THE AiMElUCA.\ DEE JOURNAL. 



453 



For tbe American Bee Journal. 



" What do we Know." 



Q. M. DOOLITTLE. 



On page 411, under the above cap- 

 tion. Mr. S. R. Mason says : " All tlie 

 correspondents of the bee-papers are 

 as opposite in their opinions and prac- 

 tices as it is possible to be. I have 

 looked in vain for some one person 

 whom 1 could follow with a certainty 

 of success, and as freely as I would a 

 teacher of any of "the common 

 Viranches of human knowledge * * 

 Stop quarreling, write sense, and the 

 common sort at that." 



As there seems to be an opinion 

 similar to the above prevailing with 

 most of the beginners in bee-keeping, 

 and also with many who have kept 

 bees as long or longer than Mr. 

 Mason, perhaps a little explanation of 

 the matter may help us, as readers of 

 the American Bee Journal, to un- 

 derstand each other better, or at 

 least help us to understand why noth- 

 ing pertaining to bee-lore can be fol- 

 lowed like a rule in arithmetic. Twice 

 2 makes 4 every time, because it can- 

 not be otherwise, no matter by whom 

 it is multiplied, nor at what season of 

 the year the computation is made, or 

 in what locality ; hence we have the 

 rule of multiplication as being always 

 the same. The same of addition, 

 subtraction, etc., but if we come to 

 apply any rule similar to the above, 

 to the bees, we tind it wont work, for 

 the reason that every season brings 

 its changes. For instance, last sea- 

 son, in our basswood honey-harvest, I 

 found I could introduce a queen by 

 letting her run in at the entrance, and 

 smoking the bees 2 or 3 minutes after 

 I had let her run in ; and as I did not 

 lose a single queen out of 30, 1 set it 

 down as a rule that queens could be 

 thus introduced safely every time. 



Xow, thought I. here is our common- 

 sense rule that will apply to bees like 

 the rule of multiplication applies to 

 the multiplication table ; but when I 

 came to use the same rule after the 

 honey harvest was over. I found my 

 rule was " no good," as 3 out of 4 

 queens put in in that way would be 

 lost. 



Again, I wrote to a friend at the 

 time I was having success, how to in- 

 troduce queens, in reply to such a 

 question from him ; and when he 

 tested it in a different locality, he 

 lost every one so tried. The result 

 was, he wished Doolittle were " brim- 

 stoned," or something else, as Mr. 

 Mason wishes of "all the writers, 

 editors, novices, etc." 



Now, why was it that my friend did 

 not succeed as I did. Simply because 

 all things were not in the same con- 

 dition in his locality that they were 

 in mine. Again, when there came a 

 change in the condition of my apiary, 



Iso failed, and I doubt if those ex- 

 conditions ever came to my apiary 



agiiii. Thus we see that no rule re- 

 u.iidiiig iiffcultiue can be formed 

 whicli will do to follow throughout 

 the country, as can the rules in arith- 

 metic ; Hiiii the only thing we can do 

 is to try tlie plans of others cautiously 

 till we know it is suited to oiu- wants, 

 using charity all the time. There is a 

 great difference in individuals : some 

 experiment carefully, proviug every- 

 thing critically step by step as they 

 go, arriving at almost a deffinite con- 

 clusion with the first experiment; 

 while others experiment in such a 

 careless slip-shod manner that their 

 experiments at the end of several 

 years are of little value. Notwith- 

 standing all these drawbacks, any 

 careful reader of the Bee .Journal 

 will find much of value after he has 

 sifted the chaff from the wheat. One 

 hundred dollars per year would not 

 hire me to dispense with bee-papers, 

 for it is to them that I owe nearly all 

 the knowledge I possess relative to 

 bee-keeping. 



Now, having the above before us, I 

 wish to reply in a few words to W. II. 

 Stewart's article found on page 409. 

 He says that I make a mistake in 

 saying '■ many cannot afford to buy 

 foinidation ;'" and further on he says : 

 " AVe might as well conclude that 

 some persons who keep horses could 

 not afford to buy oats or corn to feed, 

 I cannot conceive of any reason why 

 a bee-keeper could not afford to buy 

 foundation imless it is because he is 

 poor." 



Well, the reason Mr. Stewart's con- 

 ception is so limited, is that he judges 

 all locations like his own. Does he 

 suppose tliat the horsemen of the 

 large, fertile plains of Texas find it 

 expedient to pay high prices for oats 

 with which to feed tneir horses, when 

 the luxuriant grass is going to waste 

 from the want of more horses to graze 

 ity No; such cannot afford to buy 

 oats, for the grass affords them all 

 that is needed. 



Again, in saying that swarms are 

 cast in a time" of good honey flows, 

 Mr. S. only shows his ignorance of 

 other localities : for here the greater 

 part of our swarming is done when 

 the bees are only living from " hand 

 to mouth." In 1876 1 had .339 swarms 

 from 68 colonies, yet that was the 

 poorest year for honey, during the 

 last 12 years. That all those swarms 

 would fill a hive with comb and 

 brood (where such swarms were not 

 returned) in from 10 days to 2 weeks, 

 while colonies not having swarmed 

 would not even work foundation, was 

 the reason I said that I could not af- 

 ford to buy foundation ; for the nat- 

 ural comb was cheaper than founda- 

 tion at 10 cents per pound. 



If Mr. Stewart can afford to pay $2 

 per pound for foundation in his 

 locality, I still say as I did before, he 

 can pass the article by, the same as if 

 it had never been written, as it was 

 not intended for those who are sure 

 that foundation is profitable. 



Mr. S. thinks that 10 pounds of 

 foundation was not sufficient for me 

 to use to know of its worth. I could 

 inform him that I tried to use much 

 more, but as it sagged and warped so, 

 I tore it from the frames, as it was 



not worthy of the name of comb, 

 hence I did not use it. 



As my article in a late number of 

 the Bee .Iournal answers the rest 

 of Mr. S."s objections to my article 

 written in 18S3, I will not dwel 

 further upon it, except to notice what 

 he quotes from Prof. Cook's Manual, 

 where he says: "The advantage of 

 foundation i's first, to insure worker 

 comb ; and .second, to furnish wax so 

 that the bees may be free to gather 

 honey.'' 



Now I wish to say that the second 

 proposition is what troubles me ; for 

 in all my use of foundation, both in 

 the brood-chamber and in the section 

 boxes, '^i i)f the foundation used is 

 never utilized by the bees except as a 

 base on which to add their wax which 

 they secrete, as in this locality our 

 flow of honey is so copious that wax 

 is secreted bv the bees in sucli quan- 

 tities that they have no need to use 

 that furnished them in the founda- 

 tion. 



I have always been considered a 

 heretic on this foundation question, 

 and when I wrote Mr. A. I. Boot, 

 years ago, relative to foundation kill- 

 ing our honey markets if we persisted 

 in using such as was then made in 

 our section of tbe country, he refused 

 it a place in Oleanings. saying that 

 the thousands of pounds of beautiful 

 comb honey built on foundation, now 

 sold in our markets, proved that I 

 was wrong, and that foundation 

 would be a "joy forever."' But now 

 I am not alone, for in the last A^neri- 

 can Apiculturist, almost the largest 

 bee-keeper in tbe world (P. H. El- 

 wood), says : " The question of adul- 

 teration is important ; but why not 

 throw a bright light toward those 

 bee-keepers who adulterate by using 

 fish-bone foundation in sections. It 

 is a well-established fact that bees do 

 not always thin the base of founda- 

 tion. When consumers of comb honey, 

 who have never lieard of such a thing 

 as foundation, speak of the large 

 amomit of wax in the honey, and say 

 the honey has the flavor of soap suds, 

 it is time that producers awake to 

 the evil that threatens to seriously 

 curtail the demand and consumption 

 of comb honey. In comparison. I re- 

 gard the packing of comb honey and 

 glucose in glass jars, when properly 

 labelled, a subject of little impor- 

 tance. If the consumer does not like 

 the flavor of the liquid surrounding 

 the comb, as well as the comb honey, 

 he can buy only the latter in boxes ; 

 but wlio shall estimate the loss when 

 bee-keepers themselves shall adul- 

 terate what has heretofore been 

 thought to be pure beyond the power 

 of the adulterator." Again, a honey 

 dealer from the State of Indiana 

 writes me. wishing to secure all the 

 honey that he handles, in natural 

 comb, and says : " I fear that this 

 foundation in sections will, and is 

 doing honey -producers harm. It may 

 not be noticed much yet, but if the 

 bee-keepers continue adulterating 

 their own comb honey, the demand 

 surely will keep dropping oft' until it 

 will be dead. Choice comb honey, if 

 really nice, will all melt away in the 

 mouth while being eaten ; but I never 



