THE AMERICA-N BEE JOURNAL. 



567 



spring was the best time, if the bees 

 were to be moved a short distance, 

 but for a long distance summer was 

 the best time. 



Mr. Jones asked which was the best 

 time to put the bees into winter quar- 

 ters V The President and Mr. Arm- 

 strong said it depended upon the sea- 

 son, but they should be put away 

 before settled cold weather. 



The next meeting will be held in 

 the Town Hall at Cayuga, on the 

 third Tuesday of January, 1887, at 

 10 a.m. E. C. Campbell, Sec. 



B*or tlie American Bee JoumaL 



Sugar Stores for Bees in Winter, 



4— GEO. F. ROBBINS, (57—92). 



I have been an on-looker during 

 the progress of the controversy about 

 the matters of sugar stores and pollen 

 in their relation to the bee-wintering 

 problem. It seeems to me that some 

 points have been overlooked by most 

 parties in the discussion. One of 

 these points is the relative value of 

 certain kinds of evidence. At least 

 one of the disputants — Mr. Pond — is 

 a lawyer. I think that I know at 

 least one valuable law in the science 

 of equity. It is this : That the testi- 

 mony of an eye-witness over-weighs 

 all other kinds of evidence. 



Theories of the most plausible and 

 convincing kind are seldom, perhaps 

 never, wanted in any court of trial. 

 Courts and juries want to know what 

 the witness has seen and heard — the 

 testimony of experience, in fact. Two 

 men might theorize in the most logi- 

 cal style by the hour ; while other 

 men, in whose intelligence and in- 

 tegrity judge and jury have confi- 

 dence, might simply tell what they 

 have seen and heard ; and though 

 what they have witnessed may be 

 contrary to reasonable theory and 

 general belief, such a court will take 

 the testimony of the latter rather than 

 the former. 



Now the questions, " Does pollen 

 cause bee-diarrhea and death '?" and 

 " Is sugar better than honey as winter 

 food for bees V" are on the docket. 

 The testimony of theory is this : 

 " The Creator made the bees for 

 honey, and honey for the bees, and 

 He meant both honey and pollen for 

 the bees to eat, and it follows that 

 honey and pollen cannot be injurious 

 to the bees." The argument appears 

 reasonable and conclusive. But 

 now comes Messrs. Heddon and 

 Hutchinson on the stand, and the 

 latter deposes that he put some bees 

 into a cellar, others he buried, and 

 still others he packed in chaff on the 

 summer stands. Some he wintered 

 on natural stores, some on all sugar 

 stores, and a few on a mixture, or 

 rather partly of each. At least three 

 winters in succession he did this with 

 virtually the same result, viz : Those 

 on natural stores were badly affected 

 with the diarrhea; those on part 

 honey and part sugar stores were 

 slightly affected, and became so when 

 they reached the natural food ; while 

 those on wholly sugar stores had not 



a trace of diarrhea. Kead his reports 

 in various bee-papers, and see how 

 nearly identical the results were. In 

 the last one especially he says : " One 

 tact stands out beautifully in bold 

 relief— not one colony with notliing 

 but pure sugar stores has perished 

 from or showed a symptom of diar- 

 rhea." 



Now turn to page 342, where Mr. 

 Heddon gives a chapter in his experi- 

 ence with the two kinds of food, 

 wherein he shows that he was con- 

 vinced by experience— by costly ex- 

 perience—against his hope and wish, 

 that his only safety is in sugar stores. 

 He, too, has made repeated experi- 

 ments with the two foods in connec- 

 tion with his tests of pollen and no 

 pollen, the results of which all tend 

 toward the same end. Here are two 

 intelligent and honest witnesses testi- 

 fying to facts as sure and undoubted 

 as consciousness can make them. If 

 such evidence is not proof, then 

 I do not know what evidence is. 

 The only way to meet those argu- 

 ments is to prove the utter fallacy of 

 the facts, or oppose them with like 

 facts— experiments under like condi- 

 tions of the same kind, with opposite 

 results. 



Kead then what Mr. Heddon and 

 Prof. Cook say on the pollen theory 

 and cognate points. It would be too 

 tiresome to sum up the evidence there 

 given — facts in experience and scien- 

 tiflc investigation, showing that pol- 

 len, when consumed, is the most 

 fruitful cause of diarrhea. First : 

 Colonies wintered on sugar syrup 

 without any nitrogenous food have 

 not a trace of diarrhea. That is their 

 uniform experience. 



Second: Colonies with honey and 

 considerable pollen die with diarrhea, 

 or at least have the disease badly. 

 That is uniformly the case, or almost 

 so. 



Third : This diarrhea is due to the 

 accumulation of fecal matter. Those 

 having and consuming pollen accumu- 

 late such matter ; those with no pol- 

 len or nitrogenous food do not. The 

 testimony on this point is pointed and 

 unvarying. 



Fourth : The excreta of the dis- 

 eased bees is composed of the same 

 nitrogenous elements, and the same 

 kind of pollen grains as the food con- 

 sumed by the bees. Such is the testi- 

 mony of tiie witnesses cited. If the 

 evidence they adduce does not prove 

 the point claimed, I repeat that I do 

 not know what evidence is worth. 



I have been a reader of a prominent 

 bee-paper nearly ever since the pollen 

 theory was broached at all, and I feel 

 certain that I have seen no opposing 

 testimony to meet the evidence given, 

 squarely and on the same ground. If 

 I have i have forgotten it, and will 

 " own up " if shown such testimony. 



Mr. Pond seemed to think that he 

 had given some on page 191 of Olean- 

 ings for 1884. His bees wintered well 

 on the summer stands and natural 

 stores, with considerable pollen. But 

 his winter was not so long nor so 

 severe as Michigan winters, and he 

 does not show that the bees consumed 

 any pollen. He does say that they 



did not consume much food at all. 

 Besides, his testimony is only nega- 

 tive, while that I have briefly referred ■ 

 to is positive. I have seen much 

 other material of the same kind. 



The most forcible contribution of 

 the opposition that I have seen is 

 that given by Mr. Doolittle in Glean- 

 ings, pages 231 and 344, 1885. He gave 

 a colony, the autumn before, live 

 combs clear of pollen, as he thought, 

 and ted them about 2-5 pounds of 

 granulated sugar syrup. They took 

 the diarrhea and died. He sent a 

 part of one comb from which the bees 

 had not taken the food, to Prof. Cook, 

 who found on examination pollen- 

 grains at the bottom of the cells. Mr. 

 Doolittle himself says (page 343) : 

 " Hence it will be seen that these 

 particles of pollen were scattered 

 about the bottom of all these cells 

 when the combs were given to the 

 bees." 



Those bees consumed nearly all 

 their stores by the last of February. 

 Some of the bees had previously l)een 

 sent to Prof. Cook, who, although he 

 found no pollen-grains, did find 

 evidences of nitrogen in their intes- 

 tines. Now, mark the facts : Nitro- 

 gen in the bees, and pollen in the 

 combs. It is at least a reasonable 

 probability, since they ate nearly all , 

 their food, and reared a little brood, 

 as he says, that they consumed that 

 pollen which gave them the diarrhea. 

 Certainly they obtained nitrogen some 

 way, and in the light of these things, 

 Mr. Doolittle's experiment does not 

 even prove a negative. Mr. Doolittle 

 is not very explicit as to degrees of 

 cold and dampness. I could adduce a 

 great deal more of this sort if 1 had 

 time, and the readers' patience. The 

 statement of this point is very in- 

 complete. 



Authorities all agree that the 

 causes of bee-diarrhea are dampness, 

 long confinement and improper food. 

 One, more or all of these ingredients 

 must be present. Now I have gen- 

 erally wintered my bees on the sum- 

 mer stands, and stores of honey and 

 pollen. I have never lost more than 3 

 colonies in one winter, although a 

 few always merely come out. I have 

 never liad a bad case of diarrhea 

 where the hive kept everything dry. 

 Now why is my experience so differ- 

 ent from Mr. Heddon's and others ? 

 Why, there have never been forty 

 days in succession on which my bees 

 could not take a flight. Those of Mr. 

 Hutchinson, for instance, have been 

 confined of necessity for 150 days. 

 My bees will come out after a month's 

 confinement, and often spot the snow 

 and hives considerably. That flight 

 relieves and saves them. Mr. H's 

 bees do not get that relief. Do you 

 not see the difference? Not all our 

 country has the long, cold winters of 

 Michigan. Mr. Heddon himself in- 

 timates that his treatment is neces- 

 sary only in such extreme latitudes. 

 They comprise comparatively a small 

 portion of the country. Hence the 

 fact that apiarists throughout the rest 

 of the country may winter their bees 

 successfully on natural stores, does 

 not make the teachings of these three 



