1905- 



THE AMERICAN BEfi-KEEPER. 



215 



THE "FOOLISH VIRGINS." 

 In a foot note to a letter in Glean- 

 ings for August 15th, Editor Root 

 says: "The young bees hatching from 

 the brood in the old hive were prob- 

 ably attracted to the new hive former- 

 ly occupied by their older sisters by 

 the colony odor. But it seems a lit- 

 tle strange that they should desert 

 a hive that must have had some brood 

 left, and having the same colony odor, 

 for one having no brood. Perhaps 

 the new hive had a fresher odor." 

 Perhaps also, Brother Root, it is just 

 a little bit, just a tiny bit difficult to 

 reconcile the myriad exceptions to the 

 odor theory. The bees so unfeeling- 

 ly smash this beloved theory at such 

 inopportune times that one is led to 

 believe that they do not appreciate 

 the difficulty you have in defending 

 their senses. For example, in answer- 

 ing a letter containing the query, "Do 

 virgins go into the wrong hive by mis- 

 take?" you say: "The instance cited 

 does not really prove anything either 

 way. Our large experience rearing 

 thousands of queens shows that vir- 

 gins do get confused just as do young 

 bees, and go into the wrong entrance 

 sometimes. That a queen may pur- 

 posely go into another entrance, is 

 not denied. When a laying queen has 

 filled all the available cells in a baby 

 nucleus full of eggs, she is quite lia- 

 ble to leave for larger quarters, and 

 the bees may or may not go with her." 

 And yet these poor confused virgins 

 (perhaps "some were wise and some 

 were foolish") are welcomed in their 

 new quarters. Then too, you know, 

 Mr. Alley takes all his virgin queens 

 from the center of the brood nest of 

 one colony and distributes them to 

 different nuclei, turning loose among 

 strangers each poor defenceless little 

 virgin. Strange to say these wander- 

 ers from home are given a gentle wel- 

 come; in fact, so rarely is one lost that 

 it is correct to define the practice as 

 unfailing. It is not real kind of Mr. 

 Alley to kno>.k such a big hole in the 

 "odor theory." and perhai.s we should 

 censure him for doing such "stunts" 

 with his thousands of queens, but then 

 you see he began it so many years 

 before the odor theorv was born that 

 really he should be forgiven. It may 

 be barely possible that Mr. Alley's 

 bees are unable to smell, don't you 

 know, for the seacoast air is peculiar. 



AN APOLOGY. 



In The Bee-Keeper for September, 

 page 189, appeared a criticism on an 

 article in the same issue, by Mr. J. E. 

 Johnson. 



A recent letter from Mr. Johnson 

 leads The Bee-Keeper to suspect that 

 it may have gone a little too far in 

 surmising that he so readily absorbs 

 "professional" statements. In fact, it 

 appears, that some of these professors 

 constitute an important part of the 

 opoosition which Mr. Johnson meets 

 in his scientific researches and experi- 

 ments. 



Mr. Johnson also avers that he had 

 no intention of accusing the manufac- 

 turers of adulteration; but, in view of 

 Prof. Wiley's accusations, sought to 

 incite an investigation in the interests 

 of truth and justice. 



The editorial comment was the re- 

 sult of a misconstruction upon the pur- 

 port of Mr. Johnson's article, and we 

 are glad to be corrected and to tender 

 our apology for having misunderstood 

 the implication and the consequent er- 

 roneous comment. 



NATURAL LAW. 



Extract from an Article by General 

 D. L. Adair. 



"Some of our earlier authors in their 

 inability to account for every motion 

 of the bees as the result of instinct, 

 in their enthusiastic admiration have 

 tried hard to prove them endowed 

 with reason. It seems to me that no 

 one who has experience enough to see 

 that under the same circumstances 

 their actions are always the same, can 

 long indulge in such a fiction. To at- 

 tribute to them passions and emotions 

 like ours is simply absurd. 



"In all that bees do they are guided 

 alone by the immutable laws of nature 

 that thev have no power of resisting 

 and for that reason all they do is 

 perfect. Under the same conditions 

 the same impulse is always excited. 

 Not so with reasonable beings. No 

 two communities have the same hab- 

 its; no two governments the same 

 laws; no two mechanics work alike, 

 except as they learn from each other. 

 However much such authors may have 

 done for the advancement of apicul- 

 ture, their teachings in this respect are 

 almost as great a clog to it as are the 

 old superstitions of those who leave 

 it all to luck." 



