

~4^ 



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(Entered at the Post-Offlce at Chicago as Second-Class Mail-Matter.) 

 Published Weekly at $1.00 a Year, by George W. York & Co., 834 Dearborn Street. 



GEORGE W. YORK, Editor 



CHICAGO, ILL., DECEMBER 27, 1906 



VoL XLVI— No. 52 



Comments 



A Happy New Year we wish every 

 reader of the American Bee Journal — and 

 many more of them ! 



That Handsaw-and-Hatchet (live 



A Connecticut correspondent who has 

 failed to give bis name or address writes say- 

 ing that a hive made after the figures given 

 on page 993 would, in his judgment, be worse 

 than any box-hive he ever saw, and asks that 

 the figures be corrected " 60 they will fit." 

 Unfortunately he has failed to specify which, 

 among the many figures, are wrong, and why 

 they are wrong. If he will supply this defi- 

 ciency, the proper correction will be cheer- 

 fully made. 



♦ 



Phillpplno Bees-With Variations 



An exchange has a description of the big 

 bees of the Philippines, credited to " an East- 

 ern daily," which does not vary from the 

 usual description except that variety is in- 

 troduced by saying, "They make a large 5- 

 sided cell about 2X inches deep." As no 

 mention is made of any other size of cell, it is 

 reasonable to suppose that 2J -J inches is the 

 depth of a cell in which a worker is reared. 

 If a worker is anything like 2'o inches long, 

 no wonder it is called the "Giant bee of 

 India." More remarkable, however, is that 

 "5-sided cell." The man who originated 

 that idea should be allowed to perch on a tree 

 beside a nest of those 2>£-inch bees until he 

 completed a draft of a piece of comb made of 



5-sided cells. 



• 



The Dzierzon Theory a Myth 1 



While the news of Dzierzon 's death is still 

 fresh, there is 6ent to us by Mr. L. B. Smith, 

 of Texas, a clipping written by J. W. Thomas, 



who evidently thinks that believers in the 

 Dzierzon theory are blindly following tradi- 

 tion that has no foundation. He says: 



Now I will discuss the high royal preroga- 

 tive of her majesty the queen-bee. I admit 

 that she is an autocrat ordinarily, and rules 

 the hive in perfect order without fear, and 

 that she is not an egotistical gadabout nor an 

 evil tattler in her circles of female royal asso- 

 ciates of her rank. But I will shear her royal 

 locks of a prerogative that has been awarded 

 her for more than a century by uninformed 

 bee-keepers, viz. : that she lays eggs of her 

 own that will hatch drones only, she refusing 

 to fertilize the eggs in the act of laying them 

 so that they will hatch drones only and not 

 worker-bees. 



This pretended discovery was announced 

 first by a German doctor whose name I have 

 not before me, and I will not undertake to 

 spell it, but it begins with the letter T, and he 

 evidently knew something of the Greek lan- 

 guage, as he used a Greek term, " Par-the-no- 

 genesis," or alternate generation by a virgin 

 without a male, in honor of her majesty the 

 queen-bee. Now, I presume that the son of 

 Esculapius was learned in heathen mythology 

 and well versed in fiction, especially of a very 

 ancient nation, who were long in war with all 

 the other nations of the earth, and lost legions 

 of soldiers, and their army was invincible, as 

 their women virgins especially kept their 

 ranks full of soldiers by raising boys only, 

 and by the par-the-no-genesis system, or 

 alternate generation. He certainly sought to 

 honor the queen-bee, which is 6aid to be more 

 prolific than any insect except one species of 

 ants. 



Our German bee-keeper lived in the dark 

 ages of bee-land, and his zeal overran his 

 knowledge, and his theory was untenable, 

 though he acquired great reputation and 

 gained notoriety and convinced many that 

 queen-bees were possessed of supernatural 

 power, and it yet has its advocates in the 

 front ranks of bee-culture. But there are 

 many handling bees now who know but little 

 about queen-bees, and in the German doctor's 

 time the people knew less, and there are bee- 

 keepers now who believe the theory from the 

 fact that it has been published so long. 



This passage is preceded by the assertion 

 that he will offer proof that the accepted 

 theory is incorrect, and he then says: 



The tir6t evidence I will offer is physiology 

 and all of its standard works. After she be- 

 comes a fertile queen she lays fertile eggs 

 during life, and she is the only fully developed 

 female in tne hive. 



And that is all he gives by way of proof ! 



For the sake of some of the younger readers 

 it may be worth while to say that the dis- 

 coverer of parthenogenesis did not begin his 

 name with a T, although the sound might 

 suggest that letter, for Dzierzon is pronounced 

 " T6eertsone;" also, that he was not an M, 

 D., or a "son of Esculapius," but an official 

 of the church; that instead of the preroga- 

 tive of the queen, as Mr. Thomas says, being 

 "awarded her for more than a century by un- 

 informed bee-keepers," the truth is that 

 Dzierzon was not born a century ago. His 

 discovery was made only half a century ago, 

 and his death did not occur until October, 

 1906. 



When Dzierzon first promulgated his the- 

 ory, a bitter war over it occurred among Ger- 

 man bee-keepers; but in this country it is 

 doubtful that heretofore any well-informed 

 bee-keeper has opposed it. Either Mr. 

 Thomas is the first well-informed bee-keeper 

 in this country to throw doubt on partheno- 

 genesis, or he is not so well informed as he- 

 might be. The glaring errors in his com- 

 munication point rather to the latter alterna- 

 tive. 



But if Mr. Thomas has demolished the 

 Dzierzon theory, he has not failed to give us 

 another theory equally original. He says: 



It is admitted that the queen is reared upon 

 a peculiar food with her tail up and her head 

 partly down, and that she is a full female. 

 The drone-bee is reared with his head and tail 

 on a level and fed upon a peculiar food and is 

 a full male. Therefore, it is the peculiar 

 food and different position in which they are 

 reared that creates the different sex. 



Referring to this Mr. Smith swells with 

 pride, and says: 



" Please read and see what wonderful talent 

 we have in Texas. Why, just think of it, 

 such men as Dr. Dzierzon, Prof. A. J. Cook, 

 Dr. E. F. Phillips, and all other such noted 

 scientists whom the whole world has learned 

 to honor, and look up to for their great dis- 

 coveries in the scientific line, are now all 

 knocked into a 'cocked hat 'by this man' 



