THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



563 



WEEKLY EDITION 



OF THE 



THOMAS G. NEWMAN, 



Vol. XXI. Sept. 9, 1885. No. 36. 



APICULTURAL NEWS ITEMS. 



EDITORIAL ANB SELECTED. 



Clive iiM alien ! A time like this demands 



Stronfr niimls, great hearts, and ready hands. 



TlieNortliwewtern Bee-Keepers' Society 



will hold its annual convention in Chicagfo, 

 Ills., on Wednesday and Thursday, Oct. 14 

 and 15, 1885 — the first meeting^ being- held 

 at 10 a. in. The place of meeting- will be 

 announced next week. 



Mr. «• W. Deinaree remarks thus about 

 the sheep-bees lawsuit : " If bee-keepers 

 will take care of their rights now, they need 

 not fear ; but indifference may place them 

 in like position to the fleet-footed hare that 

 was beaten by the creeping- tortoise. Let us 

 profit by that old fable !" 



Mr. Geo. E. Hiltou, of Fremont. Mich., 

 knows how to use printer's ink. The Mus- 

 kegon Journal contains one-third of a col- 

 umn concerning his apiary and honey, and 

 advises all its readers to get honey with Mr, 

 Hilton's label on it, and thus obtain the 

 finest, purest and best in the world. That is 

 one of the many very excellent methods of 

 building up a home market, and probably 

 only costs two or three nice boxes of honey 

 (which was given to the reporter). He com- 

 menced the season with 45 colonies.increased 

 them to 88, and has obtained from them 

 about 6,000 pounds of honey. 



SPECIAL NOTICE.— On January 1,1886, 

 the price of the Weekly Ber Journal will 

 be reduced to One Dollar a Year. This we 

 have contemplated for some years, and only 

 awaited the proper time to warrant us in 

 issuing the Weekly Bee Journal at the very 

 low price of one dollar a year. That time 

 has now come. We shall continue to im- 

 prove the Bee Journal, and it will main- 

 tain its proud position as the leading bee- 

 paper of the World ! 



New subscribers will be supplied with the 

 Weekly from now until the end of the year 

 1886, for $1.25, 



Those who have already subscribed for 

 any portion of next year will have the time 

 beyond January 1st doubled. These changes 

 In the mail-list type will be made by Oct. 1. 



Are Workcrw Abortions?— The follow- 

 ing occurs in an essay on " Physiography in 

 its application to grape culture :" 



"Great men, as well as common folks, 

 sometimes make great mistakes. Huber 

 asserted that the neuter or working-bee, wi\s 

 nothing more nor less than * an imperfect 

 female.' That is mere conjecture, and will 

 not. answer in this mutter-of-fact age. God 

 never made whole races of his creatures 

 mere abortions. He permits monstrosities 

 occasionally, but never made so gross a mis- 

 take in the organism of an entire class." 



The author of this paragraph ascribes to 

 Huber sentiments which he never expressed 

 or entertained. In his work entitled "Ob- 

 servation on Bees," he says : 



"The discovery of fertile workers, made 

 by Kiem and confirmed by my own investi- 

 gations, led me to conjecture that the entire 

 class of workers pertained to the female 

 sex. Nature makes no sudden leaps. The 

 fertile workers lay drone-eggs only, like 

 those queens whose fecundation has been 

 unduly delayed. One step farther and they 

 might be altogether sterile, without being 

 the k'ss feminine essentially. I do not I'egard 

 tlic ivoihrrif as(ihi>rtions ttr iraper feci creatures. 

 They are endowed with too many noble 

 faculties, too much unwearied industry and 

 activity, and from their instincts spring too 

 many marvels to permit me to consider 

 them as abnormities of their kind, or as im- 

 perfect beings in comparison with the 

 queens. I believe that a rational philosophy 

 will yet be able to reconcile all these difti- 

 culties.'* 



This is widely different from the views 

 ascribed to him, and is fully sustained by 

 subsequent discoveries. To him, the work- 

 ers appeared to be just what subsequent 

 microscopic examination proved them to be 

 —merely undeveloped females. Another 

 critical writer remarks that it is *' doubtless 

 true that, if regard be had only to mere 

 animal qualities, the queen is, in that direc- 

 tion more fully developed than the worker, 

 and thereby becomes qualified to discharge 

 properly her peculiar functions— (/le p^rpcf- 

 uat ion of the race. This, however, does not 

 constitute her a more perfect insect, abso- 

 lutely, than the worker. The latter is quite 

 as admirably adapted for her appropriate 

 duties, and is, therefore, as regards the pur- 

 pose and end of her being, as perfectly 

 organized and as fully developed as the 

 former. Both certainly proceed from the 

 same kind of eg^. Development proceeds 

 in each in like manner, and in the same 

 direction, from the hatching of the egg up 

 to a certain point. Thence, owing to the 

 circumstances in which each is placed and 

 the influences to which it is subjected, de- 

 velopment diverges and tends to different 

 issues. In the queen it culminates cor- 

 poreally^ in the maturation of animal func- 

 tions and procreative power. In the worker, 

 it is made to take a different direction ; the 

 growth of physical organism is repressed 

 indeed, but instead thereof, her physical 

 qualities, or what may be termed her mental 

 faculties, are extraordinarily unfolded and 

 intensified. Hence, if manifestation of 

 mind, however subordinate in grade or 

 qualified in character, be entitled to higher 

 consideration and regard than mere cor- 

 poreal qualities or physical organization, 

 the worker might claim a more elevated 

 i-ank in the sphere of development than the 

 queen, whose physical endowments are cer- 

 tainly of a lower order, and limited to a 

 narrower range. Each, however, is perfect, 

 as regards herself, her assigned relations, 

 and the purpose and design of her existence. 



*' It is precisely this undeveloped feminin- 

 ity of the workers, and the bringing out. 

 instead, of other and higher faculties, 

 which qualifies them for the functions de- 

 volved on them by the Creator— that of fos- 

 ter-mothers, protectors of the brood, and 

 providers for the subsistence and pre8en''a- 

 tion of the family. Whereas the sexually 

 more fully developed inmates of the hive— 

 the queen and the drones— physically less 

 endowed, are designed and serve for the 

 perpetuation iif the race. Each kind has its 

 proper sphere, each its appropriate duties 

 assigned to it ; and, l;)y its organization and 

 instincts, each is specially and fully qualified 

 to discharge these duties. The proclivities, 

 qualifications and habits of each are. in the 

 main, as distinct and characteristically dif- 

 ferent from those of the othei-s. as if each 

 belonged to an entirely different class of 

 insects. ' Yet the three kinds are so yoked 

 together— so interwoven in action, so fitted 

 for each other, so dependent on each other, 

 and so complementary to each other, that 

 neither could permanently exist without the 

 co-existence— at certain seasons at least— of 

 both the others." 



Wlien beeswax is chewed, says an ex- 

 change, it should have no disagreeable taste 

 and must not stick to the teeth. In the 

 adulterated wax, the nature of the foreign 

 material can generally be detected by the 

 taste ; the addition of fat can generally be 

 readily detected. If it sticks to the teeth. 

 the presence of resin may be assuided. A 

 simple method of detecting the presence of 

 fat in wax consists in melting it, and placing 

 a drop on a piece of woolen cloth. After it 

 is perfectly cold and solidified, pour on a 

 few drops of 90 per cent, of alcohol and 

 rub the cloth between the hands. The wax 

 will be converted into dust, and will easily 

 separate from the cloth if it contains no fat, 

 and will leave no stain ; when it contains 

 fat it will leave grease-spots, 



Tlie Rural IVew Vorker of this week 



is a treasury of fertilizing knowledge. It is 

 a special number devoted to the whole story 

 of how plants grow ; what elements the 

 plant Hiust find in the soil to produce good 

 crops, and showing from what source can, 

 in the best and cheapest manner,be obtained 

 such of them as are missing, or nearly ex- 

 hausted, in the soil. Our readers cannot 

 afford to neglect so important a subject ; 

 and, to post themselves, should send for a 

 copy, which will be mailed them fi-ee. Ad- 

 dress, 34 Park Kow, New York. 



Ti'e have received from Messrs. Cup- 

 pies, Upham & Co., publishers, Boston, Mass., 

 a poultry pamphlet, price 50 cents, which is 

 made up of a phonographic report of the 

 addresses and discussions at a meeting of 

 the best and most widely known poultry ex- 

 perts in the country, held in the interest of 

 this important industry, at Boston, on two 

 successive Saturdays, March 7 and 14, 188.5. 

 Its fresh and peculiar value will be found 

 in the fact that the observations are those 

 of experienced and practical poultry 

 raisers, in place of mere poultry fanciers— 

 of actual farmers, rather than of amateurs. 

 It will prove to be encyclopaedic in its sug- 

 gestions respecting the choice, the breeding, 

 and the care of poultry, and will readily 

 show that it abounds in the very kind of ad- 

 vice of which all poultry raisers are in con- 

 stant pursuit. 



