THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



745 



marvelous that even one master, 74 

 years old, should yet be so robust, so 

 brilliant. 

 Then the meeting adjourned. 



At 12 m. the session of the Congress 

 began. Dzierzon spoke on the fol- 

 lowing topic: "Which part of the 

 new theory was discovered by me, 

 and how w;is I enabled to And it V" 

 He defined the new theory, and re- 

 marked that the whole discovery 

 could be resumed in the following 

 words : The drones are procreated 

 without copulation. The discovery 

 was an easy one ; but it was very 

 difficult to have it accepted. Fortu- 

 nately Profs. Siebold and Leuckart 

 assisted him. Dzierzon remarked that 

 his discovery was the consequence of 

 another, made by him also ; or, in 

 other words, the discovery of another 

 habitation for the bees. Dzierzon 

 admitted that very many had helped 

 to perfect liis discovery ; his only 

 merit was in placing the corner stone 

 of the edilice. Of course the speech 

 of Dzierzon was followed by a great 

 many applauses. 



I have an engraving in a French 

 book published in 1790, written by 

 Delia Rocca, representing a movable- 

 comb hive, with the top-bar enlarged 

 at both ends, such as Dzierzon uses 

 even now. The movable-frame hive 

 was used also by Huber in Switzer- 

 land, and about the same time by 

 Bevan, in England, more than 50 

 years ago, and by a great many 

 others. 



The movable-comb hive of Dzierzon 

 is different from the movable-frame 

 hives, since the comb, instead of being 

 encased all around by a frame, is 

 only suspended under a top-bar. 

 These movable-combs of Dzierzon, in 

 spite of the praises given them by 

 Mr. Abbott, of England, are not ac- 

 cepted by the bee-keepers at large, 

 even in Germany and Italy, where the 

 side-opening hive is preferred, be- 

 cause it was known before the 

 movable-top hive of Langstroth ; 

 altliough this last hive had been in- 

 vented about the same time. 



Several discussions took place after 

 the speech of Dzierzon, and at 4 p.m. 

 400 of the bee-keepers in attendance 

 held a grand banquet. The Syndic of 

 Leignitz, with his wife, was present. 



The banquet was followed by music, 

 illuminations, Bengal lights and Are 

 works, which continued the festival 

 until 3 a.m. the next morning. Dzier- 

 zon, in spile of his age, was yet in the 

 street at 4 a.m., as jovial as several 

 other priests which were with him. 



At 9 a.m. on Sept. 10, the seance of 

 the Congress was opened again, and 

 several discussions followed. At 3 

 p.m. the Congress was dismissed, and 

 a third festival began. On the fol- 

 lowing day the bee-keepers went to 

 another feast in the country, to return 

 to their various homes after having 

 fully enjoyed the Jubilee, and desiring 

 to soon experience as much pleasure. 

 Troppau, in Silesia, Austria, was 

 selected as the place for the next 

 meeting of the Congress. 



IIamilton,+o Ills. 



For the j^mencan Bee JoumaL 



Do Bees Store Poisonous Honey? 



JAS. M NEILL. 



Editoii of the Bee Journal : I 

 clipped the enclosed from the Christian 

 at Worl\ The views expressed are 

 directly opposite to those of Prof. 

 Cook on the same subject, in the last 

 Bee Journal. He talks strongly 

 and very decidedly ; and Prof. Cook 

 is equally positive. Perhaps Mr. 

 AVilliams could be induced to send 

 the Professor a sample of the honey 

 for experimentation. 



Hudson, ex N. Y. 



Here is the article in full from the 



Christian at Work : 



Tlie article of Mr. Todd on this 

 subject is a curious mixture. Con- 

 cerning its agnosticism, its meta- 

 physics and questions generally that 

 have no bearing on this question, I 

 have notliing to say. I do not believe 

 the public are interested in anything 

 more than to know whether this 

 question should be answered with yes 

 or no, and so far this is an exceedingly 

 important question. That bees will 

 store poisonous honey is a fact estab- 

 lished much longer than Mr. Todd 

 lias been a resident of this planet, and 

 tills fact has often been alluded to by 

 classical writers in both poetry and 

 prose. Comparatively little is written 

 upon this subject from the fact that 

 there are only a few plants that pro- 

 duce poisonous honey, and these are 

 contined to small areas, still we see 

 occasional articles in agricultural 

 papers that give very definite and 

 very reliable information on the sub- 

 ject. The rhododendrons of Trebi- 

 zond have exceedingly beautiful 

 blossoms, and their honey is concen- 

 trated poison. In different parts of 

 the United States are different plants 

 that also yield poisonous honey. 

 Certain varieties of azaleas produce 

 poisonous honey. The kill-calf here 

 takes off three-fourths of the protit of 

 keeping bees. That this is a fact and 

 not a whim I am ready to prove to 

 the satisfaction of agnostics and 

 skeptics of every description. I have 

 40 pounds of clear,white capped honey 

 gathered while the kill-calf was in 

 blossom, and I will cheerfully feed 

 this to such skeptics until their agnos- 

 ticism evaporates, and this would feed 

 several hundred at that rate. If Mr. 

 Todd will come up and eat one ounce 

 of it without becoming sick, I will 

 pay his'fare both ways, and guarantee 

 that he will need neither an emetic or 

 cathartic for some days. 



This honey would sell readily in the 

 New York market, and yet it would 

 be as honest to sell any other poison. 

 As to the idea that the instinct of the 

 bee would prevent it from carrying 

 such poison into the hive, it is all 

 nonsense, as here is the honey nicely 

 capped over, and shows for itself. 

 There is not a man about here that 

 knows anything about bees but knows 

 this to be a fact, but most of them 

 know enough not to put the caps 

 [sections] on the hives until the kill- 

 calf is out of blossom,' and then they 



get wliite clover honey. Now if I had 

 read tliis last season, and acted 

 accordingly, this winter I would have 

 luxuriated on buckwheat cakes and 

 lioney, and now 1 ;im minus the 

 iioney. I hope this discussion will 

 save others from such blunders. 

 When I took off my caps [sections] 

 I tasted a little of the honey, only a 

 fraction of an ounce, and the next 

 three days and nights I spent in 

 meditation on tlie virtues of kill-calf 

 honey ; many of my neighbors have 

 fared worse. One young man was 

 paralyzed in the lower extremities for 

 several days. 



There is another point worthy of 

 attention. It does not follow from 

 the fact that this is a poison to a man 

 that it is a poison to a bee ; on the 

 other hand my neighbors all believe 

 that it is as good as any for the bees. 

 All writers agree that pyrethrum is 

 death to every class of insects, and 

 harmless to human beings. The 

 opposite is true of many things ; and 

 what poisons man, may be good for 

 an insect. I could sell my honey to 

 feed bees, hut I want it to feed agnos- 

 tics, and all that will try it will settle 

 this question, as far as they are con- 

 cerned, at once and forever. The 

 skeptics of (ralileo's time would not 

 look through his telescope, they 

 thought it so absurd that looking 

 through a glass would assist the sight. 

 I hope our skeptics on this ^subject 

 will test this question, now there is a 

 good opportunity, and then they can 

 write about what they know instead 

 of what they guess. 



A. M. Williams. 



Central Park, Long Island, K. Y. 



[We would suggest that Mr. Will- 

 iams send some of that honey to 

 Prof. Cook " for experimentation," as 

 Mr. McNeill proposes. We were sur- 

 prised at the statement made by Prof. 

 Cook, and would decidedly favor the 

 proposed experiment.— Ed.] 



For the American Bee JoumaL 



My Report— Wintering Bees. 



7— ,J. F. LATHAM, (17—29). 



I commenced the season with 19 

 colonies, two of which lost their 

 queens during the winter, and three 

 other colonies lost theirs soon after 

 the bees commenced llviug; but 14 

 well-constituted colonies remained as 

 a working force. My united-queeu- 

 less colonies were nearly useless, for 

 although united to those evincing the 

 possession of good queens, the fussing 

 required to keep them straight proved, 

 as it usually has with me. poorly re- 

 warded efforts. In early spring I have 

 failed, in general, to make the uniting 

 of colonies of about equal strength a 

 success, when the qiieenless bees 

 were given to those having a queen, 

 as the colony possessing the queen 

 has usually " hung back " until the 

 added force had " died off." 



In my uniting operations last 

 spring, in one instance I gave the 

 bees and queen to the queenless 



