136 



THE ffiiii®Kicar« mmm jouitifMi,. 



bees will go through a key-hole into a 

 dark cellar to find honey, they can 

 find honey in any flower that grows, 

 without any coloring-matter about it. 



Prof. Pammel wishes me to " explain 

 why the sunflower should have de- 

 veloped the large, conspicuous ray- 

 flowers surrounding the head." That 

 is very easy. They are Nature's works, 

 and grown on natural principles. The 

 sunflower is a vigorous grower, and 

 the numerous seeds demand a suitable 

 support around the edge to keep them 

 from spreading. The coloring is only 

 accidental, as it is in all plants. 



As to " the Vermillion red leaves sur- 

 rounding the blossom of the poinsetta," 

 they are entirely unnecessary, as that 

 little " pocket-book" full of the thick- 

 est and sweetest nectar on the side of 

 the blossom bud is surely enough to 

 attract all the insects necessary to the 

 fertilization of the flowers. Then there 

 are the stamens full of pollen. 



If nectar is placed in flowers to 

 cause them to be visited by insects, 

 why is it not always placed in the cen- 

 tre of the flower ? Now, this poin- 

 setta has its little " pocket-book" full 

 of honey on the side, clear away from 

 the pollen, and bees could empty these 

 little pockets, time after time, and 

 never get any pollen on their legs. 



Will not some of the bee-keepers in 

 Texas tell us if the poinsetta grows 

 there ? It is a native of Mexico, and 

 Texas is pretty close to Mexico, and 

 there are many bee-keepers in Texas. 

 Then tell us if the poinsetta is not a 

 glorious honey-plant ; what the honey 

 tastes like ; how many tons an acre of 

 poinsetta plants would yield, and if 

 the plant bears many seeds. 



Then Prof. Pammel asks if the colors 

 and forms of flowers have been de- 

 veloped merely to gratify our senses. 

 The great end and aim of all vegeta- 

 ble life (of all life, in fact) is to per- 

 petuate itself. The flowers bloom 

 merely that the seeds may ripen — the 

 coloring is only accidental. All na- 

 ture, the earth, the air, the sky, is full 

 of color, and it is all accidental. It 

 was not made to please anybody, nor 

 to attract anything. 



The vast coal-beds of Illinois con- 

 tain enough coloring matter to color 

 the wearing apparel for the whole 

 world. " One pound of coal affords 

 magenta enough to color 500 yards of 

 flannel ; aurine suflieient for 120 yards 

 of flannel 27 inches wide ; Vermillion 

 scarlet for 2,560 yards of flannel, or 

 alizarin for 255 j'ards of Turkey-red 

 cloth. 



'* We are acquainted with about 16 

 distinct yellow colors, about twelve 

 oranges, more than thirty reds.about 15 

 blues, seven greens, and nine violets ; 

 besides various compounds, giving an 

 almost infinite number of shades and 



tones of color." And in the face of 

 all this coloring-material which is 

 burned up, we begin to talk and 

 fancify about ivhy flowers are colored. 



Look at the coloring of the deep-sea 

 fishes. I quote from Sir John Lub- 

 bock. I see that all of our Professors 

 are very fond of Sir John Lubbock. 

 He says : "The conditions of life in 

 ocean depths are very peculiar. The 

 light of the Sim cannot penetrate be- 

 yond about two hundred fathoms ; 

 deeper than this, complete darkness 

 prevails. These deep-sea fishes are 

 either silvery, pink, or in many cases 

 black, sometimes relieved with scarlet, 

 and when the liguminous organs flash 

 out. must present a remarkable ap- 

 pearance. The deep-sea fishes are 

 very peculiar. The abysses of the 

 ocean are quite still, and black dark- 

 ness reigns. (The pressure of the 

 water is very great)." (I had the rest 

 of this copied out of a cycloi^edia, but 

 I have lost the paper containing it.) 



Now here are these deep-sea fish, 

 down in the dark depths of the ocean, 

 where the sun's rays never go, and thej' 

 are colored pink, and silver, and black, 

 relieved with scarlet. What were they 

 colored for ? and who was to see them? 

 Does not this prove that coloring in 

 Nature is only accidental ? 



Prof. Cook, in his article about 

 "Tiger Beetles," in Oleanings, page 

 4y, says : " As the weasel in his win- 

 ter robes of white, or the Arctic fox is 

 hid by the snow on which he treads." 

 I think Prof. Cook must be a poor 

 hunter, or he would know that dogs 

 trace the weasel, and the Arctic fox by 

 the odor, not by the color ; and they 

 will follow sce7it for miles without see- 

 ing the game ; of what use then is the 

 mimicry of color, so far as the weasel 

 and the Arctic fox are concerned ? 

 What is color anyway ? I say it is 

 pigment ! 



Sir John Lubbock (Oh, how I love 

 to quote Sir John Lubbock) says : 



"Light is the eft'ect produced on us 

 when waves of light strike the eye. 

 When four hundred millions of millions 

 of vibrations of ether strike the retina 

 in a second, they produce red ; and 'as 

 the number increases, they pass into 

 orange, then yellow, green, blue and 

 violet." 



The above is a very wise explana- 

 tion of color, but for ordinary mortals 

 colors are chemical substances, formed 

 in coal, in flowers, in clays, and numer- 

 ous other substances. They are made 

 by boiling, or stewing, or pressing dif- 

 ferent substances together, and they 

 are always wholly and entirely acci- 

 dental ! The setting sun, that paints 

 the clouds and hills in crimson and 

 gold, sinks, in a few minutes, out of 

 sight, and the clouds are grey and the 

 hills are green again. 



DISEASED BEES. 



Eradicating; Foul Brood from 

 the Apiary, etc. 



Written fur the American See Juumal 



BY SAMUEL BARNHART. 



In the American Bee Journal for 

 March, 1888, I wrote my experience 

 with foul brood, and how I eradicated 

 it from my apiary. Thinking that some 

 at least might wish to know what suc- 

 cess I had, I will repeat the treatment. 



I put the bees into empty boxes for 

 two days, scalding and cleansing the 

 boxes eflectively. 



I then put them back on full sheets 

 of foundation, destroj'ing all combs in 

 which there had been any brood, and 

 saving all the nice, white outside 

 combs, some of which were only partly 

 drawn out. I treated all but 2 colonies 

 at the time they appeared to be only 

 slightly affected, but they soon became 

 so bad that it became necessary to 

 treat them she same way. 



From the 2 colonies I took eight 

 frames of brood, with a few bees, and 

 put them into an empty box, and they 

 are there to-day, as free from foul 

 brood as bees can be. They were 

 without a queen for at least five weeks, 

 and being weak, consumed all there 

 honey, of which they had a very little. 

 At first I fed them syrup, and after- 

 ward gave them two frames of bees 

 and brood from another colony, and in 

 the fall it was as strong as any colony 

 I had. Last spring that was the first 

 colony I divided, and verj- soon I had 

 two good colonies, both of which 

 stored considerable surplus honey. 



After this colony, without any aid 

 whatever, had cleansed their own 

 combs, and was rid of foul brood, I 

 thought, why can I not use the combs 

 I had saved after fumigating frequent- 

 \y, and eft'ectually with sulphur, and 

 spraying with carbolic acid ? I then 

 gave the nicest of these combs con- 

 taining no hone}-, to several colonies, 

 without any bad results whatever. 



Whether there is anything in it or 

 not, I will not pretend to say, but I 

 put a small camphor poke on top of 

 the frames of each colony, and fed a 

 little sulphuric acid through the sum- 

 mer, with an occasional sprajing with 

 a weak solution of carbolic acid, the 

 bees at the entrances of the hives. 

 After getting through safely so far, I 

 was foolish enough to risk still further, 

 by giving to a very late, small second 

 swarm, six frames (the last I had), 

 some of which contained some of the 

 old honey ; I sprayed them all with 

 carbolic acid, but did not uncap the 

 honey, neither did I use any camphor 

 nor give them any attention whatever. 

 Sometime afterward, when I exam- 



