216 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



an incredulous eye, especially when 

 they reason that very few bees in the 

 country have furnished sufficient 

 honey for family consumption. 

 Finally the stale accusation of adul- 

 teration has been sprung, and the 

 wiseacres are happy. The mystery is 

 solved. Hambaugh has been stuffing 

 his bees — feeding them sorghum mo- 

 lasses and cheap Orleans sugar ! I 

 am glad to say, however, that the 

 better class of citizens know this to 

 be false, yet it has had its effect upon 

 the market. I was foolish enough to 

 put some honey on the market in the 

 early part of the season, which was 



fathered from honey-dew, which 

 amaged me, and gave the slanderers 

 some room for their wholesale accu- 

 sations. 



I bought quite a number of colonies 

 of bees during the summer and fall, 

 and I had 87 colonies to put into winter 

 quarters; the most of them were 

 kept in a house constructed of corn- 

 fodder, straw and prairie hay. Signs 

 of bee-diarrhea were prevalent in 

 December, and on Jan. .5 the bees had 

 a flight, after which I again put them 

 into their winter quarters. The 

 flight helped them, but it was not 

 long ere the same restless spirit pre- 

 vailed, and this, added to the intense 

 cold weather through January and 

 February, has proven very disastrous. 

 Twelve colonies out of the 87 are al- 

 ready dead, and several more are 

 likely to die. I put them upon the 

 summer stands on Feb. 27, and the 

 foul odor from their discharges was 

 sickening. We have had several 

 days of warm sunshine of late, 

 throughout this section, which has 

 helped the bees very much, yet there 

 seems to be great losses of bees in 

 this part of the country. 



Spring.K) Ills., March .5, 1885. 



Kor the American Bee JoumaL 



Not the Way to Argue. 



WM. F. CLAUKE. 



I have been hoping for sometime 

 that Prof. Cook would be " inwardly 

 moved " to express his views on the 

 subject of hibernation. At length he 

 has spoken, but so briefly and oracu- 

 larly as to be exceedingly disappoint- 

 ing. In Query No. 13, 1 find the fol- 

 lowing : " Prof. A. J. Cook remarks 

 thus: 'Bees never hibernate.'" I 

 have characterized this utterance as 

 brief and oracular. A very slight 

 addition to it would have greatly im- 

 proved it. If the Professor had said, 

 " I think," or " in my opinion, bees 

 never hibernate," I would not have 

 had a word of fault to find with the 

 style of '• remark." But it is as if an 

 oracle had spoken ! 



Prof. Cook is an authority both on 

 entomology and apiculture, and a very 

 high one, but an oracle he is not. We 

 do not have such in this day and age 

 of the world, on any subject in regard 

 to which there is room for holding 

 honestly differing opinions. If a man 

 dissents from any view of mine, I am 

 glad to have him express his dissent 

 with the reasons for it, but I do not 

 want him to come at me with an air 



of infallible wisdom, as if the matter 

 were settled for all time and for all 

 eternity. If he does, I shall rebel, as 

 I am now doing. Self-respect com- 

 pels it. No man holds Prof. Cook in 

 higher esteem than I do, but I must 

 enter a protest against this method 

 of dealing with any subject of debate 

 among intelligent, thinking, and in- 

 dependent-minded men. 



In the very next column, on page 

 85, Mr. E. B. South wick uses the same 

 language : " Bees never hibernate." 

 Gentlemen, this kind of talk won't 

 do. Itis not becoming. The modesty 

 of true science, as well as the courtesy 

 we owe to those who differ from us, 

 forbids it. I have before me at this 

 moment, two scientific works. One 

 says : "• Hive-bees probably do not 

 hibernate." The other says: "The 

 common hive-bee is probably never, 

 strictly speaking, torpid, though with 

 regard to the precise state in which 

 it passes the winter, a considerable 

 difference of opinion has obtained." 

 I commend these examples to Messrs. 

 Cook and Southwick, hoping that 

 they will " amend the record." 



Prof. W. F. Kirby, one of the most 

 eminent of living entomologists, re- 

 ferring to the phenomena of hiberna- 

 tion, observes: "Every gradation 

 may be met with between ordinary 

 sleep, the imperfect or abnormal hi- 

 bernation of some animals, and the 

 profound hibernation of others, in 

 which all the functions of life are 

 suspended." I have never claimed 

 that bees go into a state of " profound 

 hibernation," but only that they ex- 

 perience one of its "gradations." 

 It may be a very imperfect degree of 

 hibernation that they experience, but 

 that they fall into a state similar in 

 some respects to it, I do not think 

 Prof. Cook will deny. It has been 

 proved beyond successful contradic- 

 tion, that there is a reduction of vital- 

 ity, a suspension of activity, a species 

 of torpor, a very slight exercise of 

 certain natural functions, exceedingly 

 small consumption of food, and if 

 any discharge of feces, only in the 

 form of a minute powder. By the 

 way, Prof. Cook is reported to have 

 said at the Michigan State Conven- 

 tion, that it is absurd to suppose that 

 bees discharge dry feces during the 

 winter. If they do not, then they 

 must retain in their bodies the ex- 

 cremental remains of what food they 

 consume during the months of their 

 winter imprisonment in cellars and 

 bee-houses. I might call this absurd, 

 but instead of so doing, I will take it 

 as an admission by Prof. Cook of one 

 of the phenomena of that state into 

 which he affirms they " never " enter. 



I am not contending for the use of 

 a particular word. " For names and 

 forms let graceless zealots tight." But 

 if " bees never hibernate," what is it 

 they do when they relapse into com- 

 parative quiescence, eating so little 

 honey that 2 or 3 pounds have suf- 

 ficed' for the use of a strong colony 

 during the entire winter V If hiber- 

 nation is not the proper term to desig- 

 nate this condition, what is '? The 

 only other word I know of which is 

 employed by scientific men to desig- 

 nate a similar condition, is "asstiva- 



tion," but that applies to summer, and 

 not winter torpor. It seems that cer- 

 tain animals have a fashion of drows- 

 ing away the hottest period of the 

 year, as others are wont to do the 

 coldest. 



Perhaps it would be well to coin a 

 word, now that among other things 

 we are trying to settle a correct 

 nomenclature of bee-keeping. If 

 hibernation is open to any serious ob- 

 jection, or a better word can be found 

 to express the idea, all right. Let us 

 have a preferable substitute. "What's 

 in a name V "Arose by any other 

 name would smell as sweet." "But the 

 thing itself— the state of quietude, tor- 

 por, or semi-torpor, into which bees 

 are wont to subside when the sur- 

 roundings are favorable, which ren- 

 der them contented and comfortable 

 with small rations, and brings them 

 out of winter quarters bright, clean, 

 thrifty and vigorous — it is the " how, 

 why and ivhat " of that, which I am 

 after, as the key to the winter prob- 

 lem. That this is the key, I have no 

 doubt whatever, at the present time. 

 If " bees never hibernate," they do 

 something which I have called by 

 that name for want of a better, but if 

 Prof. Cook or any one else is prepared 

 with a better name for it, a name 

 which all bee-keepers will accept as 

 indicating the thing— let us have it 

 right away. The only substitute I 

 have met with, as yet, is " Clarke's 

 Rheumatic Dream," but I cannot say 

 that I have fallen in love with that, 

 because I deem it a reality. 



Speedside, Out. 



For the American Bee JoumaL 



The Arrangement of Hives. 



C. M. HOLLINGSWORTH. 



There are several considerations of 

 economy, convenience and protection 

 to the bees to be looked to in the 

 method of placing hives in an apiary ; 

 and some suggestions on this point 

 may be of value at this season of the 

 year. 



Last year, with 150 hives in two 

 apiaries, I adopted a method of ar- 

 rangement which I have never seen 

 recommended nor mentioned by api- 

 cultural writers, and wliich, I think, 

 possesses a number of decided ad- 

 vantages. The hives were placed in 

 pairs, the two hives of each pair be- 

 ing very close together on a common 

 stand, and the pairs arranged in regu- 

 lar rows at what I deemed sufficient 

 distances apart each way. The ad- 

 vantages of this arrangement are 

 these : 



1. In the matter of identifying their 

 own hives, I found, as I had expected, 

 that the bees are not at all likely to 

 make the mistake of going into the 

 wrojig hive of the pair to which they 

 belong. This was plainly seen when 

 a swarm wliich had issued, after 

 circling awhile in the air, would re- 

 turn without clustering. The most 

 of the bees would go back to their 

 own hive, but in the confusion some 

 would go wrongly ; but tliey always 

 went to the corresponding "hives of 

 other pairs near by, and not to the 



