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mGRMPMICi. 



JAVi SWAmSIERDARI. 



The following biographical sketch of 

 the noted Holland anatomist and dis- 

 coverer of queen-bee maternitj', was 

 translated from the Deutsche lUustrierle 

 Biencnzeitung. bj- Rev. Stephen Roese. 

 of Maiden Rock, Wis., for the Ajieri- 

 CAN Bee Journal : 



On perusing the history of apicnltnre 

 of ancient date, we meet, 4U0 years 

 before Christ, the great philosopher 

 Aristotle, who made the honey-bee a 

 special object of his studies, and facts 

 discovered b}' him have not been fully 

 realized until the present century ; and 

 the many writers who treated on api- 

 culture after him, were chiefly poets, 

 such as Virgil, and economists like 

 Columella. Paladins, etc. 



The middle age of the world added 

 nothing new to the cause, for in eon- 

 vents and universities the classical 

 writings wei'e studied and explained 

 chiefly, but more in the letter than in 

 the spirit. At the close of the Middle 

 Age, it coulil truly be said that since 

 the days of Aristotle, the knowledge of 

 apiculture had not been advanced in 

 the least. This assertion may seem 

 strange to some, but it is nevertheless 

 an undeniable fact. 



In the lOtli century appeared a num- 

 ber of works on apiculture, but they 

 contained nothing new concerning the 

 nature of the honej'-bee ; but in the 

 century following, a man appeared on 

 the stage of action, wliose deep, 

 searching mind gave to the world the 

 first lessons relative to the nature and 

 species of the honey-bee. and this 

 man's name was Jan Swammerdam — a 

 Hollander, born in 1(537, in Amster- 

 dam, who shared the same fate, like 

 many great discoverers before and 

 after him — like Columbus, Harvey and 

 Hahnemann — during his life-time his 

 service and great discoveries were not 

 appreciated, and the difliculties he had 

 to encounter were so great, that his 

 latter end might well be called a mis- 

 erable one ; the after-world reaping 

 the beneflt of his labor and toil, and 

 ungrateful like in all other cases, his 

 person and real worth were soon for- 

 gotten, and even the bee-keeping 

 fraternity, for whom he had done so 

 much, did not pay due respect to his 

 memory according to his real worth, 

 although he did not devote his whole 

 life-time to apiculture like Francis 

 Huber. later ; but what he did do. is 

 so praiseworthj- that he justly <leserves 

 the title as the flrst and greatest dis- 

 coverer in apiculture of all past ages. 



And who was this man ? and what 

 did he do for this honest industry and 

 art ? These are two questions of great 

 importance, the answers to which are 

 given in brief as follows : 



Jan Swammerdam was born in the 

 j-ear 1637, in a nalui'alist's cabinet, 

 which fact prepared the way for his 

 future calling. His father was a 

 chemist and naturalist, who gathered 

 with unceasing eftort everything that 

 sailing vessels brought from both In- 

 dias. in curious animals, plants, min- 

 erals, and all specialities which could 

 be found in Europe, and in this chaos 

 of nature's wonders and rarities, 

 Swammerdam spent the days of his 

 youth, and received his early impres- 

 sions and tirst love for research and 

 knowledge of nature. 



Young Swammerdam resided in the 

 heart of Amsterdam — the Babvlon of 



Jan Swammerdam. 



commercial centre in Holland, like 

 Robinson on liis island, to devote his 

 whole lifetime to the study of nature 

 and its hidden wonders, and he soon 

 started out on his journey tlirough the 

 Netherlands, for search and gathering 

 of insects. 



His father being a devout naturalist, 

 and gatherer of insects, yet he did not 

 approve of his son spending his life- 

 time in the study and gathering of the 

 same, for it was his wish that he should 

 study medicine, for which purpose he 

 sent him to the University at Leyden. 

 The practice and knowledge of medi- 

 cine in those days was very limited, 

 and the untiring spirit of the young 

 Hollander resolved to dig through the 

 surface of medical knowledge to its 

 very foundation, and his motto was. 

 How can we heal the sick if we have 

 no knowledge of the healthy ? and if 

 we once know the organism of man, 

 who stands on the upper round of the 

 ladder in tlie animal kingdom, is it not 

 important to know and understand the 



organism of the animal and insect 

 creation below ? and with this object in 

 view, 3oung Swammerdam was led 

 step by step to the most fruitful dis- 

 coveries of all ages. 



In the year ItilO Galileo had re- 

 ceived a magnifying glass, with which 

 he constructed a telescope ; this in- 

 strument he turned upward and saw 

 in the sky. planets far and near. 

 Swammerdam took the ■ glass and 

 turned f. it downward, and saw the 

 world and its wonders, as no man ever 

 did before ; until then, learned men 

 and philosophers had depended more 

 upon their own senses, lint now, by 

 the aid of this mighty and powerful 

 instrument, the learned perceived that 

 they had not only seen the most hid- 

 den wonders of the world, but had 

 greatly labored under mistaken ideas. 

 It can therefore justly he said that 

 Swammerdam was the first man who 

 constructed the flrst practical micro- 

 scopic instrument. 



Swammerdam was then young, and 

 a simple student of the University at 

 Leyden, when he discovered the higher 

 and lower order of living beings. He 

 was the first man who discovered the 

 maternity of the female and insects, 

 and understandingly explained the 

 same withiilit entering upon the first 

 subject (the female), which does not 

 belong here, but is fully given and ex- 

 plained in his work. jMiraculum nalurct: 

 sea uteri umliebris fahrica (Lej'den 

 1G72) ; but in the latter (insect) case 

 it is important to remark, and of in- 

 terest, that after carefullj- dissecting, 

 he proved that the (then called) •• bee- 

 king " was a female, and the mother 

 of the whole colony in the hive, and 

 the drone the male bee. This proved 

 a great advance step in apiculture, 

 which astonislied the world. . and is 

 alone enough to immortalize the name 

 of Swammerdam throughout all ages. 



Swammerdam did not stand still at 

 this discovery, but dissected each and 

 all species of bees, and obtained the 

 most microscopical discoveries. 



Swammerdam was at this time not 

 perfect, but adhered to several gross 

 errors for some time, which could not 

 be expected otherwise. He advocated, 

 for instance, three different kinds of 

 eggs — queen, worker and drone ; and 

 he furtiier believed in a sad spending 

 of the drone to fertilize the queen. He 

 practiced artificial swarming and arti- 

 ficial queen-i'earing. In the luonth of 

 April he would take the queen with a 

 quantity of worker-bees, and transfer 

 them to anotlier hive where the new 

 colony soon began to build new combs, 

 and as soon as a new queen had been 

 reared in the parent hive, he took her 

 away again and did as before, and as 

 a result, a favorable season would pro- 

 duce from 10 to 15 nucleus colonies. 



