Jan. 9, 1902. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



21 



THK HKK AS A CITIZEN. 



Man has never tamed the bee as he 

 ha.s the horse or dop or ox. These 

 aiiinials have surrendered their free- 

 dom, and tamely submit to man'.s dicta- 

 tion, cliaii^inj,' even their shape and 

 vital functions at his will. Turn them 

 loose, and after a few hours of clumsy 

 freedom they will come back and be^;^ 

 to be taken under shelter into slavery. 

 Kven man himself loses the savage 

 independence and love of liberty he 

 knew when free as the hills, and at the 

 behest of civilization puts his neck un- 

 der the heel of those who are morally 

 his inferior. Not so the bee. He has 

 never surrendered the freedom that 

 poes with wild things and wild life. 

 Man coaxes and partly directs him, but 

 he is still untamed, and still retains the 

 courage and fearlessness which civili- 

 zation takes from the heart of most 

 animals, including man. L,eft to itself, 

 the swarm of bees will not come beg- 

 ging shelter from man, but gladly and 

 fearlessly Hy olT into the wilderness, 

 to live as it ancestors lived. 



The bee starts with the scope and 

 purpose of its life-work clear. It does 

 not need to go to school. From the 

 first gleam of consciousness the bee 

 knows that it is born to toil, without 

 reward, without hope of posterity. In- 

 stinct, heredity, spirit, call it what you 

 will, drives the bee on to labor without 

 ceasing, without holidays or hours of 

 lazy ease, and for what ? Simply for 

 the future — that dim, mysterious time 

 for which he is ever prompted to pro- 

 vide. I said that the mental side of 

 this question will present itself to any 

 thoughtfu-1 man. Truly, the lesson of 

 the hive goes deep into the human 

 heart and soul. 



THE BEE AS A WORKER. 



As a boy I was brought up on the 

 " busy bee '■ theory. The old man who 

 considered himself responsible for my 

 industrial training gave me to under- 

 stand that the bee is a tireless worker 

 who toils for the love of it and never 

 quits. He wasn't trying to get me in- 

 terested in the study of natural history 

 — he was trying to get me to realize 

 that some one loved to work, and he 

 knew that he didn't. I am sorry to 

 break down this ideal of childhood, for 

 I have searched hard to find something 

 that has no blood of the shirk in its 

 veins. I can't tell my children the old 

 story, for they will soon know that 

 most bees in New Jersey appear to 

 start work at 7:30 to 8 a.m., and knock 

 off at 4 p.m. On wet days they usually 

 quit entirely. This is much like the 

 average hired man, who will take ad- 

 vantage of a light sprinkle to come in 

 and sweep up the barn floor. The bee 

 ■works on Sunday, while the hired man 

 rides his bicycle. When the bee does 

 start he keeps at his work, while the 

 hired man stops to look at the clock. 



When you tear down the childish 

 ideal of the busy bee, and find that it 

 has some of the bad habits of mortals, 

 you do not destroy the whole picture. 

 That would be true with some men ; 

 but with the bee it only brings to view 

 a higher ideal than ever. The bee does 

 a fair day's work, and then goes home 

 and puts in a part of the night. A 

 man. after doing his work in the field, 

 will hardly help his wife wash the 

 dishes after supper, but the bee works 

 like a slave through the darkness at 



the wonderful task of manufacturing 

 honey. The short day of hard and 

 consistent work furnishes enough for 

 the hive-workers. If all men worked 

 as the bee does, with as fair and just a 

 division of labor, what a world we 

 should have. The short, hopeful day's 

 work would be sullicient if the idle and 

 the rich would cease to live on the 

 earnings of the overworked poor. The 

 society in the hive permits but few 

 drones, and kills them off as the winter 

 comes on, while human society in- 

 creases the number. Thus, as we grow 

 older, we find that the bee is not the 

 poor, aimless drudge we thought him, 

 but rather one who lets his wits save 

 his wings. 



THE BEE'S GOOD WORK. 



We can easily forgive the bee his 

 short working days when we consider 

 the good he does. There is no question 

 about the debt fruit-growers owe him. 

 People talk about the wind and other 

 insects in fertilizing our Bowers; but 

 I am confident that any man who will 

 really take the time and pains to inves- 

 tigate for himself will see that the bee 

 is nearly the whole story. I have seen 

 the certain results of his good work in 

 a neighbor's orchard. Those bees 

 " broke the trees " down just as truly 

 as though they had climbed on the 

 trees by the million and pulled at them. 

 The appearance of those trees after a 

 few years of bee-keeping would have 

 convinced any fair-minded man that 

 our little buzzing friends are true part- 

 ners of the fruit-grower. 



It has been said that the bee does 

 not do this work because he wants to. 

 He is pictured as a greedy, selfish fel- 

 low, born into the world with a single 

 idea, who dusts his jacket with pollen, 

 and does his work as dry-nurse simply 

 as an incident. Nature puts the 

 brushes on his legs and stomach, and 

 he cannot help using them. Here, 

 again, he is not unlike men. Most of 

 us fight and slave and toil for our own 

 selfish ends. We try to shake the good 

 intentions out of our jacket, and a 

 large proportion of the good we do in 

 this world is done as a side incident, 

 as we press on to accomplish something 

 for ourselves. To my mind this is 

 only another illustration of the wise 

 and beautiful provision of Nature to 

 lead the bee on from flower to flower 

 with some motive of personal gain, 

 and in this way compel him to do his 

 work for pomology. I would that 

 humans who toil, even past the allotted 

 years of man's life, after wealth and 

 power, might as surely leave behind 

 them perfect fruits for the toil of 

 others. The stout legs of the bee, as 

 he crawls from flower to flower, kick 

 life into the baby fruits. Surely, with 

 this in mind, the pomologist can have 

 nothing to "kick " about. 



But ambition and the gratification 

 of personal desires, lead both bees and 

 men to scatter evil as well as good. All 

 wings, except those of angels, attract, 

 and will carry the germs of evil if they 

 rub against it. It is quite likely that 

 the bees will carry the germs of pear- 

 blight from one tree to another — per- 

 haps in quantities suSicient to spread 

 the disease. Let us admit that ; and 

 yet no pear-grower who knows his 

 business would have the bees stay en- 

 tirely away from his trees. The bee 

 also injures fruit to a certain extent. 

 There may be times when he actually 



leads in this bad work. When hcdocg, 

 he is starved to it. If he were fed at 

 home, as every other farm animal 

 would be at such a time, he would sel- 

 dom do the mischief. In ordinary sea- 

 sons I find little fault with the bee for 

 sucking this cracked and broken fruit. 

 We really ought to thank him this year 

 for delivering us from the temptation 

 to pack these worthless culls in the 

 middle of the barrel. Our bee-keeping 

 friends tell us that there is always some 

 rascal that goes ahead with a punch, 

 and tjreaks the skin before the bee will 

 suck the juice. The yellow-jacket is 

 said to be the culprit, and he is a safe 

 one, for no one cares to argue the point 

 with him. I don't like this hiding be- 

 hind a yellow jacket. It is too much 

 like the way some of these Christian 

 nations have acted in China. Li Hun^ 

 Chang and other yellow jackets before 

 him have robbed the Chinese people 

 for centuries, but that is no excuse for 

 the looting and stealing on the part of 

 the white men. Should not the bee- 

 keeper feed his bees when their natural 

 food is scarce and they really injure 

 fruit? When I forget to feed my dog 

 at home, and he runs to the neighbor's 

 back yard for food which might feed 

 the pig, have I a right to complain if 

 the neighbor lives up to his legal privi- 

 lege? My neighbor ought to remember 

 that it was my dog's bark that tanned 

 the hide of the tramp who frightened 

 his children ; but some neighbors are 

 not built that way. They are like some 

 pomologists who object when the bee 

 tries to take paj' for his services in a 

 few rotten fruit. There are human be- 

 ings who will run out of the best of 

 homes. In fact, the more 3'ou feed them 

 the more they run. Bees are much like 

 humans in many respects. It is quite 

 likely that a systematic method of feed- 

 ing during honey-dearths in summer 

 would eventually pay the bee keeper, 

 just as many diary-men have become 

 convinced against their wills that it 

 pays to feed grain to cows at good 

 pasture. 



THE BEE AS A LAWYER. 



Before the law the bee appears to 

 have clearer rights than any other 

 domestic animal. Recent legal deci- 

 sions have made the bee's position very 

 clear. In one noted case the bees flew 

 into the orchard and unquestionably 

 worked upon or damaged broken fruit. 

 The jury finally decided, and I think 

 justly, that the bees committed no real 

 damage ; yet had a cow or a hog broken 

 into that orchard and eaten that same 

 fruit, the owners would certainly have 

 been liable for damages. 



After reading the literature on the 

 subject with great care, I think I am 

 justified in saying that the bee has 

 fuller and more complete legal protec- 

 tion than any other domestic animal. 

 Why should not this be so, since, even 

 in its wild state, untrained or directed 

 by men, the bee is led by its very in- 

 stinct to labor for the benefit of hu- 

 manity? Certainly, no wild animal 

 works for men as the bee does, and no 

 domestic animal accomplished so much 

 without direct harness or guidance. 



Invoking the law against bees is run- 

 ning up against a hard proposition. 

 Laws have been passed against spray- 

 ing fruit-trees while in bloom. They 

 are intended to give the bee legal pro- 

 tection. These laws have actually led 

 some tough old fellows to spray at just 



