on the "' busy bee " the- 

 ory. The old man who considered himself responsi- 

 ble for my industrial training gave me to understand 

 that the bee is a tireless worker who toils for the love 

 of it and never quits. He wasn't trying to get me 

 inteTested in the studv of natural hi.story — he was try- 

 ing to get me to realize that some one loved to work, 

 and he knew that he didn't. I am sorry to break 

 r^o«n this ideal of childhood, for I have searched 

 "hard to find s jmelhiug that has no blocd of the shirk 

 in its veins I c&n't tell my chddren the old stor}', 

 for they will soon know that most bees in New Jersey 

 appear to start work at 7::li to 8 a.m , and knock oiT at 

 4 P M. On wet days they usually quit entirely This 

 is much like the average hired man, who will take 

 advantage of a light sprinkle to come in and sweep 

 up the barn fiofir. The bee works on Sundav while 

 the hired man rides his bicycle. When the bee does 

 St' rt he keeps at his work, while the hired man stops 

 to look at the clock. 



•vVhen you tear down the childish ideal of the busy 

 bee, and find that it has some of the bad habits of 

 Tnortals, you do not destroy the whole lictiire. That 

 would > e true with some men: but with the bee it 

 only brings to view a higher ideal than f ver. The 

 bee dees a fair day's work, and then goes home and 

 puts in apart of the night. .•\ man after doing his 

 wirk in the field, will hardly help his wife wash the 

 d'shes after supper, l)Ut the bee works like a slave 

 Ih'ough the darkness at the wonderful task of manu- 

 facturing honey. The short day of bard and consis- 

 tent work furnishes enough for the hive workers. If 

 all men worked as the bee does, with as fair and just 

 a division of labcr, what a world we should have ! 

 The short, hopeful day's work would be suflficient if 

 the idle and the rich would cease to live on the earn- 

 ings of the overworked poor. The society in the hive 

 permits but few drones, and kills them off as winter 

 comes on, while human society increases the number. 

 Thus as we grow older we find that the bee is not the 

 poor aimle's drudge we thought him, but rather one 

 ■who lets his wits save his wings. 



THE BEE'S GOOD WORK. 



We can easily forgive the bee his short working 

 days when we consider the good he does. There is no 



question about the debt fruit-growers owe him. Peo- 

 ple talk about the wind and other insects in fertiliz- 

 ing our flowers; but I am confident that any man who 

 will really take the time and pains to investigate for 

 himself will see that the bee is nearly the whole 

 story. I have seen the certain results of his good 

 work in a neighbor's orchard. Those bees"bioke 

 the trees" down just as truly as though thev had 

 climbed on the trees by the million and pulled at 

 them. The appearance of those trees after a few 

 years of bee-keeping would have convinced any fair- 

 minded man that our little buzzing friends are true 

 partners of the fruit grower. 



It has been said that the bee does not do this work 

 because he wants to He is pictured as a greedy, self- 

 ish fellow, born into the world with a single idea, 

 who dusts his jacket with pollen, and does his work 

 as dry nurse simply as an incident. Nature puts the 

 brushes on his legs and stomach, and he can not help 

 using them. Here again he is not unlike men. Most 

 of us fight and slave and toil for our own selfish ends. 

 We try to shake the good intentions out of our jacket, 

 and a large proportion of the good we do in this world 

 is done as a side incident, as we press on to acci m- 

 plish something for ourselves. To my mind this is 

 only another illustration of the wise'and beautiful 

 provision of Nature to lead the bee on fiom fir wer to 

 flower with some motive of personal gain, and in this 

 way compel him to do his work for pomology. I 

 would that humans who toil, even past the allotted 

 years of man's life, after wealth and power, might as 

 surely leave behind them perfect fruits for the toil of 

 others. The stout legs of the bee. as he crawls from 

 flower to flower, kick life into the babv fruits. Surely 

 with this in mind the pomologist can have nothing to 

 " kick " about. 



But ambition and the gratification of personal de- 

 sires lead both bees and men to scaler evil as well as 

 good. All wings, except those of angels, attract and 

 will carry the yerms of evil if they rub against it. It 

 is quite likely that I ees will carry the germs of pear- 

 bliaht from one tree to another — perhaps in quantities 

 suflficient to spread the disease. Let us admit that ; 

 and yet no pear • grower who knows his business 

 would have the be<-s stay entirely away from his 

 trees. The bte also injures fruit to a certain extent. 

 There may be times when he actually leads in this 

 bad work. W hen he does, he is starved to it. f he 

 were fed at home, as everv other farm animal would 

 be at such a time, he would seldcm do the m'srhief. 

 In ordmarv seasons I find little fhult with the bee for 

 sucking this cracked and broken fruit We really 

 ought to thank him this year for delivering us from 

 the temp ation to pack these worthless culls in the 

 middle of the Varrel. Our bee-ket p ng fiiends tell 

 us that there is always some rascal that goes ahead 

 with a punch, and breaks the skin befo e the bee will 

 suck the juict. The j'ellow-jacket is said to be the 

 culprit, and he is a sate one, for no one cares to argue 

 the point w th him. I don't like this h'diiig behind a 

 yellow jacket. It is too much like the way some of 

 these Christian nations have acted in China. Li Hung 

 Chang and othet yellow jackets before him have rob- 

 bed the Chinese people for centuries, but that is no 

 excuse for the looting and stealing on the part of 

 white men. Should not the bee ket per feed his bees 

 when their natural food is .scarce and thev really 

 injure fruit? When I neglect to feed my dog at h-me, 

 and he tuns to the neighbor's back yard f^ r ford 

 which might feed the pig, liqve I a right to ccmpla'n 

 if the neighbor lives up to his legal privilege? My 

 neighbor ought to remember that it was my dog's 

 bark that tanned the hide of the tramp that frighten- 

 ed h s children; but some neighbors are nc t built that 

 way. They are like some pcmologisls who object 

 when the bee tries to take pay for his services in a 

 few rotten fruit I am not sure that home feeding 

 would keep bees entirely away from the fruit There 

 are human beings who will run out of the best of 

 homes. In fact, the more vou feed them the more 

 they run Bees are much like humans in many 

 respects. It is quite likely that a systematic method 

 of feeding during honev. dearths in summer would 

 eventually pay the bee-keerer. just as many dairy- 

 men have become convinced against their wills that 

 it pays to feed grain to cows at gcod pasture. 



THE BEE AS A LAWYER. 



Before the law the bee appears to have clearer 

 rights than any other domestic animal. Recent legal 

 decisions have made the bee's t^osition very clear. 

 In one noted ca e the bees fl-^w into the orchard and 

 unquestionably worked upon or damaged broken 

 fruit. The jury finally u;cided, and I think justly, 

 that the bees comnitted no real damage; yet had a 



