488 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



This was a "red-letter day" for 

 Sprengel. Like a flood of liglit there 

 burst upon him the idea that after all, 

 the honey was secreted, not as a 

 gratuitous gift for the special benefit 

 of the insect world, but to attract 

 insect visitors that the seeds of the 

 flower might be fertilized, or, as some 

 in these later days would say, pol- 

 lenized — a term well worth using, as 

 its meaning is clear and unmistakable. 



This discovery ^ave a new impetus 

 to Sprengel's studies,andlie formed in 

 it a plausible explanation of the forms 

 of many flowers. For several years 

 he continued his investigations, and 

 in 1793 published his splendid work 

 on " The Secret of Nature in the Form 

 and Fertilization of Flowers Dis- 

 covered." 



But though Sprengel had done 

 much to solve the question of the 

 forms of flowers, tlie key-note re- 

 mained unstruck. He saw only that 

 insects aided in s6?/-ferlilization, and 

 the great fundamental idea that un- 

 consciously they carried the pollen 

 from one flower to another, thus ef- 

 fecting cross-fertilization, and carry- 

 ing out a great principle in Nature's 

 economy, remained to be discovered. 



A few years later Andrew Knight, 

 another European botanist, after ex- 

 perimenting, stated that " in no plant 

 does self-fertilization occur for an 

 unlimited number of generations ;" 

 but not until the noted Chas. Darwin 

 published his " Origin of Species," in 

 1S59, did the great principle of cross- 

 fertilization become fully understood. 

 Thus the idea of the mutual beneficial 

 relcttions of bees and flowers is of 

 very recent origin— a fact which 

 accounts in part, at least, for the vast 

 amount of prejudice and ignorance 

 now existing on the subject. 



Chicago, c$ Ills. 



For tlie American Bee Journal 



Apicultural Discussions, etc. 



ABEL GKESH. 



1 would like to say a few words as 

 to controversies carried on between 

 noted bee-keepers. I dislike to see 

 an advocate of the pollen " theory " 

 stating premises that, if not utterly 

 disproved, had at least reasonable 

 doubt thrown upon them by an au- 

 thoritative pen. Mr. (i. M. Doolittle's 

 experiments during the last severe 

 winter were, no doubt, entered into 

 lionestly, and with a sincere desire to 

 give a valued queen the best winter 

 protection possible. After the bees 

 died, Mr. Doolitlle sent an honest 

 sample of them to Prof. A. J. Cook, 

 for critical examination, openly, and 

 by the best authority known to our 

 fraternity, who pronounced a portion 

 of the bees as havnig died of diarrhea 

 and showing no signs of pollen-grains 

 in their intestines. In the face of all 

 this I find that Mr. Heddon asserts, 

 ■• No genuine bee-diarrhea can take 

 place in a hive containing no pollen ;" 

 as if Mr. Doolittle and Prof. Cook 

 were not on record to the contrary. 

 True, the microscope of the Professor 

 found small particles of pollen in the 

 bottoms of some cells, and some dead 



bees with pollen in their intestines, 

 but how came those bees to have the 

 disease, in which no pollen was 

 round V I hope that Mr. Heddon will 

 not gravely inform us that after the 

 disease is once generated, it becomes 

 contagious. 



CONTRACTING niVES. 



Again, I find on page 437, in refer- 

 ring to " the contraction method," 

 Mr. Heddon, at the close of his arti- 

 cle, says : " I notice that others have 

 been cotemporary with me in working 

 out the advantages of contracting, 

 but so far as I have read, I have not 

 as yet seen it systematized, as a sum- 

 mer and winter management." The 

 very first article read by me, in the 

 Bee Journal, .some years ago, by 

 Mr. G. M. Doolittle, treated of his 

 method of contracting his hive in 

 winter and expanding it in summer, 

 which interested me so much that I 

 at once became a subscriber to the 

 Bee Journal. 



Now, while Mr. Heddon's system, 

 as described by him, as a method of 

 contracting his hive, is very interest- 

 ing and instructive, and the advan- 

 tages to be derived from such a 

 method are at once apparent, still 

 the closing sentence seems unjust. I 

 am not a believer in the pollen theory, 

 nor do I use the Heddon hive, yet I 

 am very fond of following the discus- 

 sions of the former, and the latter I 

 believe to be a decided improvement 

 on the 10-frame hives ; my only criti- 

 cism consists in a failure to "give 

 honor to whom honor is due." 



too many swarms. 



I wintered 23 colonies on the sum- 

 mer stands last winter, and they 

 came through all right, and I have in- 

 creased them to 47. Prime swarms 

 in June are swarming again now. I 

 allow no second-swarms, and yet I do 

 not see where this swarming will end. 

 I do not want so many, yet what can 

 I do about it V The weather is very 

 warm, and if I put them back, they 

 will lie on tlie alighting-board and 

 sulk. Honey is coming in but mod- 

 erately. I sometimes think that 

 swarming could be bred out of them. 

 My few hybrids seem the most in- 

 clined to swarm. I hived one swarm 

 last week on full frames of founda- 

 tion, and to-day they were out twice. 

 I found that they had only partially 

 drawn out the foundation, formed 

 cavities for cells, had an egg in each 

 cavity, and then were ready to go. I 

 destroyed the eggs and cavities, but 

 they still want to go. They were the 

 first swarm in the spring, having 

 come out on June -5, and ratlier a 

 medium swarm. My best Italian 

 colony did not swarm until yesterday ; 

 tliey had partly filled two crates be- 

 sides 12 sections below. The swarm 

 was large, and I gave them a third 

 crate of 27 one-pound sections. 



SYRIAN liEES, ETC. 



Prof. Cook, in the ninth edition of 

 " The Bee-Keepers' Guide," thought 

 well of Syrian bees, so far as tested ; 

 no doubt many of the readers of the 

 Bee Journal would like to know 

 his opinion of them now, and whether 



his expectations of them were real- 

 ized. Also, I would like to know 

 whether he used sections in his hives 

 3}^x.5}4, and if so, how does he like 

 them, and what doeshe think of them 

 in general V 

 Weedville,© Pa., July 21, 1885. 



For tbe American Bee Journal. 



Bees Beneficial to Crops, etc. 



4— E. C. EAGLESFIELD, (100—119). 



After reading all that has been 

 written about the sheep- and-bee suit, 

 I think it would be doing an injustice 

 to Mr. Freeborn, and the fraternity 

 in general, if I did not at once send 

 my $1.2-5 as a token of my apprecia- 

 tion of the situation in which Mr. F. 

 is placed, and in which I or any other 

 of the fraternity may be placed in 

 the future. I hope every bee-keeper 

 will consider this matter as they 

 would were they in Mr. F's position, 

 and act accordingly. Do not wait 

 until you have sold your crop of 

 honey, but borrow the money if neces- 

 sary, and let us see in the next issue 

 of the Bee Journal a whole page of 

 names of those who are willing to 

 sustain the right. 



I keep sheep, and bees, too, and can 

 corroborate the statements made, 

 that bees never molest them in the 

 pasture if no more than five rods from 

 the apiary. The only damage I that I 

 know of my bees doing, is that done 

 to my orchard ; they have caused so 

 much fruit to stick to the trees that 

 they are breaking down. They look 

 more like weeping-willows than apple 

 trees. 



People here who raise buckwheat 

 are always complaining of bees injur- 

 ing their crop, but they fail to give 

 any evidence that it is so. I had a 

 pieceof buckwheat lOrodsfrom my 100 

 colonies, last fall, with 100 colonies 

 more within ^ of a mile, and if buck- 

 wheat was ever injured that ought to 

 have been ; but on the contrary it was 

 an astonishing crop. A neighbor who 

 helped me harvest it, counted upwards 

 of 400 kernels from one stalk. I now 

 have before me three stems which I 

 saved last fall, and two of the stems are 

 about an inch long, and one is 2}^ 

 inches long. I will now shell the 

 longest and see how many kernels it 

 contains. Well, it has 67, and prob- 

 ably some had rattled off before. Now 

 if any one doubts this I will mail them 

 the two short branches as proof, as I 

 always prove my assertions. 



People who know nothing about 

 bees have an idea that bee-keeping is 

 a lazy but profitable business, and all 

 the bee-man has to do is to put the 

 boxes on and take them off ; in the 

 meantime to sit in the shade and see 

 the bees do all the work. Yes, how 

 they would like to keep bees if it 

 were not for the stings ! 



A few words in regard to adultera- 

 ting honey : Last fall, after selling 

 2,300 pounds of honey (mostly bass- 

 wood), and having bought and fed for 

 winter stores two barrels of coffee A 

 sugar, I heard that it was being re- 

 ported that I had fed my bees to 

 make honey in sections, which costs 



