566 



June 27, 1907 



pression, and yet the eggs are fertilized." 



Good friend, you must know that there is 

 no real squeezing of the abdomen, either in 

 a worker-cell or a drone-cell. The worL'er- 

 cell is a trifle shallower than the drone-cell. 

 May not that difference in depth cause such a 

 difference in the position of the queen as to 

 produce fertilization in the shallower cells 1 

 And would not fertilization be expected in a 

 still shallower cell? Did you ever know 

 drone-eggs to be laid in drone-cells only ^5- 

 inch deep? I don't think I ever saw such a 

 case; but I may not have observed closely 

 enough. 



American l^ee Journal 



One who has watched the queen at work 

 laying eggs can not fail to have noticed that 

 while the egg is being deposited the abdomen 

 is curved to no small degree, and it is easy to 

 believe that this curving is greater in a worker 

 than in a drone-cell, and still greater in a 

 cell only partially built out. It certainly 

 looks like scoring one for the compression 

 theory. 



t^ ■■ ..'■;*. 



^WfW^^^^ 



O)isceflaneo 

 ITecus - Items 



^w^ 



Claim Bees are a Nuisaucc. — F. U. 



Clum, of Cheviot, N. Y., is one of the many 

 " M. D.'s " thatare interested in bee-keeping. 

 Recently he wrote us as follows: 



Editor Anerican Bee Journal:— I no- 

 tice in the American Bee Journal of May 23d, 

 that a subscriber living in a small town in 

 Wisconsin complains about a troublesome 

 neighbor who claims that honey-bees are a 

 nuisance. The subscriber wants to know 

 '■What to do with such a man?" The great 

 remedy is education. You notice by the en- 

 closed that we also have troublesome neigh- 

 bors in New York State, and my reply to 

 their complaint. After the complainants be- 

 came convinced of the value and the impor- 

 tance of bees, and that they are just as neces- 

 sary to the farmer, the gardener and the fruit- 

 grower as to the bee-keeper himself, the op- 

 position promptly ceased, and the complain- 

 ants felt heartily ashamed of their previous 

 ignorance. If other bee-keepers would pub- 

 lish similar communications in their local 

 newspapers, 1 think it would greatly benefit 

 all parties concerned. F. D. Clum, M. D. 



The newspaper article referred to reads as 

 follows: 



Complaint Against A Bee-Reeper. 



A complaint composed and written by 

 Amasa P. Lasher, and signed by John Petsil, 

 was recently presented to the Germantown 

 health officer, " protesting against the con- 

 tinuance of a colony of bees located on the 

 premises of Dr. F. D. Clum, in Cheviot." 



Why should the gentle Italian bees, which 

 every one knows never sting unless molested, 

 be complained of when the 10 to 20 colonies 

 of the stinging black bees owned for the last 

 20 years by Charles Rockefeller (who is just 

 as near a neighbor to Messrs. Lasher and Pet- 

 sil as is Dr. Clum) have not caused a single 

 complaint in times past? Moreover, there 

 are, all told, about 100 bee keepers in the 

 town of Germantown who own colonies of 

 bees, varying in number from 1 to 135. Why 

 have none of these been complained of? 



Taking these facts into consideration, it 

 looks as if the complaint were iliade for the 

 purpose of making trouble for Dr. Clum, or 

 as a matter of revenge or spite. 



Any fruit-grower who will, year after year, 

 kill and eat robins and other birds in viola- 

 tion of the law because they destroy a few 

 cherries, is probably so ignorant that he does 

 not know or appreciate their value on his 

 fruit-farm as destroyers of various injurious 

 insects and worms. It is not expected that 

 such a person has sufficient intelligence to 

 know the value and necessity of bees on his 

 fruit-farm ; but Amasa P. Lasher has spent 

 the greater part of his life teaching school. 



and for that rfiii-on is supposed to ha\ea 

 least average intelligence. Now can it be 

 possible that he does not know that bees are 

 a necessary insect for the fruit-grower i That 

 as they live over winter, in the early spring 

 they fertilize the fruit-blossoms when there 

 is no other insect to do the work? He, as an 

 instructor of the young, should know that 

 bees are as necessary to plants as plants are 

 to bees. 



In the complaint, composed and written by 

 Amasa P. Lasher against the bees on Dr. 

 Clum's. place, appears the following state- 

 ment: 



" Complainant further alleges and believes 

 that the bees have a destructive power that 

 robs the fruitgrower of the legitimate profits 

 that should accrue from his exhaustive labors 

 by destroying a large percentage of the small 

 fruit." 



The above statement is so directly antago- 

 nistic to the true facts that I would not be- 

 lieve that Amasa P. Lasher had written it 

 until I saw it in his own handwriting. Can 

 it be possible that a man who has taught the 

 Cheviot school the greater part of his lifs 

 does not know better? If he does not, it is 

 my opinion that the school needs a more en- 

 lightened teacher. 



It is like thrashing old straw to state that 

 bees never touch perfectly sound fruit. Their 

 physical make-up renders it impossible for 

 them to do so; but if fruit is crushed or in- 

 j ured and the j uice exudes, the bees gather to 

 collect what could otherwise go to waste. 



Messrs. Lasher and Petsil own vineyards, 

 and for their information I will state that if 

 they care to investigate the matter they will 

 find that the English sparrow is most de- 

 structive of grapes, and in the city of New 

 York have been seen to tear open packages to 

 eat the grapes within. There is also a small, 

 swift-flying, shy bird, called the Cape May 

 warbler, which appears about every vineyard. 

 It comes early in the morning, just at the 

 break of day, and (or that reason is seldom 

 caught in the act. It has a long, sharp, 

 needle-like beak, and after alighting on a 

 bunch of grapes it will puncture grape after 

 grape as fast as one can count. The bee that 

 follows later to collect the sweet juice that 

 exudes and goes to waste gets the blame for 

 puncturing the grape. 



Perhaps it is well to republish the follow- 

 ing extracts from one of my communications 

 to the Register of May 1, as follows: 



Value of Bee8 to Horticulture. 



The fruit-grower, gardener or farmer who 

 does not realize and appreciate the great 

 benefit he derives from honey-bees in the 

 great work of cross-pollination, which is im- 

 peratively necessary to his success, does not 

 fully understand his business. 



Botanists classify plants in their relation to 

 fertilization into two classes, viz.: Those 

 fertilized by the wind and those fertilized by 

 insects. 



In many varieties of plants and trees the 

 stamens that bear the pollen, or male ele- 

 ment, are on one plant or flower, and the 

 pistils that grow the ovules— the female ele- 

 ment—on another. If it were not for the 

 fact that insects— chiefly bees— carried the 

 pollen from one flower to the stigma of an- 

 other, there would be no seeds or fruit grown. 

 The pollen-grains are so constructed as to 

 adhere to the insect that visits them, and 

 then be carried from flower to flower. 



In the large greeu-houses near our large 

 cities where early cucumbers, etc., are grown 

 for the market, it is always necessary to have 

 o le or two colonies of bees inside to fertilize 

 th) blossoms. No bees, no cucumbers, un- 

 less men go around with a brush and dust 

 tne pollen from one flower to another, which 

 is very laborious and expensive work. 



Those who grow flowers doubtless have ob- 

 served that the f uschia and begonia never pro- 

 duce seed in a closed room; yet when set 

 out-of-doors where bees can get at them they 

 seed abundantly. 



All kinds of fruit are greatly benefitted by 

 bees, and a large proportion of our fruit, 

 such as apple, pear, and particularly the 

 plum, would be barren were it not for the 

 honey-bee; therefore, the iotelligent fruit- 

 grower, farmer or gardener, is always glad to 

 have a bee-keeper locate in his immediate 

 vicinity, for he always derives very much 

 more benefit from the bees than the bee- 

 keeper himself. In fact, profits from keep- 

 ing bees are so uncertain that it is very rare 

 indeed that a bee-keeper tries to make a liv- 

 ing from it. 



Lastly, I will inform Messrs. Lasher and 

 Petsil, as well as all others interested, that 

 the National Bee-Keepers' Association will 

 back all of its members. Any number of 

 legal decisions have been handed down to 

 prove that bees are not a nuisance lY >•' : 

 that when they are properly kept, and due 

 precautions used, as on my isolated place, 

 that ihey can not be driven out of the town. 

 There are several precedents from various 

 courts, even from a State Supreme Court, to 

 show that bees have a right to be kept, even 

 within a corporation like any other stock, 

 and any village ordinance not in conformity 

 with these decisions is unconstitutional; and 

 that several ordinances declaring bees to be a 

 nuisance have been repealed. This, probably, 

 is the reason why Amasa P. Lasher could not 

 get the State Board of Health to take action 

 in the matter, and explains why his paper of 

 complaint was returned to the Germantown 

 otHcials; but as the matter is to come up at 

 the next meeting of the Germantown Board 

 of Health, it remains to be seen what they 

 will do. F. D. Clum, M. D. 



The six paragraphs following the heading, 

 "Value of Bees to Horticulture," contain 

 just the kind of information that should be 

 republished far and wide in local newspapers. 

 No doubt almost any of our readers could 

 have his local editor use it if he requested 

 him to do so, and if, at the same time, he 

 were given a copy of it. 



It is just as Dr. Clum says, ignorance is at 

 the bottom— and also at the top— of nearly 

 every complaint against bees. Most people 

 do not know the value of bees to fruit-grow- 

 ing else they surely would not oppose the 

 presence of bees. 



It will take quite a long time to inform all 

 the people who need to be taught concerning 

 bees and their great importance, but bee- 

 keepers should do all in their power to see 

 to it that, so far as possible, apicultural 

 knowledge shall "cover the earth as the 

 waters cover the sea." Let us all do what we 

 can to hasten the coming of the brighter bee- 



