THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



501 



Tor tbe Amerlcnn Bee Jourcii 



The Pollen Theory Again. 



•lAMES HEDDON. 



It seems that some of our honey- 

 producers are agreeing with me re- 

 garding the above theory. It also 

 seems that some of them, who believe 

 that there is much liouor in priority 

 of discoverv. propose to take unto 

 themselves priority regarding the 

 '•pollen theory." Some of our Pro- 

 fessors take less kindly to the above 

 theory than do practical honey-pro- 

 ducers. 



One producer has lately claimed 

 priority because I have been more 

 modest than himself and others in 

 asserting that I " knew, and had the 

 whole problem in a nut-shell." I 

 have believed the theory. I said so at 

 an early date to draw out this friendly 

 discussion and get at facts. I thought 

 that I might be wrong, and so I felt 

 my way carefully, and I am still doing 

 so with an increasing show of evi- 

 dence pointing to the truth of the 

 theory. 



For this care and conservatism, Mr. 

 Fradenburg proposes to relieve me of 

 any honor which might, and as he be- 

 lieves, will grow out of my discoveries. 



Dr. Tinker seems to be edging over 

 toward the theory, getting upon one 

 plank at a time, but using great 

 energy to push me off from each 

 plank as he gets on. He appears to 

 desire my wintering theories, in part, 

 but not my company in their enjoy- 

 ment. 



I will, for the sake of self-defense, 

 reply to the Doctor in part and parcel, 

 and trust that this reply will also do 

 for my literary friends whose attacks 

 appear in the same issue. Xot only 

 " Prof. Cook," but others (myself 

 among them) have made several ex- 

 periments with sugar syrup vs. honey 

 as winter stores. I made one experi- 

 ment with 16 colonies during the win- 

 ter of 1871 and 1872, 1 think it was, 

 but perhaps it was ]87ii and 1873; 

 another about 3 years later, another 2 

 years ago, and again the one of the re- 

 port in question. 



Like the Professor and others, I 

 found and declared elfects in favor of 

 the cane sugar. I found that the 

 judgment of man knew better than 

 their own instincts what was best tor 

 bees. I find that if a choice between 

 sugar syrup and poor honey is left to 

 their instincts to decide upon, that 

 they will be " silly " enough to choose 

 the" worst food. I find that they are 

 sometimes nearly as "silly," and 

 need the intelligence of man to pro- 

 tect them in regard to a choice be- 

 tween honey and bee-bread as a win- 

 ter diet. 



Now. in regard to " causes," I do 

 call cold no less than one of the great 

 •' auxiliary causes," and in this all 

 will agi'ee. I do jwt give it the place 



of " primary cause," because I hnd 



that bee-diarrho'a rages in mild 

 climates and hi cellars where tlie 

 temperature never is lower than 

 40 Fahr. above zero. I also lind 

 that bees do winttMsuccessfully where 

 a severe cold is hidught against them. 

 The same line of facts forces the rea- 

 soner to shut out •' confinement " as a 

 primary cause ; it too, being only an 

 auxiliary cause. Now. it would be 

 very •■ interesting " to me to know 

 why I have made any error in the 

 classiflcation of cold and confinement 

 as auxiliary, and not primary causes. 



The Doctor tells us that our South- 

 ern friends look upon our cold as the 

 primary cause of the disease. Well, 

 they have it, and suffer from the dis- 

 ease in Missouri. There they do not 

 look upon cold as the cause, or yet 

 Doolittle's " confinement." Perhaps 



few of the less literary Southern 



friends who have not suffered in their 

 immediate vicinity, may ascribe the 

 lower temperature of our Northern 

 climate as the cause ; but such are 

 only making the same mistake that 

 some of our people do, in thinking 

 that the heat of the South is the pri- 

 mary cause of yellow fever. 



The Doctor tells us that some of 

 our able observers have proven that 

 "restlessness." "excitement," and 

 "undue activity" are symptoms of 

 the disease. Yes, they are symptoms, 

 and effects only, in nearly all cases ; 

 but sometimes may act as auxiliary 

 causes, in a lesser degree. I supposed 

 that not only the " abler " but the 

 less "able" apiarist had found that 

 out. The Doctor further tells us that 

 those colonies which remain quietly 

 clustered upon the combs, usually 

 have no disease. That is true ; but I 

 put it this way : those colonies which 

 do not get ove'r-loaded with feces, re- 

 main quiet and have no disease. 

 Agitation and excitement, I think, 

 do sometimes act as an auxiliary 

 cause, but not a primary cause. And 

 why y liecause I have witnessed and 

 cited the readers many instances 

 when an intense agitation and ex- 

 citement failed to produce any signs 

 of the disease. Take the case of Sir. 

 :Milliner, of Big Rapids, when he put 

 his bees into the cellar in the rattle- 

 te-jam, closed entrance method, which 

 I have heretofore given ; also my own 

 experience with the bees brought 

 from the country in mid-winter. Now, 

 Doctor, do not say that pollen is not 

 a primary cause, because bees do not 

 have diarrhwa in summer ; because 

 they get the disease only by an aggre- 

 gated loading of the intestines, which 

 cannot take place when they fly and 

 void daily. They will have it, and in 

 less time than in winter, if confined. 



A man lost his life. He was killed 

 by a lion. No such death could have 

 occurred had it not been for the 

 mother of this lion. However, the 

 old lioness is not called the primary 

 cause of the death. " Yellow Jack '' 

 cannot exist after a frost, but beat is 

 not its cause, only a necessary condi- 

 tion to the development of that pri- 

 mary cause, michrocoxi. I hope that 

 I am now clearly understood, and 

 shall never have to go over this 

 ground again. 



The Doctor hints that restlessness 

 causes the demand for nitrogenous 

 food, and the residue from this food, 

 and worn -out tissue, constitute the 

 excrement which we find in cases of 

 beediarrhaw. Now, I believe that 

 there is plenty to cause the disease, 

 resulting from the pollen alone. I 

 further believe that there is not 

 enough resulting from effete tissue to 

 do any harm whatever. I will call 

 your attention to the fact that Prof. 

 Cook, or his assistant, found the soliti 

 matter of diarrhroa excreta, examined 

 by them, almost wholly pollen, and 

 distinguished it so plainly with the 

 microscope, that they could determine 

 the flowers from which some of it 

 was gathered. 



Now I come to an assertion which 

 I am not prepared to accept or re- 

 ject. I have had no evidence either 

 way. I have never met a gentleman 

 who claimed to have had any.— 

 It is this : That bees can and do eat 

 pollen all winter long, and yet winter 

 well. Some way or other, I do not re- 

 member of ever reading any thing 

 corroborating this assertion, the 

 source and style of which,settled itself 

 upon my mind as any evidence. If 

 "pollen husks" (whatever they may 

 be) are found in the intestines of 

 bees that have wintered well, I should 

 next want to get to an agreement of 

 what condition is meant by " well." 

 Bees may be wintered safely, i. e., so 

 as to save the individuality of the 

 colony, and not to be wintered as 

 " well " as I wish and as I wintered 

 the 45 colonies referred to in my re- 

 port. 



The Doctor says that " no trouble 

 comes from slight accumulations;" 

 this I agree to. He further says : " It 

 is only when, as in such a winter as 

 thatot' 1880-81, that bees are obliged 

 to consume inordinate and almost 

 unprecedented quantities of both 

 honey and pollen to keep life in them, 

 that these harmful accumulations 

 arise." Right here is one more of the 

 Doctor's fatal errors. 



I told you that I put colonies with 

 plenty of as good, sweet honey and 

 pollen as one could wish, and in a 

 cellar whose temperature never was 

 below 42°, nor above A.'P or 47° (as I 

 recollect it); and that they began 

 dying with diarrhoea in its worst form 

 in less than three weeks after confine- 

 ment ; and that before two-thirds of 

 the cimfinement (at other times suc- 

 cessful) was passed, nearly every one 

 of that whole apiary was dead. You 

 also know that in Kentucky, some 16 

 years ago, withont any such condi- 

 tions regarding cold or confinement 

 as those present in the North during 

 the winter of "1880-81," the bee- 

 keepers were all panic-stricken with 

 the fatality caused by the disease in 

 question. Now the Doctor tells us 

 that " if restlessness then causes the 

 bees to eat too freely of pollenized 

 food, it ranks as a prior cause ; and 

 the most that could be held is, that 

 the latter may be an auxiliary cause, 

 while restlessness, as the effect of 

 cold, humidity and confinement, one 

 or all, must stand as the primary 

 cause or causes amenable to the hand 

 (if man. 1 am. therefore, unable to 



