THE AMERICAJSr BEE JOURNAL. 



863 



that do swarm, especially if the flow 

 of honey does not last long-. 



A few years ago I worked about 50 

 colonies for comb honey, and most of 

 them vere very strong. As I did not 

 desire any increase, I gave room, as I 

 thought it necessary to prevent 

 swarming until they had from 30 to 3G 

 two-pound sections. ]}y the time 

 they were just ready to cap over the 

 first ones, the swarming mania struck 

 them. I worked in various ways to 

 keep tliem within bounds, but all 

 methods failed ; (inally I was suc- 

 cessful with the following : 



I would cage the queen and let the 

 swarm settle on a swarming-box, and 

 while they were settling, I would open 

 the old liive and destroy all queen- 

 cells. After they had clustered, I 

 brought them back, sprinkled them a 

 little with water, so that they would 

 not fly, and shook them in front of 

 the old hive and marched them in- 

 all except about a pint of bees and 

 the queen, which I put on a few 

 frames of comb or foundation and put 

 in a new location. If the queen was 

 worthless, I destroyed her and re- 

 turned all the bees. In 6 days I 

 opened the hive and destroyed all 

 queen-cells, and gave them a frame of 

 eggs from one of the old queens in 

 tlie nucleus. In 6 or 7 days this was 

 repeated, and so on until the swarm- 

 ing season was over, then I would re- 

 turn their queen; or else give them a 

 young one. I almost always intro- 

 duced them by tying two or three 

 thicknesses of" newspaper over the 

 mouth of a small cage, and sticking it 

 fast between the end-bars of the 

 frames. This, by the way, is as nice 

 a method of introducing as any I ever 

 tried ; it saves the trouble of opening 

 a hive to release a queen or to remove 

 the cage. 



The small nuclei were used either 

 to rear queens or else united, or built 

 up to full colonies before the season 

 was over. I had my doubts about 

 bees working as well while they were 

 queenless, but I could see no differ- 

 ence ; in fact they worked for all they 

 were worth. I also was afraid that 

 the brood-chamber would be tilled 

 full of honey, and capped over, but 

 such was not the case. 



Bloomington,© Ills. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Assertion is Not Argument. 



JOSHUA BULL. 



Mr. Allen Pringle, on page 266, 

 seemingly desires to avert the force 

 of ray arguments on page 166, and 

 divert the attention of the reader 

 into another train of thought, by say- 

 ing that I had " proved myself a care- 

 less reader " and ascribed unto him 

 what he did not say. Every one can 

 see for himself that I quoted his 

 phrase verbatim, and judge whether 

 it was not fair to presume that the 

 liees in question knew that their 

 queen was failing, since Mr. Pringle 

 himself had already said that she was 

 somewhat advanced in age, and fail- 

 ing in fertility. But now he says, 

 " On the contrary, I said that it was 



after the queen-cells were capped 

 over that the old queen was in the 

 dumps, as we certainly would expect 

 her to be under such circumstances." 

 By this does he mean to say that it 

 was tlie building of those queen-cells 

 that caused herto liave " the dumps," 

 and that slie was all right until then V 

 I think that he will lind it a some- 

 what ditliciilt task to convince the 

 bee-keeping fraternity that bees are 

 apt to supersede their queen without 

 some reason for doing so. 



He set out ostensibly to prove that 

 bees are very deficient in instinct ; 

 that Nature's laws and methods are 

 full of imperfections ; and that men 

 are continually improving upon her 

 works and methods, and with " su- 

 perior reason " are correcting her 

 errors. Now, I want Mr. Pringle to 

 stick to his text, and let his thesis 

 stand or fall by the evidence which he 

 can adduce to maintain it. On page 

 74, he offers certain observations and 

 conclusions of his own, in support of 

 it, and on page i^iiO, he says : " I re- 

 peat, this was a foolish, short-sighted 

 and suicidal piece of business on the 

 part of those bees, amply demon- 

 strating imperfect instinct." I do 

 not question the correctness of this 

 statement, so far as relates to the 

 condition in which he found his bees, 

 and had he allowed them to proceed 

 unmolested, to consummate their 

 phins, and had seen them violently 

 kill their queen when it was not pos- 

 sible for them to get another one fer- 

 tilized, tlien he wt)uld have had some 

 evidence on the jioint in default of 

 this; whilst on the other hand we 

 have cases well attested by good au- 

 thority, that bees do sometimes, if 

 not always, allow their old queen to 

 live until the young one is capable of 

 ttlling her place ; and (hat often the 

 two live and work in harmony to- 

 gether for a time ; therefore, I think 

 that his conclusions were prematurely 

 drawn, without waiting to see what 

 the actual result would have been by 

 allowing the bees to follow their in- 

 stinct to the final achievement^ of 

 their purpose ; whereas the case' is 

 disrobed of any force or value what- 

 ever as an argument in support of 

 his position. So, then, his first asser- 

 tion followed by another assertion, 

 neither of which is supported by any 

 demonstration of facts, does not seem 

 to me to be a very logical way of get- 

 ting at the truth ; and I cannot be- 

 lieve that the readers of the Bee 

 Journal are prepared to accept of 

 such a method of reasoning. If this 

 is Mr. P's best and strongest argu- 

 ment, I think that his " imperfec- 

 tion'" creed must fall. 



I think that Mr. Pringle does not 

 understand me rightly about those 

 " improvements upon Nature." He 

 seems to entertain the idea that as 

 man acquires a more perfect knowl- 

 edge of Nature's laws, and is there- 

 by enabled to work more in harmony 

 therewith, and as a consequence ob- 

 tains a more perfect development of 

 natural products, that he has made 

 an improvement upon Nature's 

 method, or superseded her laws by a 

 more perfect way ; whilst, as I under- 

 stand it, Nature's laws and methods 



remain unaltered; man has only to 

 improve upon Ills method of develop- 

 ing Nature by a more careful com- 

 [iliance with what her laws require. 

 Nature will not always yield up her 

 richest treasures until man has per- 

 formed his part of toil and labor. The 

 luscious fruit, the beautiful flowers, 

 the splendid horses, the line sheep, 

 etc., which Mr. P. sets forth to be ad- 

 mired as man's improvements — all 

 liave to be produced by and through 

 a strict compliance with Nature's 

 own laws and methods. Any innova- 

 tion or violation of these is sure to re- 

 sult in failure ; and I will venture to 

 say, without fear of successful con- 

 tradiction, that man never has, nor 

 never will, devise any other way for 

 producing them than that whicli Na- 

 ture, not man's superior reason, has 

 already provided. 



We might almost conclude from Mr. 

 P's writings that he would have us 

 believe that the principal reason why 

 bees die off so badly is because they 

 have not instinct enough to keep 

 them alive ! Well, that may be the 

 case. Man also, with all of his su- 

 perior reason, has to succumb to the 

 same inevitable. I want to say in 

 connection witli this thought, that 

 bees cannot make their own environ- 

 ments ; it is not every hollow tree or 

 crevice in a rock that affords them 

 suitable shelter and a safe domicile. 

 A dearth of honey-flow may leave 

 them short of provisions ; protracted 

 cold weather may keep tliem conHiied 

 until they perish' witli disease ot star- 

 vation, or, perchance, frost will kill 

 them. None of these things can be 

 charged to their lack of foresight. 

 But give them favorable surround- 

 ings, with opportunity to act up to 

 their natural promptings at all times, 

 then if they will not take care of 

 themselves, why say they are deficient 

 in instinct. 



Mr. Pringle appears quite sensitive 

 about the construction put upon some 

 of his language, for fear it might be 

 made to signify more than he intend- 

 ed ; yet he does not hesitate to attrib- 

 ute to me language which I did not 

 use at all. He says that I wanted to 

 know " what the imperfections of 

 Nature are." I did not ask for any 

 such information. And in the latter 

 part of his article he occupies con- 

 siderable space with the enumeration 

 of incidents and casualities, all of 

 which are foreign to the points which 

 1 have taken, and thereby tries to 

 make me appear inconsistent with my- 

 self. Now, please allow me to say to 

 Mr. P., do not set up a man of straw 

 in order to show your dexterity in 

 demolishing it; and the next time 

 you make up a catalogue of imperfect 

 things, do not forget to put into it 

 that men are imperfect in knowledge. 

 If we were perfect in wisdom, and 

 knew the why and the wherefore for 

 everything, we might understand 

 things (piite differently, many times, 

 and " Look through Nature up to Na- 

 ture's God." 



Seymour, o Wis. • . 



[This is drifting to personalities, 

 and as such are distasteful to our 

 readers, let it stop here.— Ed.] 



