THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



23 



partly drawn out in a stripe down through 

 the center. Some of the cells were, per- 

 haps, one-fourth of an inch in depth, and 

 shaded off until there covtld be seen only 

 a few "scratches" that the bees had 

 made on the surface of the wax. About 

 the first thing that the bees do, judging 

 from the appearance of this specimen, is 

 to make the bottom of a cell rounding, like 

 the bottom of a pressed-tin wash basin. 

 Then, as the side-walls are started, the 

 lozenge-shaped character begins to appear 

 in the base. It is much the same in nat- 

 ural comb-building. Get a piece of uat- 

 ural-built comb having a wedge-shaped 

 edge of cells that are not complete. Look 

 right down close to the edge, where the 

 bases and side-walls are being started. 

 You will see that there is a stage in the 

 proceedings when each base, or bottom, 

 to a cell is roundii;g instead of being 

 formed of lozenge-sliaped pieces. As the 

 side-walls are laid out and started, the 

 lozenge-shaped base appears. 



What is the point to all this ? Well, it 

 is probably that we will never be able 

 to make such foundatifm that the bees 

 will accept it without change, and be 

 satisfied with it, an3' more than we 

 can make a nesl that would suit a robin, 

 but let us get just as near to it as we can. 



Mr. Bingham has brought out the best 

 style of smoker, and the best style of 

 lione3^-knife, and it is possible that he 

 has struck upon the best style of founda- 

 tion for use in the sections. 



A Condensed View of Current 

 Bee Writings. 



E. K. H.XSTV. 



Blame whore you must, be candid where you can, 

 And be each critic the Good-natured Man. 



GOLDS^flTH. 



m HAT closing onslaught of R. h. Tay- 

 i- lor's on page 316 of the Review was 

 a sickener for the brethren who believe 

 that foul brood is cause 1 by chilling. I 



think he served the interests of truth by 

 his keen thrust — that is, I don't believe 

 the United States ever had, or ever will 

 have, a case of the dread disorder in any 

 other way than b}- the presence of the 

 germs from some previous case of foul 

 brood. It is time, however, for us to 

 comprehend the fact that there are fzco 

 companies of folks who believe that foul 

 brood develops dc ?ioz'o, and one of these 

 companies has a position just as scientific 

 as ours. Sensible folks owe it to them- 

 selves to understand a position before 

 they do very nnich laughing at it. 



No length of time we have to deal with 

 can suffice to make one species of living 

 creature out of another, or out of nothing ; 

 but a moderate number of generations of 

 almost any creature may cstablisli a new 

 breed. Now, bacilli bread so rapidh' ( a 

 nviinber of generations within one day's 

 time if I have the right ) that a new breed 

 can be er>tablished in but a few days. 

 Tliis is not a barren fact but a very fruit- 

 ful and live one. Most of the world's 

 great physicans are eagerly at work tak- 

 ing advantage of it. The present appear- 

 ance is that every deadly bacillus can be 

 bred down to comparative harmlessness. 

 Next the degenerate breed is used to im- 

 munize the liumMi system against the 

 dead y breed ; for, strange to say, im- 

 munizing power is not lost in breeding 

 down. Sometimes the degenerate breed 

 is propagated in the human system to 

 head off the deadly breed, but oftener 

 some animal is powerfully immunized, 

 and then the serum of its blood is inject- 

 ed into the human blood. In this way it 

 is hoped that cholera and yellow fever 

 and nearly ever\- deadly plague may soon 

 be brought under a measure of control — 

 for nearly every one is the work of some 

 particular bacillus. 



For some reason, breeding up seems 

 . more difficult than breeding down ; but 

 manifestly it can be done. Both breed- 

 ing up and breeding down are apparent- 

 ly going on in nature's domain outside of 

 man's control. Whenever a bacillus too 

 feeble to hold its own in the human bodv 



