1921 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



55 



Should Beekeepers Study 

 Entomology? 



The above questioii s asked by a 

 practical honey producer of Tennes- 

 see, who has had but a common 

 school education. 



I am perhaps hardly fit to answer 

 this question in a positive way, be- 

 cause my own knowledge of entomol- 

 ogy, as a science, is very limited. 

 Were it not for the entomologists 

 who have preceded us, what would 

 we know today about bees? We 

 would still be groping concerning 

 the mysteries of the beehive, won- 

 dering, perhaps, as our ancestors 

 did, whether the king was really one 

 and whether the setters (drones) did 

 the hatching of the eggs. 



Years ago, when I was a young 

 man, I made some collections of in- 

 sects. Then I read Packard's "Guide 

 to the Study of Insects," or rather I 

 read "at it." Later I procured Com- 

 stock's up-to-date work and scanned 

 it, more as a reference work than as 

 a textbook. The study of insects is 

 immense, intricate, not only because 

 of the millions of diflf rent insects, 

 but also because of their various 

 forms and their wondrous habits. 

 Grown-up farmers, who are honey 

 producers and did not get a college 

 education, would waste their time 

 trying to master the details of ento- 

 mology. But they should learn to 

 distinguish a hymenopter like the 

 bee, the wasp, the hornet, from a 

 coleopter, like the potato beetle, the 

 lady bug, the June bug. or from a le- 

 pidopter, like our beemoth. or the 

 little codling moth. 



Of course, we need to read the 

 writers on bees, most of whom give 

 the entomological side, or natural 

 history of the bee, in their works. 

 Without some of these, we cannot 

 call ourselves fully informed bee- 

 keepers. I read and re-read Reau- 

 mur, Schirach, Huber, Dzierzon, 

 Langstroth, Barbo, Cheshire, Cowan. 

 Phillips, Snodgrass. No one who 

 reads these, or part < f them, care- 

 fully, will fail to get a fairly inti- 

 mate view of the bee's natural his- 

 tory. 



When it comes to the general fea- 

 tures of entomology, if we wish a 

 study divested of almost all scien- 

 tific terms and having to do mainly 

 with observations upon the curious 

 habits of insects, nothing equals 

 Fabre's immortal descriptions, which 

 have been translated and are sold in 

 this country. Whether you read of 

 the "praying mantis" that makes a 

 meal of her husband during the 

 honeymoon, or of the dung-beetle 

 which lays its eggs in 'aalls of dung 

 and buries them deep in the ground, 

 each description is as interesting as 

 a novel and often much more won- 

 derful. 



I bought Fabre's "Souvenirs Ento- 

 mologiques," 10 volumes, in his own 

 language, and found them delightful 

 reading. Perhaps more than any- 

 thing else did I enjoy the narration 

 which he made of "My school." in a 

 backward village of southern France, 

 in the first half of the 19th Century. 



The school-room was at the same 

 time kitchen, dining-room, bedroom, 

 chicken-coop and pig-pen, for the 

 pigs trotted around the scholars at 

 the lunch hour, to gather the crumbs. 



If it was possible for a man of tal- 

 ent to overcome such a handicap of 

 his young days and become one of 

 the greatest entomologists, why can- 

 not anyone of our farmer beekeep- 

 ers, with a common school education, 

 acquire a smattering of this science, 

 enough at least to give him a glimpse 

 of the immense variety in the world 

 of insects? Each of Fabre's works 

 is worth reading. 



We have, in this country also, some 

 interesting writers on insects. Mr. 

 Floyd Bralliar, of Madison, Tennes- 

 see, wrote a very charming, I might 

 say fascinating, little work, "Know- 

 ing Insects Through Stories," in- 

 tended for children, but very pleasing 

 to the grown-ups. 



Though the bee is one of the rare 

 insects directly beneficial to man, 

 many other insects are also beneficial 

 to him in an indirect way, such as are 

 predaceous and live upon injurious in- 

 sects which would become a scourge 

 without their beneficial interference. 



Yes, study entomology, you will 

 not regret it. 



But why answer this question in 

 the editorial columns? Would it 

 not find its place better in the 

 "Answer" department? No, because 

 the question and answer department 

 has only to do with the technical part 

 of practical beekeeping, the bread- 

 and-butter side of it. This has to do 

 with the science of the business and 

 deserves a more aristocratic place. 

 Without the science of beekeeping, 

 the practice would be poor. 



Iowa Short Course 



Dr. E. D. Ball, Assistant Secretary 

 of Agriculture at Washington, D. C, 

 spoke at the Short Course at Ames. 

 He is authority for the statement 

 that wherever empty hives that had 

 once contained foulbrood were sold, 

 there foulbrood developed. He gave 

 names and dates. If such is the case, 

 we should carefully singe our empty 

 hives when we transfer a foulbroody 

 colony out of them. It does not cost 

 much. If there is a doubt, better be 

 on the side of safety. 



Dr. Wallace Park, of Ames, gave a 

 very interesting address on swarm- 

 ing. He quoted an old writer who 

 stated that the beating of tin pans, to 

 prevent the bei.s from flying away in 

 swarming, was useful in keeping the 

 bees from hearing the queen give 

 her orders for departure. Others 

 say that the beating of tin pans is to 

 imitate the peals of thunder and 

 make the bees think a storm is immi- 

 nent. 



Dr. Park states that there are scent 

 glands at the extremity of the abdo- 

 men, which give oflf a strong odor and 

 attract other bees of the same hive, 

 when they are fanning their wings at 

 the entrance of the hive. This, I be- 

 lieve, is after Sladen. who believes 

 that it is not at all the "hum," but 

 the scent of these glands that at- 



tracts the other bees, when the 

 swarm is hived. These glands are 

 called "glands of Nassanoflf," after 

 the man who originally discovered 

 them. Snodgrass mentions them on 

 page 85 of his "Anatomy of the 

 Honey Bee." 



Dr. Wallace Park is making careful 

 and thorough experiments upon the 

 flight of the bees, the amount of 

 honey which they may or may not 

 carry, the number of flights of 

 worker-bees per day, and similar sub- 

 jects. From the data gathered, it 

 w*ould appear to us that bees are as 

 varied as human beings in their apti- 

 tude and willingness to work, their 

 activity, their speed and the amount 

 of honey with which they are willing 

 to load themselves. It wiould seem 

 that there are th'ose among them 

 who prefer to play a good part of 

 the time. Dr. Park is to continue his 

 experiments, but he has promised to 

 give us some facts, when the time 

 comes. 



For the first time, I heard at Ames 

 that Adam Grimm, of Wisconsin, 

 who has been dead many years, was 

 the man who introduced foulbrood 

 in the United States, by bringing 

 colonies of bees from Europe. Was 

 there no foulbrood in the United 

 States? His importations were in 

 1867. 



Influence of Male and of 

 Female on Offspring 



Which has the most influence upon 

 the offspring, the queen or the drone? 

 I would like to see this answered by 

 those who have cause to know. I am 

 told by Mr. , of Ventura, Califor- 

 nia, to get queens of Dadant, because 

 they use large hives, large brood- 

 chambers. This matter ought to be 

 discussed, early, before May if possi- 

 ble. N. Y. 



Answer : We do not rear queens 

 for sale, as it pays better to produce 

 honey. Besides, our large hives do 

 not make the queens prolific, but 

 just give to the prolific queens a 

 chance to display what they can do. 

 The question of the influence of 

 either sex was discussed at the In- 

 ternational meeting of Paris, in 1900. 

 I was present. The consensus of 

 opinion was that the drones give the 

 moral qualities, temper, activity, etc., 

 while the queens furnish the phys- 

 ical qualities, endurance, prolificness, 

 acuity of senses. 



Can ouF readers enlighten us? Here 

 is a good occasion to use Dr. Miller's 

 bvword : I don't know. 



Good Samaritan Fund 



Funds are still coming for the vic- 

 tims of the war in France and Bel- 

 gium. They are needed, and we 

 should not forget the suiTerers. We 

 list: 



Acknowledged in November — $ 6.00 

 Miss Annette Ozanneau, Keo- 

 kuk - 1.00 



Fresno Co. Beekeepers, Cali- 

 fornia S.OO 



Total of new list - — $12.00 



