1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



477 



" The honey-bee, through its useful prod- 

 ucts, has been known and cared for by man 

 for centuries. Philosophers have written 

 about it, poets have sung its praises, and 

 naturalists have studied it during past ages, 

 until there is probably no other insect with 

 which man has such an intimate acquaint- 

 ance. " 



In face of this overwhelming interest, the 

 study of the honey-bee, so far as apparatus 

 is concerned, has fared the worst of all at 

 the hands of the scientists or the education- 

 al naturalist. They have sold the master 

 study, and relinquished chief title in it for a 

 bag of gold. In the hands of commercialism 

 bees have fared well. Father Langstroth. 

 lifted out the honey; Bingham and Root 

 smoked out the bee:^; Coggshall and Dixie 

 brushed them off; Porter kept them out of 

 their home; Cowan whirled out the liquid 

 honey, and Danzenbaker and others made it 

 convenient to capture comb and all. Alley 

 caught the queens and drones; Doolittle, 

 Miller, and Boardman said, "Let us feed 

 them when they are weak, so that they can 

 work better for us;" Hershiser and Mason 

 bottled the honey, and Sturwold exhibited it 

 to the public, all saying, in effect, " Bring 

 up your money, and eat." Then they all 

 shouted in chorus, "There's money in it! 

 keep bees, and get rich!" 



One manufacturer tells of "millions and 

 millions of dollars' worth of honey taken 

 from bees annually;" boasts of a plant with 

 a working capital of $300,000, and pictures 

 the honey product in the United States eve- 

 ry year as " making a solid trainload " fifty 

 miles long. Where, all this time, is the ed- 

 ucational naturalist who loves the bee as well 

 as its product? Resting quietly, and per- 

 fectly willing, apparently, to let commer- 

 cialism dominate the entire subject. 



He will spend his money on elaborate 

 bamboo rods, nickel-plated heads of ingen- 

 ious devices, with fine-mesh nets for the 

 flying insects, approved drag-nets, and de- 

 vices for water-insects, elaborate breeding- 

 cages, collecting boxes; plaster of Paris, 

 and glass and other mounts ; costly storing- 

 cases, and other elaborate paraphernalia. 

 He will devise ingenious methods for obser- 

 vation of ants as has Comstock, Fielde, and 

 others. But what will he do for the bee, 

 the charm, the supreme interest of ento- 

 mology? Nothing. No catalogue of ento- 

 mological supplies with which I am familiar, 

 though picturing a great variety of breed- 

 ing-cages for other insects, has one word to 

 say in favor of studying bees, or even a de- 

 vice to show for facilitating the investiga- 

 tion of their habits. That has been left to 

 commercialism, and commercialism cares for 

 nothing but the money end of the arrange- 

 ment. 



In a life devoted more or less to the study 

 of bees as a Nature Study topic of supreme 

 merit, I have more and more felt the need 

 of an educational bee-hive. 



This need has presented itself to me in 

 the twofold relation of workmanship and 

 convenience. To remedy this defect I have 



devoted all my spare time for several 

 months past. Let us examine these needs. 



1. Workmanship.— A. leading book on Na- 

 ture Study in the schoolroom and home, pic- 

 tures a clap-trap drygoods-box affair that 

 would not for a moment be tolerated as an 

 apparatus for the study of physics in any 

 laboratory in the land. Even those who cry 

 the loudest for home-made apparatus in 

 physics would not accept such a crude thing 

 as that. A poor farmhouse would demand 

 better workmanship in a box to put behind 

 the stove for holding firewood— it surely 

 would if the photographic illustration does 

 the subject justice. A prominent magazine 

 devoted to life in the country has two or 

 three times pictured arrangements for hold- 

 ing a single frame of bees in a window. If 

 we are to judge from the illustration it must 

 have been the poorest piece of furniture in 

 the house. The tone of the article and the 

 appearance of the illustration convey the 

 impression that the writer felt a pride in 

 the fact that the whole thing was cheap and 

 home-made. But why cheap and home- 

 made ? Is the subject unworthy our atten- 

 tion? or is it unworthy our best treatment? 



Why does that periodical not publish arti- 

 cles on " How to Make a Dog-kennel out of 

 a Drygoods Box;" " How to Make a Cage 

 for Your Canary out of Old Umbrella Ribs;" 

 " How to Tear up Old Rags into Ribbons 

 for the Neck of your pet Cat"? or— but 

 why argue further ? The articles admit the 

 interest in bees as a home ornament. Then 

 why insult the bees with any thing short of 

 the best ? 



In a leading university and in a prominent 

 museum I have seen a crude "observation 

 hive " visited by greater crowds of people 

 than were the show-cases of specimens, and 

 have heard them excite more exclamations 

 of interest and wonder. Yet the glass in 

 one of the doors cost more than the entire 

 hive; indeed, the hives in both places were 

 such ramshackle affairs that an up-to-date 

 bee-keeper would hardly consider them 

 worth a place in his back-yard apiary. The 

 probabilities are that such an apiarist would 

 chop them up for kindling-wood. Yet why 

 this "economy" of the university or the 

 museum ? Are not live bees of more inter- 

 est than pinned beetles or skeletons of 

 muskrats ? If they are, give them a "case" 

 at least as good. 



2. In utilitij and convenience. —The so-called 

 "observation hive " has consisted of eight 

 or ten frames with glass on both sides, with 

 or without covering doors, exposing usually 

 about two- thirds of one side of the outer- 

 most comb. The real work of the bees 

 is on the inner combs; but, waiving that 

 disadvantage, a hive that exposes to obser- 

 vation from one-twelfth to one-fifteenth of 

 its comb surface (the glasses at the end are 

 useless) is not an observation hive; it is an 

 aggravation hive. 



Another form of so-called "observation 

 hive" has been a simple affair with glass 

 sides for holding one frame of comb tempo- 

 rarily removed from a hive, with the bees 



