152 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



there lire no indications that there 

 will be anytliiiit; done to help the 

 ■queen-dealer. 



When the word •' purity " is left 

 out, or when purity is made secondary 

 matter in ordering queens, then, and 

 not till then, will the "coming bee" be 

 found. I will not say that pure bees 

 of any race are not as goodas hybrids, 

 but purity should not be sought for at 

 the expense of all other qualities. If 

 bee-keepers will be satisfied with 

 queens a.si>ure, and no more so, than 

 those sent us from across the water, I 

 think they will be better satisfied that 

 purity (strictly i)ure and handsome 

 bees) is of no account whatever. Of 

 course, we all like the beautiful 

 orange color of the Italians, but are 

 those beautiful bees any purer than 

 those not quite as liandsonie V 



Queens should be reared and tested 

 for business, and not for purity. In 

 ordering queens the purchaser should 

 say, "please send me a queen that 

 you know to be veiy prolitic, active, 

 and vigorous ; letlier be a pure Italian 

 if possible, but send me a good one 

 or none, as I want to obtain honey," 

 etc. 



Who will deny tha1»a good liome- 

 bred queen is not worth $2.00 V One 

 good queen is worth more than all 

 the poor ones ever reared. My opin- 

 ion is, that not one queen out of 10 

 sent out, is worth one cent. My advice 

 to purchaser.s is to purchase good 

 queens and pay a fair price for them, 

 and not only have purity, but longev- 

 ity and prolilicness guaranteed. 



I will make a suggestion : Let all 

 the leading (lueen-breeders combine, 

 and resolve not to sell queens less 

 than $2.00 each, and not sell any that 

 are not thonuighly tested; then, if 

 bee-keepers want a cheap article, let 

 them purchase of those who have not 

 had much experience at the business. 



Wenham, Mass. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Tilings I Do, and Do Not Believe. 



E. B. SOUTHWICK, SI. D. 



There are some things that I be- 

 lieve, and some things I do not be- 

 lieve. I will give some of them, and 

 my reasons for the same, and I wish 

 the reasons considered and nothing 

 more, for a belief or an opinion with- 

 out a reason is of no use whatever: 



1. I do not believe that the queen 

 always lays her eggs wliere they re- 

 main until they hatch. 



2. I do not believe the bees feed 

 pollen to the larv.T? in the cells. 



3. I do not believe that in cold 

 weather bees that are in the outside 

 of the cluster work their way into the 

 center and get to the honey ; but I be- 

 lieve tlie bees from the inside of the 

 cluster come out on to the outside, 

 and by so doing crowd those on the 

 outside in, so they can get to their 

 food. 



4. I believe that starvation is the 

 direct cause of dysentery in bees. 



These 4 are enough for one article. 

 My reason for the first is, that I have 

 seen oil combs where the queen had 

 lately commenced laying, eggs scat- 



tered promiscuously through the 

 combs; I have traced rows of them 

 from one end of the comb to the other, 

 and criss-cross in every direction, as 

 irregular as rabbits' tracks on the 

 snow. I have also seen 2 or 3 eggs in 

 1 cell, and cells by the side of these 

 without any. But when they were 

 hatched, I have always found them in 

 regular circular form, no cell missed, 

 and no cell with more than 1 larva? in 

 it. From this I conclude that the 

 queen lays her eggs, and the workers 

 place them where they ought to be. 



My reason for the second is, on ex- 

 amining the cells after tlie bees have 

 put in the feed for the larvae, we find 

 it consists of a milky substance not 

 like pollen or honey, or a mixture of 

 the two. I, therefore, conclude that 

 the bees eat the pollen, which excites 

 some gland to secrete this feed for the 

 larvie, the same as some medicine will 

 produce an action on some gland in 

 the human system. The bees may 

 have some way of bringing this gland 

 into action without pollen; if so, that 

 would account forthe rearingof brood 

 without pollen, as we sometimes hear 

 of their doing. 



For the third, on opening a hive in 

 cold weather we find the bees on top 

 and outside of the cluster so stupid 

 they can hardly crawl. I think it 

 would be impossible for those bees to 

 work their way down to the honey. 

 The business bee that comes out to 

 inquire into the cause of the intrusion, 

 comes from the center of the cluster; 

 from this I conclude that the bees in 

 tlie middle, when they get tlieir till of 

 honey come to the outside, and take a 

 position over the stupid bees. A con- 

 tinuation of this brings the stupid 

 bees in on to the honey, and when 

 they have filled themselves they be- 

 come lively and take their place on 

 the outside again. 



"Fourthly," as the minister says, 

 the cause of dysentery is a subject 

 that bee-keepers differ very much 

 about, and certainly I do not wish to 

 be deceived about it. Since I stated 

 last spring in the Bee Journal that 

 I thought the cause was starvation, I 

 have studied considerable to ascertain, 

 if possible, the real cause. I have 

 treated many cases of dysentery 

 among human beings caused by bad 

 air, bad food, or any other poisonous 

 substance taken into the system, and 

 have found that perfect quiet, proper 

 medicine, and little or no food, was 

 the most sure way of curing tlie dis- 

 ease. But that is not the case with 

 bee-dysentery— it is right the opposite, 

 a general stirring up, when they can 

 tly without chilling, and plenty of 

 good, rich food, is the remedy, and it 

 seldom fails. 



The question comes up, is it the 

 same disease produced by the same 

 causes, and cured by so opposite a 

 treatment y The conclusion is inevi- 

 table that it is not, and that it is not 

 caused by poisons taken into the sys- 

 tem. After I came to this conclusion, 

 I commenced to searcti for dysentery 

 from some other cause. On reading 

 Mr. Chossat's (of Paris) experimental 

 investigation on the effects of starva- 

 tion on the lower animals, there I 

 found two effects that I think will 



touch on our case. The one was that 

 the muscular force lost only 42 per 

 cent., and the nervous not quite 2 per 

 cent. The other was "at first a scanty 

 excretion of dry, bilious giass-green 

 feces, and afterward diarrhea of liquid 

 saline matter. Do not these effects 

 show our case exactly V They have 

 lost very little of their nervous power, 

 and have six-tenths of their muscular 

 strength. Our bees that have the 

 dysentery when they fly out, show 

 much nerve and strength, even if they 

 are so far gone that they cannot get 

 back to the hive ; but if they get back 

 and get their till of honey, they are 

 soon all right (notice how quick 

 Tanner regained his strength after 

 his 40 days' starving). The diarrhea 

 needs very little comment ; it is our 

 bee-dysentery exactly. But, it vi'ill be 

 asked, if starvation produces dysen- 

 tery what produces starvation when 

 there is plenty of honey in the hive? 

 I answer, anything that will stop the 

 evolution or the regular action of the 

 bees, as mentioned in No. 3. In case 

 of long confinement, the bees become 

 less active the longer they remain in 

 the hive, if nothing disturbs them, 

 and they may get so the inside bees 

 fail to come out and take the place of 

 those on the outside, until they so far 

 starve as to show the symptoms of 

 starvation, and unless there is a 

 change death will be the consequence. 



Again, incase of dampness in the 

 hive, the bees will get stupid much 

 quicker in a damp atmosphere than 

 in a dry one, and the bees that come 

 out fpom the center, if they find the 

 bees and comb wet outside, will crawl 

 back again rather than crawl over 

 their wet companions, and the out- 

 side ones are abandoned to their fate ; 

 but if the weather soon becomes 

 warm, the bees by their activity will 

 get up heat, and by using thein- wings 

 will get up a breeze and dry off the 

 combs, and all is right again. 



Also the bees may have commenced 

 rearing brood, and those inside bees 

 may be employed eating pollen, secret- 

 ing food, and caring for the young, 

 and the outside ones entirely neg- 

 lected, and if the cold continues long, 

 starvation and dysentery will be the 

 result with those outside, and spring 

 dwindling of those inside. It may be 

 asked by some one why one colony 

 may have the dysentery and another, 

 under the same circumstances, not 

 have it ? 



I will answer that by asking an- 

 other, why will one colony under the 

 same circumstances gather more 

 honey than another V My answer to 

 both is, I do not know. 



Mendon,Mich. 



For tbe American Bee Journal. 



The Pollen Theory— One Experiment. 



JASIES HEDDON. 



Last Thanksgiving day we put 40 

 colonies into an out-door cellar ; 4 of 

 them were occupying our nucleus- 

 sized frames, and were nearly all out 

 of honey. I wished to save them to 

 aid me in early queen rearing. About 

 one year ago now I caught the sugar- 



