THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



441 



thus is it enabled again to find its 

 hive. 



On the front of the hive I stuck 

 some blue paper ; 14 days after I 

 stuck yellow paper upon it. The bees 

 returning from the held hesitated 

 long before they settled, and at last 

 they (lew not to the entrance, but 

 mostly to places of the hive distant 

 from it. The mental idea of the yel- 

 low hive, the idea of the blue hive 

 presenting itself again to the con- 

 sciousness, and the difference of these 

 pictures, were causes of the hesitation. 



If a hive is changed to another 

 stand, the bee makes hovering flights 

 by way of finding its bearings. The 

 difference of the picture necessitates 

 these flights for the purpose of noting 

 its bearings. If a colony has swarmed, 

 every bee makes at its flrst outward 

 flight these bearing-noting hoverings, 

 even if the swarm has been put in the 

 place of the mother-hive. There must 

 •consequently have been an idea of 

 the act of swarming retained, whicli 

 presented itself to the bee's conscious- 

 ness at its outward flight. Hut there 

 must be with the higher animals 

 more complicated associations of 

 ideas, which the bees do not possess. 

 If a servant has been accustomed to 

 feed the pigs, they get up when they 

 hear that servaint's footsteps, and 

 hasten to the feeding trough. This 

 kind of association appears to me to 

 occur in (ill mammals and birds. 



A colony of bees may be fed every 

 evening, but the bees will never 

 hasten to the feeding-trough when 

 they see their owner coming. If a 

 ■dog has had a beating, he runs away 

 when lie sees the stick taken up. I 

 let bees fly in my room, caught them, 

 and pressed them repeatedly, which 

 is unpleasant to them ; for if they are 

 let loose, they run or fly away from 

 it. But I could never notice that a 

 tee flew away when I made with my 

 finger as though I would catch it. 



But the thing in which animals are 

 deficient is, as Joliann Muller re- 

 marks, the faculty of forming con- 

 ceptions. The bee is incapable of 

 forming the idea of several ideas, of 

 forming generalizations ; it cannot 

 form the conception of honey, it can- 

 not, therefore, form a general idea ; 

 it cannot form the idea that honey is 

 sweet ; it does not apprehend the 

 connection whicli exists between 

 honey and sweet. Because the essen- 

 tial "connection between things es- 

 capes animals, because their mind 

 may harbor a world of individual 

 ideas, but they cannot Hud the sta- 

 tionary pole in the series of phe- 

 nomena, on that account are they so 

 limited. If one of the higher animals 

 has accidentally done something 

 whereby advantage has been gained, 

 it repeats this. My magpie continually 

 threw about some yellow, blue, and 

 red papers, which I had laid at the 

 bottom of its cage. I several times 

 concealed a bit of meat under the 

 blue paper ; when it threw about the 

 blue paper again, it found the meat 

 and ate it up eagerly. After it had 

 found meat under the blue paper 

 several times, and I again laid papers 

 in the cage, it only attended to the 

 blue. Similarly I accustomed it to 



draw a piece of meat, which hung by 

 a thread under the cage. But to form 

 conclusions from the analysis of con- 

 ceptions, to deduce actions that would 

 be useful to it, of this it was just as 

 incapable as any other animal. But 

 there do occur acts of animals which 

 do not depend on experience. 



In these acts of instinct the bee 

 stands higher than any other animal ; 

 It is the proper representative of in- 

 stinct. Its remarkable household, 

 with its labor, its comb construction — 

 wonderful on account of the skill 

 manifested, more wonderful because 

 of the mathematical problem that is 

 solved in it — liave been from of old 

 the admiration of men. I have been 

 close to swallows, and seen them 

 build. I have seen the more remark- 

 able web woven by spiders, but the 

 thing that has charmed me most is 

 the legerdermain-like skill with which 

 a bee takes out a scale of wax from 

 between the abdominal rings, and 

 with which it attaches the particle 

 when duly kneaded. Who has not 

 been touched by the marvelous na- 

 ture-rule which impels a worker-bee 

 to make way for her queen when she 

 walks over the comb to lay her eggs V 



Tor tue American Bee JoumaL 



The Sheep-and-Bees-Suit. 



J. F. LATHAM. 



On page 372, a correspondent styles 

 the " sheep-and-bees-suit " a " buga- 

 boo." Why not use the suit more 

 literally in dressing the thing up, and 

 call it "ba-aeibug." It does not 

 appear feasible that bee-keepers 

 should display any " sheepishness " in 

 " taking up the glove " in a contest so 

 absurdly ridiculous as the one in 

 question, when, like the bubble 

 swelling from the bowl of the juve- 

 nile's pipe, its only support must 

 emanate from blowing, to culminate 

 in— nothing. If a Quiotic display is 

 actually needed to enliven the spirit 

 of the times, why not gratify the 

 thirst for legendic notoriety by don- 

 ning the basin and target, shoulder- 

 ing the lance, and, mounting Vozin- 

 ante, go out in true representative 

 attitude V It is quite certain that the 

 laurels won would be quite as melliflu- 

 ous as those which graced the brow 

 of the famous hero of La Mancha. 



Reflection is a sterling educator. 

 Perhaps, if the complainant in this 

 "suit" should "stand back" and 

 think awhile, he might become con- 

 scious of what may, eventually, be 

 the effects of results that portend his 

 action against the defendant. If I 

 mistake not, the so-called heathen 

 civilizations countenanced no private 

 claims to the mellifluent productions 

 of nature ; accepting them as the 

 spontaneous effusions of the elements, 

 in the popular mode of thinking— the 

 "gift of the gods" — the elemental 

 guartlians. Were they, in their teach- 

 ings right, those students of the open 

 book of nature y Is the veriUcation 

 of such teachings by modern science 

 defective V Or is it a duty, consonant 

 to methods of reasoning on a baseless 

 system, to attempt to right the im- 



aginative wrongs of ages, and estab- 

 lish a criterion that discrimination 

 and jealousy, as sharp as that of 

 modern cultivation, failed to make a 

 point of aggressive contention V 



111 the height of their civilizations, 

 the ancient Egyptians, the Phoenicians, 

 the Greeks, the Romans, and their 

 less progressive neighbors, gave more 

 or less attention to the apiculture of 

 their times, which was regulated, to a 

 certain degree, by customs and laws. 

 But [ feel safe in stating that the ex- 

 udation of the flowers — " the honey of 

 the air" — was held to be as free, to 

 all who might keep bees to gather it, 

 as the rain'from the clouds; in fact, 

 if I rightly construe the teachings of 

 history, the pursuit of bee-keeping 

 was fostered by the ruling dynasties 

 of the times, by allowing the tillers 

 of the soil certain minor privileges 

 consistent with conflicting interests ; 

 i. e., no one was alhjwed to keep bees 

 where they would endanger public 

 travel, or places of resort ; or in 

 quantities that would give one hus- 

 bandman a monopoly of the pastur- 

 age. Those simple regulations of the 

 dark ages seem to embody about all 

 that is necessary for a more advanced 

 age. 



That bees will prevent herds of any 

 kind from grazing, when the grazing 

 ground is but a moderate distance 

 even, from their hives, my experience 

 does not verify. I have worked at 

 mowing on a piece of ground 'inter- 

 vening the hives of my 20 colonies 

 and a piece of buckwheat, when the 

 bloom of the wheat and the air over 

 my head was alive with bees, and no 

 notice was taken of myself or horse 

 by the busy insects during their forag- 

 ing hours. I have mowed so near the 

 same piece, when it was " roaring 

 with bees," as to cut some of the 

 stalks of grain near the edge, without 

 evidence of danger from angry bees. 

 The piece of grain alluded to was 

 about 40 rods from my apiary. When 

 foraging, aggression of a stinging 

 character is not one of the honey- 

 bee's characteristics. The mind-its- 

 own-business traits, aside the forag- 

 ing hours of the bee, and those of 

 grazing animals, neutralize their 

 cause for a confliction of interests as 

 to pasturage. Where proper facilities 

 are provided for protection from the 

 heat of the sun, most kinds of stock, 

 and especially sheep, will graze only 

 during the cool hours of the day ; 

 while the honey-subsisting bee revels 

 in the sunshine during the hours 

 when the chalice of the flower is re- 

 plete with nectar— her chosen food — 

 which such conditions are the most 

 favorable in producing. 



But why dilate on bottom facts, 

 when, if I am not in error, the agita- 

 tion culminating in a suit of this 

 kind bears an aspect evincing phases 

 of a different signification than a call 

 for judgment between apistical and 

 Gregorian privileges? It isnot simply 

 a matter of mutton and wool vs. honey 

 and wax, although bee-keepers are 

 challenged to contest it on that line ; 

 neither is it, in a definite sense, a 

 local question to be adjudicated by 

 courts possessing State jurisdiction 

 only ; but it is a National question, 



