'28 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 1 



sJli larg-ely prevails at the national capi- 

 tol. 



The great trouble is, to get men capable 

 of conducting experiments sufficiently im- 

 portant and far-reaching to command na- 

 tional attention. It is not easy to find men 

 like Reaumur, Huber, Langstroth, or Dzier- 

 zon ; and it's the same in every industry. 

 Some few heaven-born geniuses tower over 

 all the rest of the plodding workers. Such 

 men are not made to order, and in many 

 cases they meet with obstacles erected by 

 the very men they have labored to benefit. 

 Nor is it always convenient for men of gen- 

 ius to work under government surveillance. 

 They would feel "curbed, cabined, and 

 confined." The United States abounds 

 with agricultural experiment stations; but 

 I do no injustice to any of them when I say 

 they possess no such original geniuses as 

 Burbank, of California, and Messrs. Mun- 

 son and Stringfellow, of Texas — men who 

 have had no government aid whatever to 

 help them on. It is practically the same 

 in most industries. 



There is one nation, however, that has 

 made a great success of giving government 

 .lid to original investigators. That country 

 is Germany, and her success has stimulat- 

 ed others to emulation. But I am not aware 

 they have succeeded very well. The Ger- 

 mans have been singularly successful in se- 

 lecting the right man for the work; and, 

 having found the right man, leaving him to 

 work out every problem in his own peculiar 

 way, not hampering him with "instruc- 

 tions." Most of this (not all) original 

 work has been done in connection with the 

 great German universities where an eminent- 

 ly broad and free system of pursuing knowl- 

 edge prevails. The result has been to place 

 the whole world of science a debtor to Ger- 

 many. 



Frequently we see requests for the State 

 experiment stations to take up bee-keeping 

 problems. It does not seem to me this is a 

 \ery desirable thing to do; for unless the 

 investigations were conducted by thoroug-h 

 bee-masters the experiments would hardly 

 prove any thing, except that the experiment- 

 ors did not understand their business. We 

 must be careful about encouraging this sort 

 of thing. 



I well recollect the chastisement dealt out 

 by Mr. E. O. Rossele, the well-known poul- 

 tiyman, to some experiment stations who 

 had attempted to deal with poultry prob- 

 lems without first securing the services of 

 an expert poultry genius. He simply "rid- 

 tiled" the experiments as published. And 

 it is very easy to do a great deal of damage 

 lo an industry by giving out false reports, 

 especially if covered with the official seal 

 of the government. The reason why the 

 "comb-honey lie " took so well with the 

 public was that it emanated from the De- 

 jiirtment of Agriculture at Washington. 

 That gave it respectability, and it has gone 

 en its perfidious mission for a quarter of a 

 century, doing great damage to honey-pro- 

 ducers. Quite recently Nature., the great 



English scientific journal, devoted a para- 

 graph to "the comb-honey lie," and so also 

 the very reliable Chambers'' Joiirfial, all in 

 the interests of science, no doubt. The 

 reader can readily perceive that govern- 

 ment aid to bee-keeping might easily prove 

 a positive detriment to the honey-producers 

 who try to make a living from their api- 

 aries. 



Truljs there is no lack of work for a 

 really clever experimenter; in point of fact, 

 the work before us to be solved is so vast 

 that it requires great courage to start work 

 on much raw material. To give an idea of 

 what I regard as a truly rational subject 

 for research I offer two problems as sam- 

 ples: 



1. What can be done to render the Cali- 

 fornia crop more certain? 



2. How provide a substitute for alfalfa in 

 Colorado, should this crop become unrelia- 

 ble? 



It would take a long time and much mon- 

 ej-, perhaps, to conduct such researches; 

 but both the time and the money would be 

 well spent if success attended the efforts. 



One of the things that has operated 

 against the advance of government apicul- 

 tural experiments is what I may term the 

 Apis dorsata fad. It seems tome that some 

 bee-keepers thought if they had this giant 

 bee they would be all right for this life at 

 least. In my opinion there are other prob- 

 lems much more important lying right 

 around us — not that I do not believe in do- 

 mesticating new bees, but there are other 

 fine bees besides Apis dorsata. Had the 

 proposition been to tame some of the sting- 

 less bees I could have understood their en- 

 thusiasm. I need nt)t enumerate or even at- 

 tempt to begin to mention the problems up 

 for solution, because, if a man is capable 

 of experimental research, he will discover 

 plenty of problems awaiting his attention. 

 We want a Faraday in bee-keeping. If 

 we can find such a one, by all means let 

 the government of some State support him, 

 and let bee-keepers help all they can. 

 There is plenty of work for him to do. 



GETTING BEES OUT OF SUPERS. 



The 



Bee-escape Plan ; the Shook, Brushed, and 

 Smoke Plan, and a More Rational Way. 



BY S. T. PETTIT. 



Mr. Root: — I notice on page 136, last edi- 

 tion of A B C book, that you still adhere to 

 the old way of taking combs from the bees 

 lor extracting; that is, by smoke, shake, 

 and iniuiediate brushing. But you give 

 preference to the bee-escape, which, may 

 be, is all right for removing supers at the 

 close of the season ; but for the following 

 reasons I would not use them during the 

 honey-flow: 



First, in a honey-flow the bees work in 

 the hive all night at evaporating and curing 

 the honey; but just as soon as the bee-es- 



