American Bee Journal. 



EDITED AND PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL WAGNER, WASHINGTON, D. C. 



AT TWO DOLLARS PEK ANNUM, PAYABLE IN ADVANCE. 



Vol. V. 



JULY, l^GO. 



No. 1. 



[For the Amevican Bee Journal.] 



The Effect of Water on the Combs and 

 the Life of the Bees. 



Superficial observers of nature and lier opera- 

 tions are very apt to form erroneous conclusions, 

 mistaking eff cts for causes, and constructing 

 hypotheses which, when compared witli tlie 

 facts on which tliey purport to be based, do not 

 even represent the shadow of the substance in 

 question. Similar consequences flow from the 

 miscouceptions of those who, in uiter unac- 

 quaintance with the wonderful operations of 

 natural forces, as well as with the results of 

 those processes, venture to speculate on phenom- 

 ena which casually come uuder their observa- 

 tion. We do not propose to censure the failure 

 of the latter ; they have simply not been taught 

 to observe. But the former, while impelled by 

 a desire for knowledge, reflecting on the sub- 

 jects which they design to elucidate, deduce in- 

 correct and oftlimes ridiculous inferences from 

 their premises, simply because they happen to be 

 ignorant of the requisite auxiliary branches 

 of science. 



Such and similar remarks are we frequently 

 constrained to make in the various departments 

 in which technical operations impinge on natu- 

 ral processes, or rather where they seem to be 

 sustained by ascertained particular facts in nat- 

 ural science. An atleiitive perusal of the vari- 

 ous periodicals devoted to specialities frequently 

 presents this truth, and renders it manifest that 

 if practical interests are to be successfully ad- 

 vanced, the processes employed must be brought 

 into operative harmony with the principles 

 which science has demonstrated to be true and 

 applicable. 



We read lately at a friend's house, the excel- 

 lent American Bee Journal, published in 

 Washington, and found therein many very 

 valuable articles; but among them likewise 

 some whicb, whether for the first or the second 

 of the reasons indicated above, present views 

 not precisely in accordance with, or not held 

 in due subordination to, the scientific principles 

 of force in the premises. From this considera- 



tion, and because a translation of our articles 

 on foulbrood, communicated to the Hanover 

 Centralbatt, appeared in the Journal in the 

 autumn of 1868, we resolved, if its columns 

 were open to our discussions in the field of apis- 

 tics, to endeavor to aid in bringing the views of 

 bee-keepers on apistical questions in accord with 

 the principles of modern science, in a country 

 which has long been the chos-n home of two of 

 our children—availing ourselves also of the 

 opportunity to elucidate more fully, or render 

 more easily intelligible, the articles on foulbrood 

 to which we have just rt. erred. 



In support of the position assumed at the out- 

 set, it will only be necessary for us to advert to 

 what has appeared in some of the principal 

 apicultural and other journals of Germany, 

 Thus, a certain Dr. Landois had heard that 

 worker bees possess the power to raise queens 

 from worker eggs. Basing himself on this con- 

 ceded fact, he unblushingly declared in the Jour- 

 nal for Scientific Zoology, that it is in power of 

 the beekeeper, by regulating the quantity of 

 food administered by him, to raise queens, 

 workers, or drones at pleasure. And later, sani- 

 tary-counsellor Dr. Preuss maintained in the 

 Bienenzeitung, that foulbrood is the product of 

 a fungus, by him named '■'■cryptococcus alvearis;''^ 

 though Liebig and other eminent chemists and 

 naturalists had previously shown that fungi and 

 infusoria are the products of incipient puirelac- 

 tion. Indeed Dr. Preuss mixes up the putrefactive 

 and Uie fermentive processes strangely, in his 

 article ; citing them now as appearing in due 

 order, and again as occurring wholly out of 

 place. He contends in general that fermenta- 

 tion is a consequence of the formation of vege- 

 table tissues ; though it has long since been de- 

 monstrated by Liebig, Dopping, Struve, and 

 Karsten, that sugar, for example, may, by de- 

 composition, be resolved into alcohol and car- 

 bonic acid, without exhibiting in the process the 

 slightest indication of the presence of fermen- 

 tive fungi. The most eminent chemists and 

 I physiologists have shown conclusively that the 

 i putrifyiug substance is the generator of fermen- 

 tation, and when brought into contact with fer- 

 mentable matter in certain states of temperature, 

 ' in the presence of moisture, will superinduce the 



