196 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 



lazy, yawning- drone; " but as one of my maligners 

 has likened me to Falstaff, 1 may be allowed to 

 quote, in my own defense, what this great braggart, 

 when accused of cowardice, says of himself to the 

 prince: " Was it for me to kill the heir-apparent? 

 Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules, 

 but beware instinct; the lion will not touch the 

 true prince. Instinct is a great matter; I was a 

 coward on instinct. I shall think the better of my- 

 self and thee during my life. I for a valiant lion, 

 and thou for a true prince." I lie not, like the false 

 knight, when I say that what you call my laziness 

 is a matter of pure instinct. 



With all your boasted reason, j-ou seem to have 

 overlooked the doctrine of conservation of forces. 

 You upbraid me with consuming so much of the 

 precious honey, to the gathering of which I con- 

 tribute nothing! Well ! if I made a single uncalled- 

 for motion, would not that necessitate an extra 

 consumption of food? What better can I do, then, 

 than to keep as quiet as possible? There is nothing 

 either inside or outside of the hive which calls for 

 any other line of [conduct, until the young qeeens 

 are on the wing; and as they do not sally forth 

 until long after noon, why should I go abroad any 

 earlier? ] can assure you, that, if bridal excursions 

 were in order as many hours in the day as the 

 flowers secrete honey, no worker would ever be 

 earlier to rise, or later to go to bed than myself. 



MISREPRESENTED. 



I an idle, lazy, listless lounger, forsooth 1 Does 

 any one wish to witness the most perfect embodi- 

 ment of indefatigable activity? Let him then look 

 at me, when, at the proper time, with an eager, im- 

 petuous rush, and a manly resonant voice, I sally 

 from the hive! See with what amazing speed I 

 urge what our old friend Samuel Wagner called my 

 "ctrcitmuoluti?i£/" flights! For aught you know, I 

 may cover greater distances in describing these 

 vast circles than the busiest worker in the longest 

 summer day. There is great need, then, that I 

 should be abundantly provisioned for such ex- 

 hausting excursions; and it is only a law of nature 

 that, on my return from them, all that I carried out 

 with me should be found to have been used up. If 

 you taunt me either for the full or the empty 

 stomach, I merely ask you if you have never heard 

 of honey-moon trips among your own people, which 

 began with extra-full purses, to end only with un- 

 comfortably light ones. 



SAVAGE DELIGHT OVER MY DEATH. 



To cap the climax of your abuse, what savag-e de- 

 light you take in seeing the worker drive me from 

 my pleasant home! and how glibly you can moral- 

 ize over what you call a righteous judgment upon 

 a life spent in gluttony and inglorious ease! Just 

 as if you did not know that the whole economy of 

 the bee-hive is founded on the strictest principles 

 of utilitarianism! Is not a worker-bee, when disa- 

 bled by any accident, remorselessly dragged out to 

 die, because it can no longer contribute to the gen- 

 eral good? Even so exalted a personage as the 

 queen-mother herself, as soon as it is plain that her 

 fertility is too much impaired, has a writ of superse- 

 deas served upon her, In favor of one of her own 

 daughters. 



Knowing well the law under which 1 was born, I 

 urge nothing against being put to death when 

 Shakespeare's " pale executioners " deem the day 

 of my prospective usefulness to be over. Truly, the 

 sword of Damocles is suspended over my head; and 



from the hour of my birth till that of my death it 

 may fall at any moment. Many bitters are thus 

 mingled with my sweets. 



I have time to mention only one more. While 1 

 know that most of the young queens come safely 

 back from their wedding-excursions, I can not help 

 sometimes foreboding the worst, when I see that no 

 drone ever returns to tell us of his experience. 



APPRECIATED BY BONNER. 



I will close my defense, by reminding you how 

 the good father of the great Scotch bee-keeper, 

 Bonner, showed his appreciation of our persecuted 



t race. It was his custom to watch every year for 

 the first flying drone. Its cheerful hum so filled 

 him with delight, as the happy harbinger of ap- 

 proaching swarms, with their generous harvests of 



j luscious sweets, that he called an instant halt on 

 the work of his busy household, and devoted the 

 rest of the day to holiday feasting. The patron of 

 the drones ought for ever to bear the honored 



I name of " Saint Bonner." 



i THE DECISION OF THE COURT. 



I This court having heard the defense of Sir Drone, 



pronounces him to be innocent of each and every 



I one of the misdeeds alleged against him. It only 



! regrets that it can not inflict adequate punishment 



[ upon his slanderers. Alas, my poor fellow! the lies 



, against which you protest have had so many cen- 



! turies the start of your true story that you may 



well despair of ever overtaking them in your short 



lifetime. 



MORALS FROM THE DRONES PLEA. 



From the plea of the drone, many good morals 

 might easily be drawn; such as, " Do not give even 

 a dog a bad name, unless you are sure be deserves 

 it." The moral which I think will be most interest- 

 ing to bee-keepers is this: " Beware of publishing' 

 false statements to the injury of any one's business, 

 and then try to laugh them of as harmless ' scientif- 

 ic pleasantries.' " 



THE DRONE'S PLEA AND THE WIT.EY LIE. 



This plea of the drone might suggest more than 

 one good moral; but I will confine myself to what 

 I will call the " Professor Wiley Moral." 



It is only too well known to most of our large 

 honey-producers, that, some years ago. Prof. H. W. 

 Wiley, an entomologist at present in the service of 

 the Government at Washington, published sub- 

 stantially this statement; namely, that honey- 

 combs are manufactured by human skill, and, after 

 being filled with glucose, and neatly sealed over, 

 are sold as genuine bees' honey, when the bees 

 have had nothing whatever to do with a single step 

 in the whole process. This absolute misstatement 

 having got a good start, has widely, at home and 

 abroad, prejudiced the public against the purest 

 honey, even when offered for sale in the most 

 beautiful combs. Although refuted again and 

 again, it is constantly reappearing in print, and 

 seems to have a vitality almost as great as when it 

 first started out on its hurtful career. Prof. Wilej', 

 when called to account for fabricating such a story, 

 excused himself by sa> ing. that he meant it only as 

 a. " scientific pleasantly !" His worst enemies could 

 wish him no harder task than, over his own signa- 

 ture, to try to stop the pestiferous march of (to call 

 it by no harsher name) his incautious utterance. 



Ab he is guilty, that shooteth arrows and lances 

 unto death, so is the man that hateth his friend de- 

 ceitfully, and. when he is taken, saitb, 1 did it in 

 jest.-PKOV. 36; 18, 19. 



