May 25, 1905 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



373 



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The Bigelow Educational Bee-Hive 



BY BDWARD F. BIGBLOW 



INSECT STUDY— Bbes in Particular.— It is in the 

 world of insects, vast and varied, its members innumer- 

 able, beautiful, and almost miraculous in transforma- 

 tion, that the naturalist revels. The entomologist proclaims 

 the attractions of his favorite pursuit as does no other nat- 

 uralist, and no other disputes his claim. The most exuber- 

 ant language fails to do full justice to the subject. Kirby 

 and Spence, years ago, wrote as follows : 



" Were a naturalist to announce to the world the diBcovery of an 

 animal which, for the first five years of its life, existed in the form of 

 a serpent; which, then, penetrating. into the earth and weaving a 

 shroud of purest silk of the finest texture, contracted itself within this 

 covering into a body without external mouth or limbs, and resembling 

 more than anything else an Egyptian mummy; and which, lastly, 

 after remaining in this state without food and without motion for 

 three years longer, should, at the end of that period, burst its silken 

 garment, struggle through its earthly covering, and start into a day 

 a winged bird — what, think you, would be the sensation excited by 

 this strange piece of intelligence? After the first doubts of its truth 

 were dispelled, what astonishment would succeed? 



" But 3'ou ask, " To what do all these improbable suppositions 

 tend? Simply to arouse your attention to the metanwrpfiose.t or trans- 

 furmalions of the insect world, almost as strange and surprising, to 

 which I am now about to direct your view — miracles, which, though 

 scarcely surpassed in singularity by all that poets have feigned, and, 

 though actually wrought every day beneath our eyes, are unheeded 

 alike by the ignorant and the learned because of their commonness 

 and the minuteness of the transforming objects." 



All this, bear in mind, is in praise of what is already 

 knowtij Of the charm of discovering these facts, the ento- 

 mologist James Rennie wrote : 



It can never be too strongly impressed upon a mind anxious for 

 the acquisition of knowledge, that the commonest things by which we 

 are surrounded are deserving of minute and careful attention. 



If it be granted that making discoveries is one of the most satis- 

 factory of human pleasures, then we may affirm without hesitation 

 that the study of insects is one of the most delightful branches of 

 natural history, for it affords peculiar facilities for its pursuit. 



" If you speak of a stone," says St. Basil, one of the Fathers of 

 the church, "if you speak of a fly, a gnat, or a bee, your conversation 

 will be a sort of demonstration of the power of Him whose hand 

 formed them, for the wisdom of the workman is commonly perceived 

 in that which is of little size. He who stretched out the heavens and 

 dug up the bottom of the sea is also He who has pierced a passage 

 through the sting of a bee for the ejection of its poison." 



This very large order of animal life which. Prof. Iv. O. 

 Howard states, " comprises nearly 30,000 described species ; 



but the enormous number of undescribed species would 



probably swell this number to more than 300,000." 



Of this vast number of insects, the one pre-eminent in 

 human interest is probably the honey-bee. Says Morely, 

 "Both ends of the honey-bee have always been of singular 

 interest to us, and this for exactly opposite reasons. It is a 

 double-ender — one end the friend — the other the enemy of 

 man." 



This supreme interest in the bee, Prof. John Corastock 

 expresses less humorously, but no less truthfully when he 

 says: 



"The honey-bee, through its useful producis, has been 

 known and cared for by man for centuries. Philosophers 

 have written about it, poets have sung its praises, and nat- 

 uralists have studied it during past ages, until there is prob- 

 ably no other insect with which man has such an intimate 

 acquaintance." 



In face of this overwhelming interest, the study of the 

 honeybee, so far as apparatus is concerned, has fared the 

 worst of all at the hands of the scientists or the educational 

 naturalist. They have sold the master study, and relin- 

 quished chief title in it for a bag of gold. In the bauds of 

 commercialism bees have fared well. Father Lant; -troth 

 lifted out the honey; Bingham and Root smoked ot the 

 bees; Coggshall and Dixie brushed them off ; Porter kept 

 them out of their home; Cowan whirled out the liquid 

 honey, and Danzenbaker and others made it conveci' ^ut to 

 capture comb and all. Alley caught the queens and c' jiies ; 



Doolittle, Miller, and Boardman said, " Let us feed them 

 when they are weak, so they can work better for us ;" Her- 

 shiser and Mason bottled the honey, andSturwold exhibited 

 it to the public, all saying, in effect, " Bring up your money, 

 and eat." Then they all shouted in chorus, "There's 

 money in it ! keep bees, and get rich I" 



One manufacturer tells of "millions and millions of 

 dollars' worth of honey taken from bees annually ;" boasts 

 of a plant with a working capital of $300,000, and pictures 

 the honey product in the United States every year as 

 "making a solid train-load" SO miles long. Where, all 

 this time, is the educational naturalist who /oves the bee as 

 well as its product ? Resting quietly, and perfectly willing, 

 apparently, to let commercialism dominate the entire subject. 



He will spend his money on elaborate bamboo rods, 

 nickel-plated heads of ingenious devices, with fine mesh 

 nets for the flying insects, approved drag-nets, and devices 

 for water-insects, elaborate breeding-cages, collecting 

 boxes; plaster of Paris, and glass and other mounts ; costly 

 storing-cases, and other elaborate paraphernalia. He will 

 devise ingenious methods for observation of ants, as have 

 Comstock, Fielde, and others. But what will he do for the 

 bee, the charm, the supreme interest of entomology ? Noth- 

 ing. No catalog of entomological supplies with which I 

 am familiar, though picturing a great variety of breeding- 

 cages for other insects, has one word to say in favor of 

 studying bees, or even a device to show for facilitating the 

 investigation of their habits. That has been left to com- 

 mercialism, and commercialism cares for nothing but the 

 money of the arrangement. 



In a life devoted more or less to the study of bees as a 

 Nature Study topic of supreme merit, I have more and more 

 felt the need of an educational bee-hive. 



This need has presented itself to me in the twofold rela- 

 tion of workmanship and convenience. To remedy this 

 defect I have devoted all my spare time for several months 

 past. Let us examine these needs. 



1. Workmanship.— A leading book on Nature Study in 

 the school-room and home, pictures of a clap-trap dry-goods 

 box affair that would not for a moment be tolerated as an 

 apparatus for the study of physics in any laboratory in the 

 land. Even those who cry the loudest for home-made 

 apparatus in physics would not accept such a crude thing 

 as that. A poor farm-house would demand better work- 

 manship in a box to put behind the stove for holding fire- 

 wood—it surely would if the photographic illustration does 

 the subject justice. A prominent magazine devoted to life 

 in the country has two or three times pictured arrange- 

 ments for holding a single frame of bees in a window. If 

 we are to judge from the illustration, it must have been the 

 poorest piece of furniture in the house. The tone of the arti- 

 cle, and the appearance of the illustration, convey the impres- 

 sion that the writer felt a pride in the fact that the whole 

 thing was cheap and home-made. But why cheap and home- 

 made ? Is the subject unworthy our attention ? or is it un- 

 worthy our best treatment? 



Why does that periodical not publish articles on How 

 to Make a Dog- Kennel Out of a Dry-Goods Box ;" " How to 

 Make a Cage for Your Canary Out of Old Umbrella Ribs ; 

 " How to Tear Up Old Rags into Ribbons for the Neck of 

 Your Pet Cat "? or— but why argue furthur 7 The articles 

 admit the interest in bees as a home ornament. Then why 

 insult the bees with anything short of the best ? 



In a leading university and in a prominent museum I 

 have seen a crude "observation hive " visited by greater 

 crowds of people than were the show-cases of specimens, 

 and have heard them excite more exclamations of interest 

 and wonder. Yet the glass in one of the doors cost more 

 than the entire hive ; indeed, the hives in both places were 

 such ramshackle affairs that an up-to-date bee-keeper would 

 hardly consider them worth a place in his back-yard apiary. 

 The probabilities are that such an apiarist would chop them 

 up for kindling-wood. Yet why this " economy " of the uni- 

 versity or the museum ? Are not live bees of more interest 

 than pinned beetles or skeletons of muskrats 7 If they are, 

 give them a "case " at least as good. 



■^ In Utility and Conveniknck.— The so-called " ob- 

 servation hive " has consisted of 8 or 10 frames with glass 

 on both sides, with or without covering doors, exposing 

 usually about two-thirds of one .side of the outermost comb. 

 The real work of the bees is on the inner combs ; but, waiv- 

 ing that disadvantage, a hive that exposes to observation 

 from one-twelfth to one-fifteenth of its comb surface (the 

 glasses at the end are useless) is not an observation hive ; 

 it is an aeeravation hive. . 



Another form of so-called "observation hive has been 

 a simple affair with glass sides for holding one frame of 



