THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



281 



breeding in confinement is found af- 

 fected with diarrhea in conditions 

 favorable to good health ? Should 

 breeding in conlinement prove to be 

 the only cause, pollen is " out of the 

 game ;" were pollen the prime cause, 

 " pollen must play alone." Two dif- 

 ferent prime causes will not produce 

 one like effect ; not even by Mr. Hed- 

 don's own method of computation. 



If pollen is eaten by bees to produce 

 chyme with which to nurture their 

 brood, as Mr. Doolittle suggests, that 

 jjortion which is not regurgitated as 

 food for the larvae or assimilated to 

 sustain their own bodies, must re- 

 main in the intestines until it is 

 ejected naturally, and when the re- 

 tention of the feces is unnatural, 

 whether in bees or animals, the fact 

 that such retention induces disease 

 has been so permanently established 

 that it will not admit of controversy. 

 Now, when the inert portions of 

 sound food— those portions not sus- 

 ceptible to the action of the digestive 

 and assimilating organs of the bee — 

 remain in the intestines in a decom- 

 posed condition until diarrhea re- 

 sults from an aggravated organism, 

 the cause must exist in the conditions 

 prompting its use, the act of consum- 

 ing, and the conditions preventing its 

 healthy discharge. The working 

 agents must be the actual cause ; 

 their instruments, auxiliaries. "Were 

 a man killed by a lion,-' it would not 

 be necessary to go behind the lion to 

 find the prime cause of the man's 

 death, as the evidence of the effects 

 of the lion's acts on the man's body, 

 would be conclusive. 



A colony of bees in winter confine- 

 ment requires food consonant to domi- 

 ciliary and climatic conditions. If 

 those conditions stimulate an appe- 

 tite for pollen, they will use it as long 

 as the call continues, and if brood- 

 rearing be one of the acts of a prompt- 

 ing cause, tliey will use it until 

 stopped by satiety, or a reduction in 

 the temperature of the brood-nest ; 

 the last I have tried, and found it to 

 be effectual when outside circum- 

 stances permitted the change to be 

 made insensibly. A sudden change 

 will make bad matters worse. 



I think that Mr. Ileddon is right in 

 admitting pollen to be " no more the 

 cause of bee-diarrhea than whisky is 

 of a whisky drunk." A very sensible 

 admission f ! — but Prompting Ttiirst 

 seems to trouble-him to such a degree 

 that he endows /urn with animation. 

 The source of the trouble appears to 

 exist in the unfortunate construction 

 of his hypothesis — misapprehension. 

 Were man a creature of circumstances 

 — a being destitute of reasoning 

 powers, with a mental capacity on a 

 par with that of the honey-bee— un- 

 susceptible of an intelligent compre- 

 hension of the consequence of trans- 

 f:ressing natural laws— in short, not 

 oa certain degree "his own moral 

 agent"— no more could be expected 

 of him, than could be expected of an 

 insect : but an intelligent man knows 

 that alcohol will degrade him morally 

 and physically if he drinks it to ex- 

 cess, by indulging a thirst prompted 

 by a call from his bodily organism for 

 a renewal of its stimulus. The 



smouldering embers of morbid de- 

 sires demand food, and if the in- 

 ebriate's moral sense is not strong 

 enough to master prompting thirst, 

 and " hold the fort," the enemy is 

 pretty sure to get control, and is, con- 

 sequently, the prime cause oif the 

 poor fellow's downfall. 



Should the manufacture of alcoholic 

 stimulants be stopped entirely, the de- 

 sire for intoxicating drinks in that 

 form will be deprived of its food. Re- 

 move the pollen from a colony of bees 

 preparatory to their winter confine- 

 ment, and if pollen is harmful to 

 them at such times, it is out of their 

 reach ; but I believe that the prime 

 causes of bad effects, whether it be 

 diarrhea, or others, would still ex- 

 ist in the same colony, and only lack 

 fuel to keep them active. 



On page 789 of the Bee Journal 

 for 1884, Mr. Ileddon makes the direct 

 statement, that "spring dwindling is 

 bee-diarrhea in disguise." This may 

 be strictly correct, but if a colony of 

 old bees dibilitated by long confine- 

 ment in an impure atmosphere, and 

 destitute of early brood, have nothing 

 to do with it, then I am mistaken in 

 believing that bee-diarrhea is not the 

 vade mecum of all habitual bee-dis- 

 eases. 



Cumberland, p Maine. 



For the Amerl<:an Bee JoumaL 



The Fertilization of Queens. 



E. B. SOUTHWICK, M. D. 



I have read much about the queen, 

 her fertilization, and her ability to 

 lay drone eggs or worker eggs at will. 

 These points have been discussed. It 

 is too often the case that in excited 

 discussions we are very apt to con- 

 sider, as the good people of old did, 

 that a little deception or falsifying is 

 excusable, if the glorifying of the 

 truth is the result. There are some 

 theories which are started from the 

 impulse of a thought, that are as false 

 as the prophets that were sent to fool 

 Ahaz; yet the originator will cause 

 every argument to bend to his views 

 until he has become full in the faith 

 that it is correct ; thus deceiving him- 

 self and, perhaps, others. 



The queen is not a perfect queen 

 until she has been fertilized and en- 

 abled to lay an egg that can be made 

 to grow into a queen, worker or 

 drone. An imperfect queen can lay 

 an egg that can be nursed into a 

 drone, but that drone cannot be a per- 

 fect drone, for the queen cannot im- 

 part to her progeny what she does 

 not possess, and, consequently, such 

 drones cannot fertilize other queens. 

 A queen sometimes will not become 

 perfect until the egg-germs have 

 started, and the lirst laying of such a 

 queen would produce imperfect 

 drones. This is the reason why some 

 colonies rear nothing but drones for 

 a time, and then rear workers. But 

 when the queen has become perfect, 

 she lays perfect eggs as long as she 

 remains perfect, every egg being the 

 same as far as sex is concerned. 



Sex in all animals or insects is the 

 consequent of the nourishment, or 



situation of the germ in the early 

 part of its growth ; or, in other words, 

 sex is caused by mere accident of 

 situation and surroundings. For in- 

 stance, if a pine tree and l)irch are 

 planted in the same soil, if the pine 

 possesses the attraction for the ele- 

 ments of the soil, and the birch does 

 not, the pine will grow and increase, 

 but the birch will not, and fice t;ersa. 

 So we see that (everything is made up 

 by the chance of its surroundings, 

 and the ability of the seed to attract; 

 these surroundings ; thus, if the sur- 

 roundings contain more of the ele- 

 ments that go to make up the male, 

 then the male sex is the consequent ; 

 and if on the contrary, tlie female is 

 the result. With this subject the 

 bees are much more familiar than 

 man, for if the queen in her irregular 

 rambles over the combs, when laying, 

 leaves an egg in a drone-celt, and the 

 bees do not want to rear drones, they 

 move the egg to a worker-cell ; or if 

 they are found in irregular form, or 

 two or more in a cell, which is quite 

 common, they remove them and place 

 them one in a cell and in order.. The 

 bees know whether they want drones, 

 workers or queens, how to arrange 

 places for the egg, and what to sur- 

 round it with ; and they are never 

 fooled if theegg is from a perfect queen. 



I have been asked if drones from 

 ■rorker eggs will fertilize queens. I 

 answer no ; no more than an egg laid 

 by an unfertilized hen will hatch out 

 a chicken. I have also been asked if 

 I thought that the queen is fertilized 

 more than once during her life. I 

 think that she is ; for 1 can (ind more 

 reasons for believing that she is, than 

 that she is not. We sometimes find a 

 colony rearing nothing but drones, 

 and in a short time the hive will be 

 full of worker-brood again ; in this 

 case I conclude that the queen had 

 lost her perfection and had been re- 

 fertilized. I have had a queen whose 

 eggs would produce very bright yellow 

 bees, all alike, and after a time her 

 bees would be very dark and varied 

 in color. There is in the course of 

 the season, many drones in the apiary, 

 and I have no reason to believe that 

 the queen is not fertilized many times 

 during her life. 



Sherman, x3 Mich. 



t'uT tlie American Bee Journal. 



Counteracting False Statements. 



HOWARD U. ACKERJIAN. 



I desire to say a word in regard to 

 the best way of overcoming the per- 

 nicious influence of the " Prof. Wiley 

 lie," and kindred falsehoods damag- 

 ing to our chosen pursuit ; and I hope 

 that the ideas which I may advance 

 will call forth criticisms either favor- 

 able or otherwise, for " in a multitude 

 of counsel there is wisdom." 



It is deeply to be regretted, but it is 

 nevertheless true, that there are some 

 people whose chief delight it is. to do, 

 in some back-handed way, all the in- 

 jury they can to the interests of 

 American bee-keepers. 



It is a despicable disposition that 

 would knowingly do an injury to 



