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40th YEAR, 



CHICAGO, ILL, MAY 24, 1900, 



No, 21. 



Something About the Bellows Bee-Smoker. 



BY T. F. BINGHAM. 



IN his article on pag-e SO, " Old Grimes " claims for M. 

 Quinby what I think there is a lack of evidence that M. 

 Quinby ever claimed himself, viz.: that he was the in- 

 ventor of the bellows bee-smoker. In the position he occu- 

 pied it would have been impossible to have been ig^norant of 

 the position and details of the old German bellows bee- 

 smoker in common use in the old country, and brougfht to 

 this land by bee-keepers who came here bringing their 

 knowledge and implements. 



After bee-keepers learned that an improvement in bee- 

 smokers had been made, they would come to me in their 

 enthusiasm to tell me of their old bellows bee-smoker, and 

 compare it with the new wonder that would burn anything- 

 and not go out. Of course, I exprest a wish to see the 

 smokers, as I was very much interested in them. I learned 

 of several, and one bee-keeper offered to give me his old one 

 as a curiosity, and I gladly accepted it. I kept it, with one 

 of M. Quinby's earliest makes, as curios till my smoker 

 factory was destroyed by fire, and with it my precious old 

 smokers. It was a finely made affair, with a nicely fitted 

 hinged door, and a slide vent to be used when the smoker 

 was laid down, showing plainly that it was made in large 



numbers for sale, and not as a single experiment. I enclose 

 a rough sketch of it. It will be observed that all the change 

 necessary to make it a first Quinby would be to bend the ex- 

 haust in such a manner that the fire-box would stand up- 

 right, and the bellows stand on end instead of lying down. 

 Of course, it had the same tendency to go out as the Quinby 

 invention Mr. Grimes refers to — neither of them would keep 

 sound wood burning — unless the bellows was workt. 



I think M. Quinby never claimed that he invented the 

 bellows bee-smoker, but that he did invent the Quinby bee- 

 smoker. And I have never been accused of claiming the 

 invention of the bellows bee-smoker, that I know of. But 

 I do claim to have invented the first bellows bee-smoker 

 that would burn anything combustible without working the 

 bellows, and not go out. Clare Co., Mich. 



Pollination the Best Work of the Honey-Bees. 



BY PROF. A. J COOK. 



THE castor-oil plant is a very beautiful and a most inter- 

 esting plant. The rich color, the vigorous habit, the 

 finely cut leaves, and, perhaps most of all, the curious 

 bloom can but attract and greatly interest any who give it 

 careful attention. It is one of those plants that cry out in 

 its very structure in loudest praise of the mission and work 

 of the honey-bee. I now have very interesting classes of 

 38 who are studying these things, and all have studied this 

 plant with enthusiastic interest. Bee-keepers may well feel 

 very kindly towards this plant, for it is always praising the 

 bees. The flowers are in a crowded raceme, almost a spike, 

 and with the similarly colored leaves of rich, brownish red 

 are most pleasing to look upon. 



The most interesting thing of these flowers is the fact 

 that they are monoecious. By this we mean that the pistil- 

 late flowers — those that have only pistils and bear the seeds 

 — are separate from the staminate ones, or those that bear 

 only stamens, and of course can never bear seeds. These 

 flowers are not only on the same plant, as is the case with 

 all monoecious plants, but in this case they are in the same 

 flower cluster. In many plants like the willow the stami- 

 nate and pistillate flowers are on different plants. These 

 are called dioecious. 



In the plant in question, the pistillate flowers are at the 

 tip of the flower cluster, and open before the other flowers 

 do. Thus these flowers are pollinated before the basal or 

 staminate flowers open. Thus the pollen for which they 

 hunger must come from other flowers. Before the closely 

 neighboring and as closely related staminate flowers are 

 open at all, they are well along in the race of development. 

 The staminate "flowers do, however, aid the others indirectly, 

 as they are rich in color, and are a signal to the bees that 

 here is rich nectar for them, and that they can not afl^ord to 

 pass it by. Later, after the seeds have developt quite con- 

 siderably the staminate flowers open, and offer to the bees 

 their rich stores of pollen, which is thus borne off to other 

 pistillate flowers to fructify other ovules, or embryo seeds, 

 that they may push on towards fully developt seeds. 



Two important truths are gathered from this interest- 

 ing plan of the castor-oil plant. First, the waiting pistil- 

 late flowers would starve for the needed pollen and come to 

 naught, were it not for the kindly ministries of nectar and 

 pollen loving insects, chief and by far the most important 

 of which are the honey-bees. The ovules, to develop, must 

 have pollen, and that must come from other flowers, per- 

 haps from a long distance away. The other point is equally 

 patent: " Nature abhors close fertilization." She enforces 

 cross-pollination in case of the castor-oil plant. She does 

 the same in more emphatic words in case of all dicecious 

 plants, like the willow, oak, and walnut. Here the pollen 

 must come from other, very likely far distant, plants, and 

 the aid of bees is still more imperative. 



In many hermaphrodite plants, where the stamens and 

 the pistils are side by side in very close proximitj- in the 

 same flower, as in case of many pears, apples, and other 

 fruit, the same law is announced in the fact that these 

 fruits are sterile to their own pollen. We find the same 



