660 AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



front strip, and the projections on the underside at each end cut oflP level with the 

 board. Now there is nothing to stop bees from going back, and the bees from the 

 brood-nest might come out and go into the super, but they don't do it. This board 

 will clear a super, or supers, as quickly as any escape I ever tried. Robber bees 

 might go in, some of you may think; so they might, but I have never had any 

 trouble with them, and I have some bees that it would be very hard to excel as rob- 

 bers. Supers should be removed the next day after the board is put on. There will 

 not be any bees in the super the next morning. 



Now, by the use of this board the bees are let out on the outside of the hive. I 

 know some object to this plan, but I cannot see what the objection is, as the bees 

 are all in plain sight of the entrance, and a bee just hatched would know enoughc to 

 go in. I think it is better to use this board, or an escape of some kind, than to re- 

 move supers and bees to some place or room away from the yard, as then many 

 young bees would be lost or killed in trying to enter other hives. 



Other Subjects. — Some time I may try to tell the kind and size of hive I use, 

 how I control swarming, about the different kinds of bees I have, what I know 

 about bees improving, and bees improving themselves when left alone ; also what I 

 think I know about bees degenerating under some of the most popular plans that are 

 practiced at the present time for the suppression of swarming or increase. 



Southern Minnesota, Nov. 3. 

 ^- 

 REASOIVIISG AIXflMAI^S— XHE HO]^EY-BEE. 



BY ALLEN PRINGLE. 



The question as to whether animals reason or not is a disputed one. For myself 

 I am convinced that they do, and with more logic sometimes than some of the genus 

 homo. The notion that what we observe as mind in animals is all instinct and no 

 reason, ought to have taken its departure with the discovery that the animal had a 

 brain and nervous system quite similar to that of man, and subject to the same 

 mental and physiological laws. The truth is, man has both reason and instinct, 

 and so has the animal. Instinct acts spontaneously without thought, while reason 

 reflects and adapts means to ends. When we wink with lightning rapidity to pro- 

 tect the eye from something flying into it, or when we start back in fright from a 

 sudden and threatened danger, we act instinctively ; the animal does the same. On 

 the other hand, when we act from reflection, and adapt means to ends, we exercise 

 reason ; the animal does the same thing. In our daily contact with our domesti- 

 cated animals we find ample proof of this. I .mention the horse, the cow, the dog, 

 and the honey-bee, not because they are the only animals that reason, but because 

 most people are specially interested in these domestic animals, and are familiar 

 with their characters and habits. Many other animals exhibit a high degree of 

 intelligence. 



[After giving interesting illustrations of reasoning powers being possessed by 

 the cow, the horse and the dog, Mr. Pringle has this to say about the honey-bee:— 

 Editor.] 



We now come to the honey-bee — last in the list, and the smallest, but by no 

 means the least. Insignificant in size as she is, the honey-bee can put any or all of 

 these other big animals to flight in very short metre ! In her marvelous powers of 

 delicate mechanism she can also distance them all, and even cast us "in the shade." 

 Hers is one of the fine arts in animal mechanics. As diminutive as she is, she, too, 

 has a brain and nervous system, with ganglions similar to those of the human brain. 



