66 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Jan. 30, 



bloom again, ^weet clover never fails to yield honey, and is 

 the best of all honey-plants here, by far. 



Three miles west of me is three miles of it, and three colo- 

 nies of bees in the midst of it. Those colonies were working 

 continually on it, and the hives were chock-full of honey when 

 my bees were doing nothing. Mine at that time were away at 

 basswood, 12 miles away, and had no sweet clover. I am 

 sure that if all the roadsides were growing it, honey would bo 

 plenty every year. 



CRIMSON CLOVER. 



I sowed 5 acres of crimson clover Sept. 20. The ground 

 has been frozen six inches deep, with some snow, and at 

 this writing the snow has melted and thawed the ground, with 

 fine rains, and the crimson clover looks just as green as be- 

 fore. It is actually growiug now ; pet-haps it may winter ! 



Delmar, Iowa. 



The Place of Theory in Apiculture, Etc. 



BY F. L. THOMPSON. 



I notice that my statements — "Even facts maybe mis- 

 leading," and " To keep adding more experience, first on one 

 side, then on the other, leads to no conclusions" — have been 

 taken for exaggerations, and replied to with exaggerations — 

 " facts, not theories," and "theory vs. practice." It is as 

 plain as anything well can be that those statements of mine 

 mean " facts and theories," not " theories vs. facts. 



But, while stating the mere truth in regard to the limita- 

 tions of facts, I did not express my opinion of the relative 

 value of practice and theory. This seems to have worried 

 some. Well, I will do so now. Practice is far, far preferable 

 to theory io/!e?i you can get it ; and fact, in one sense, can snap 

 its fingers at theory, while theory has to have a basis of fact. 

 There. 



But why is it adverse to common-sense to omit common- 

 places ? And why should it be so exceedingly sensible to take 

 commonplaces, and exaggerate them ? That is just what is 

 done by the maxim, " Facts, not theories." It is not true. 

 Facts exist without theories ; but they cannot be applied with- 

 out them. 



Now, just to show my fiercely practical critics how rea- 

 sonable I can be, I will add that all theorizing has an innate 

 tendency to become fine-spun and impracticable. There's an 

 admission for you, though you don't deserve it. But remem- 

 ber, that is not saying that that tendency cannot be resisted, 

 and that there are not such things as suggestive, important, 

 and practical theories. 



Further, I believe that in American apiculture, at least, 

 the proportion of pure theory to fact should be kept small. 

 For, as I understand it, most of us keep bees primarily for 

 money, and only secondarily because it is agreeable to keep 

 them. But (to refer momentarily to another question) it is 

 mere affectation to take no account of the latter ; while the 

 most matter-of-fact and practical among us, it is very evident, 

 cannot keep out theory as they say they do. 



Let us see how it would work to apply that remarkably 

 acute rule of " facts, not theories" Turn over the pages of 

 the American Bee .Tournal for 1895, and strike out the fol- 

 lowing: Page 18, Mr. Abbott's theory that it is the swarm- 

 ing bees that gather honey; page 98, Mr. Davenport's theory 

 that locality has nothing to do with the right size of a hive; 

 page 149, Dr. Brown's theory that breeding for honey-gather- 

 ing requires breeding for muscular development; page 326, 

 Mr. Doolittle's theory on the prevention of swarming : page 

 376, Mr. Davenport's theory that eight frames are enough 

 for the best queens; page 618, Mr. VandeVord's theory that 

 longevity and prolificness can be easily combined ; pages 618 

 and 824, Messrs. VandeVord's and Barclay's theory that 

 longevity tends to prevent swarming more than anything else ; 

 excise elsewhere Mr. McKnight's theory that cellar-wintering 

 may imitate the good effects of out-door wintering by occa- 

 sionally raising the temperature; Mr. Heddon's theories on 

 pollen in winter-food ; value of the storage and transmission 

 of winter sunshine; breeding out the swarming impulse; 

 great superiority of shallow to deep frames in breeding ; cause 

 of poor seasons, etc. 



The foregoing, however, are the most obvious cases. If we 

 should insist on applying the rule literally, strictly, and un- 

 sparingly, the information left would be the merest shell. 



See also Mr. Abbott's words on this subject on page 283 ; 

 and even supposing all those theories were false, ponder the 

 following from Darwin : "False facts are highly injurious to 

 the progress of science, for they often endure long ; but false 

 views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for every 

 one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness ; and 



when this is done, one path toward error is closed, and the 

 road to truth is often at the same time opened." 



It seems to me that the motto, " Facts, not theories," is a 

 rather fantastic one to indicate a truthful ideal ; while the idea 

 that there is such a question as " Theory ^s. practice " is, to 

 say the least, picturesque. 



EXPLANATION ON OVERSTOCKING. 



In reply to Dr. Miller's note on page 823 (1895), I am 

 pretty certain my copy contained a comma in the place re- 

 ferred to. 



I don't mean to say there is no such thing as overstocking, 

 nor that if in a good season 200 colonies do well, they might 

 all starve if the number was Increased enough. Perhaps, Dr. 

 Miller, you and I are thinking of different things. I remem- 

 ber reading that bees sometimes pay no attention to white 

 clover, showing that there is then no nectar in it. In such a 

 case those blossoms might as well not be there, as far as the 

 bees are concerned, and the few other flowers that remain are 

 not sufficient to prevent the locality from being overstocked 

 by a few colonies. But that is not the kind of poor seasons 

 we have here. The alfalfa never fails to yield nectar, though 

 sometimes in scanty driblets. Now, as long as nectar flows in 

 each blossom, I don't see that the bees have very much less 

 work to do to keep them all licked out often enough to prevent 

 re-absorption into the tissues of the plant, when it is coming 

 in a scanty stream then when it is coming in a full one — 

 the quantity in each flower is exceedingly small, even in the 

 latter case. 



To illustrate : When I was a boy we used to depend for 

 firewood on the driftwood along the creek bottom. Sometimes 

 there would be here and there a stick, and sometimes they 

 would lie in beds. Generally the former condition would 

 prevail. Two persons would then gather perhaps three 

 loads a day. Now, do you mean to tell me that when two 

 can gather three loads, one person can gather six? Isn't 

 there something shaky about that idea ? 



If my reasoning is correct, then when 200 colonies do not 

 do well in a poor season in a locality such as mine, to say that 

 100 colonies would have done better is also "one of those 

 half-truths that sometimes make mischief," and in the light 

 of the experience I have before given, there appears to be no 

 grounds for fixing on 200 as the limit. Arvada, Colo. 



Some Subjects Reviewed and Commented Upon 



BY DR. C. C. MILLER. 



NoN-SwARMiNG Bees.— The interesting report of Jno. 

 McKimmie, on page 29, suggests that he would be doing a 

 favor if he would tell how many colonies he has had that have 

 not swarmed during the past six years ; also the size and num- 

 ber of frames used, and whether he runs for comb or extracted 

 honey. 



Box-HivES. — E. H. Gabus (page 36) brings good support 

 to show that under some circumstances box-hives may be ex- 

 cused for not going out of existence. The whole thing in a 

 nut-shell is this : Movable combs are not for the benefit of 

 bees, but of bee-keepers ; box-hives are as comfortable as the 

 others, and perhaps more so ; and there's no use in having 

 movable combs if they're never to be moved. So important 

 are box-hives considered in Germany that the very able Cen- 

 tralblatt alternates by giving special instructions for box-hives 

 in one number and for movable-comb hives in the next. 



North and South. — J. D. Fooshe is puzzled (page 42) to 

 know why, in spite of the many advantages. Southern bee- 

 keepers do not succeed better than those in the North. Pos- 

 sibly he can fiud a partial explanation in his own words, when 

 he says : "In October the golden-rod and asters are in full 

 bloom, and our bees gather more honey and a better quality 

 than from any other source." If a Northern bee-keeper got 

 no better honey than golden-rod and asters yield, he would 

 hardly make a very big success. 



Swarming Bees. — On page 45 Paul Whitebread cites the 

 case of two colonies to show that swarming bees do best. It 

 should be remembered that very little can be proven by an iso- 

 lated case. I'm not now discussing whether swarming or non- 

 swarming is best, but many a time two colonies side by side, 

 alike in every respect so far as can be seen, will give very 

 different results. Of course, there is a difference, even if it 

 can't be seen, and Mr. Whitebread's queen may not have been 

 as good as the other. If he'll have 50 colonies of non-swarm- 

 ers side by side with 50 swarmers, and then note the results. 



