1903 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



221 



much urging could scarcely be iuduced 

 to suap the picture on the lawn. Be- 

 sides those who have had experience 

 in hiving swarms know that when 

 bees are shaken into a hive they will 

 immediately crawl out, but when they 

 are shaken in front of it they will 

 readily crawl into it and assume pos- 

 session. Newly hived swarms should 

 be shaded for a few days and the hive 

 entrance enlarged to supply sufficient 

 ventilation. The section-boxes should 

 be transferred from the parent hive 

 to the one containing the newly hived 

 swarm which now has almost all of 

 the field bees. The parent hive being 

 so depleted Avill have no use for sec- 

 tions for at least a month or more. 

 Englewood, X. J.. Aug. 13, 1903. 



THE HONEY BEE 



Hauled;Down from the Exalted Position 'Which 

 It has Occupied from Time Immemorial 

 as the World's Emblem of Indus- 

 try and Other Virtues. 



(Arthur C. Miller.) 



FOR UNTOLD AGES the bee has 

 been the emblem of industry, 

 unselfishness and reckless self- 

 sacrifice. Some authors have seen 

 reverence and respect. Sentimentalists 

 have woven fairy tales about the beau- 

 tiful devotion of the bee to the safety 

 and good of her sisters. 



It is passing strange what a lot of 

 freak ideas exist about the bee and 

 how like a snowball the rolling non- 

 sense has gathered unto itself in its 

 progress the vaporings of every idle 

 dreamer, of every emotional pietist. 



The bee is a thoroughly selfish ani- 

 mal, devoid of nearly all the virtues 

 attributed to it and actuated solely by 

 the laws of self-preservation and pa- 

 rental instinct. Seemingly a bold 

 statement that, but let us see. The 

 original type of bee from which the 

 honey-bee is descended is believed to 

 be well represented by the solitary 

 bees of the present. The females of 

 this type select a place for the recep- 

 tion of their eggs and rearing of their 

 young, each according to the habit 

 of her kind. The selection made, food 

 is gathered and stored, the egg or eggs 

 laid and with some the young are left 



to themselves and with others, further 

 attention is bestowed. 



The next marked stage in the evo- 

 lution is perhaps well represented by 

 the common bumble bee. Here the 

 female establishes a nest much as does 

 the '-solitary" bee, but the young are 

 imperfectly developed and lacking the 

 power of reproduction but possessing 

 the parental instinct devote them- 

 selves to all the natural worli of the 

 female except egg-laying. They care 

 for the young, which so far as their 

 instincts guide them, are to them their 

 own. Only sufficient food is stored to 

 keep the bees through ordinary spells 

 of foul weather, but slight as is the 

 amount it evinces an instinct of pre- 

 paring for future needs quite compara- 

 ble to that of the honey-bee. With 

 the honey-bee we find the instinct to 

 store for the future much magnified 

 and the hibernating instinct virtually 

 eliminated. But all factors of food 

 gathering, brood feeding, comb con- 

 struction, etc., are but the expression 

 of the .same parental instinct as actu- 

 ates the perfect female "solitary" bee. 



It may be asked, what all this has 

 to do with practical bee-culture? Just 

 this, the law of the hive is a simple 

 commonplace instinct, not a complex 

 problem. Let the novice approach his 

 bee studies with this in mind and he 

 will find himself freed of much anxi- 

 ety and uncertainty. 



Providence, R. I., Sept. 5, 1903. 



GENERAL NOTES. 



(M. F. Reeve.) 



WINTER PROTECTION. 



WHERE YOU can't get building 

 paper to make caps of. the or- 

 dinary newspaper makes about 

 as good a winter protection, as is need- 

 ed. Take five or ten newspapers, un- 

 fold them and tack one within tne 

 other so as to make a blanket, and lay 

 across the hives so as to hang down 

 the sides and back to within a few 

 inches of the bottom-board. Fasten 

 with ordinary carpet tacks driven 

 through stiff pasteboard pieces about 

 an inch square. This prevents the 

 tacks from tearing loose from the 

 newspapers during "stiff blows." 

 An effective wind-break mav be 



