THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



583 



should be taken out of these lignres. 

 Now, if I felt so disposed. I could 

 feed glucose to niv bees, extract it, 

 and sliip it to Mr. 'I. and warrant it 

 to be pure honey— j". e., if his state- 

 ments are correct. 



Again, what is his guaranty worth, 

 based upon such views ? Glucose and 

 sugar are the only things honey is 

 adulterated with to any extent, I 

 think, and if a customer should come 

 back on Mr. T.. all tliat he would 

 have to say would be that " the bees 

 put up the article which 1 sold you, 

 and so it must be pure honey." There 

 is more comb lioney put on the market 

 that contains glucose or sugar than, 

 perhaps, Mr. T^is aware of. I labored 

 bard to convince a grocer in Kalama- 

 zoo, last season, that my lioney was 

 pure. He said that he knew that 

 there was comb honey put on the 

 market in Kalamazoo that was one- 

 half sugar, and for that reason his 

 customers were afraid to buy honey 

 that is put up in small sections. He 

 said that if he had honey put up in 

 the old-fashion caps, that hold 1-5 or 

 20 pounds, he could sell it out quicker 

 than he could if put up in nice, clean, 

 white sections of the one-pound size. 



Another grocer in the same place 

 would not listen to me at all, but if I 

 had honey put up in three or four- 

 pound frames, he would buy some. 

 Still another said that I might leave 

 one crate on trial, but he did not think 

 that he could sell it, for people were 

 generally afraid to buy honey that is 



fiut up in such nice shape. I told him 

 hat I guaranteed my honey pure. In 

 a few days I called on him again, and 

 found the honey all sold at a good 

 figure, and more was wanted. He 

 seemed surprised at the sale of it, 

 and said that the guaranty of its 

 purity was what did it. 



Our State Fish Commissioner told 

 me, last season, that it was almost 

 impossible to get a pound of pure ex- 

 tracted honey in the city of Detroit. 

 Only yesterday I was to'd, by a gen- 

 tleman who moved from Missouri to 

 this place last winter, that near where 

 he used to live, there was a Doctor 

 who was making money "liand-over- 

 fist " by feeding sugar to his bees 

 and selling the product therefrom, 

 for comb honey. Some way it was 

 foimd out, and it was reported that 

 for so doing lie was compelled to pay 

 some SI. 200 in fines. 



And now what is the outlook for 

 honest honey-producers (of gilt- 

 edged honey) if Mr. T.'s statements 

 are true ¥ It looks to me as though 

 there might be a crop of honey some- 

 where if nature did not give us a 

 drop, providing there was not a fail- 

 ure in the sugar or com crop. I have 

 no doubt of Mr. T.'s honesty and sin- 

 cerity in his statements, but is he not 

 mistaken V 



Oh ! for a simple test, so that we may 

 know the pure article from the adul- 

 terated one. Who can give such a 

 testy I am willing to pay my share 

 towards discovering one," if it can be 

 had for money. Extracted honey is 

 gaining in favor with us every season. 

 I have already had to buy 1,000 pounds 

 to fill my orders. 



Glenwood, Mich. 



For tbe American Bee Journal. 



The Pollen Theory. 



DU. G. L. TINKER. 



It has been plain to bee-keepers all 

 along that to tlic aceuniulatioiis in the 

 intestines of bees in winter conliiie- 

 ment is due the immediate cause of 

 bee diarrhiua. The question at once 

 arises, " What are the sources and 

 the nature of the accumulations V" 

 A correct answer will give us a pretty 

 clear idea of the various problems 

 involved and the highway to a solu- 

 tion of them. 



But first as to the possibility of 

 voiding the feces in eonflnement. If 

 bees could void themselves, of course 

 the collections would not occur. We 

 know that the queen-bee certainly 

 does. Why not the workers V I still 

 think they do under certain favorable 

 circumstances, but I am ready to 

 grant that as a rule they do not. "Their 

 instinct is so strong against voiding 

 in the hive, that it is doubtful if we 

 ever can rely much on this method of 

 relief. The strongest argument in 

 support of the theory is that they 

 either cannot or do not. But Mr. 

 Heddon does not appear to have 

 noted it. 



Now of what do the accumulations 

 consist y First, water ; second, the 

 excretions of worn-out tissue and 

 other bodily waste which gives the 

 odor to all animal dejections ; third, 

 indigestible refuse of the food taken. 

 As to the first, Mr. H. would hold 

 that it proceeds entirely from an in- 

 flamed intestine. But how does he 

 know this ? I could grant that it 

 might so arise if I knew that a bee's 

 intestines ever became inflamed. Now 

 this is all speculation. If not, and 

 there is any known evidence that in- 

 flamation exists in conjunction with 

 bee-diarrhcea, why has it not been 

 produced before making such an as- 

 sertion, and, especially, why has the 

 term dysentery been changed to that 

 of bee-diarrhoea V By common con- 

 sent at the wise suggestion of the 

 Editor of the Bee Journal it has 

 been so changed ; but if Mr. Heddon 

 is right in his speculations we will 

 now have to march back to the old 

 term, which is the correct one, if an 

 inflamation of the large intestine of 

 a bee having the well-known dis- 

 charges, exists. We do not think 

 that an inflamation, as that term is 

 understood, ever exists in a bee, and 

 we have a right to scout the idea 

 until some evidence of it is produced. 



The probable source of the water 

 which constitutes the greater bulk of 

 the accumulations, is the honey eaten. 

 The first ray of light which after 

 three years and more of study, I got 

 on this subject, was from reading an 

 article of Mr. S. Cornell, on page 728 

 of the Bee Journal for 1882. We 

 all know how great is the dampness 

 exhaled by a colony of bees. Mr. S. 

 has shown that at a low temperature 

 the air in a hive may be so completely 

 saturated with dampness, and that 

 very little exhalation of water can 

 take place from the bees, the result 

 being accumulation of water in the 

 intestines with abdominal distension. 



But there is another source that 

 must be considered, viz : the mois- 

 ture collecting on the combs and the 

 sides of the hive which I, myself, 

 have seen bees take up as described 

 by Mr. C. W. Dayton, on page 504. 

 >Ir. I), shows there that he could pro- 

 duce the disorder at will by increas- 

 ing tlie amount of moisture in the 

 hive by lessening the ventilation. It 

 is almost unneccessary to suggest 

 that this could not be if pollen-eating 

 is " the cause." 



Whether the solid matter of the 

 excretions of worn-out tissue and 

 other effete matters is greater or less 

 than the indigestible refuse of the 

 bee-bread consumed, may be hard to 

 determine, but a little reflection 

 should show to Mr. II. that the re- 

 fuse can furnish but a small amount 

 of the material for bacterious fermen- 

 tation that is invariably present, and 

 which is beyond question a potent 

 cause. A great many pollen husks 

 may accumulate in a long confine- 

 ment, but there is also a large amount 

 of purely excrementory product. It 

 is well-known that if a man be thor- 

 oughly physicked and subsequently 

 take no food, that the purely excre- 

 mentory product is considerable for 

 sometime. 



My own opinion is, that Mr. Hed- 

 don should have stuck to the bacteria 

 theory, as it certainly covers more 

 facts than the latest edition of his 

 views. There is no question about 

 the presence of the bacteria, or of 

 that of the fermentation ; in fact, the 

 one is an indisputable evidence of 

 the other. If one species of bacteria 

 may cause the yellow fever, as al- 

 ledged, why not another cause bee- 

 diarrhoea y 



I have thought from the first that 

 there were many causes of bee-diar- 

 rhcea operating conjointly and at one 

 time, one and then again another pre- 

 dominating. I am unable to reconcile 

 so many apparently conflicting facts 

 that have been presented in the Bee 

 Journal, in any other way. Prob- 

 ably Mr. Heddon will agree with me 

 on the accumulation theory. Our 

 disagreement is principally upon the 

 nature of the accumulations and the 

 order of the causes leading to them. 

 As to bee-bread, I have shown that 

 the collections are made up of only 

 a comparatively small amount of in- 

 digestible refuse, the same being 

 mostly pollen husks ; that this aggre- 

 gation from its very nature is nearly 

 harmless, and as such pollen is recog- 

 nized as one of the minor factors in 

 the problem of causes. If Mr. H. 

 thinks this is " edging over " to his 

 wonderful theory, he inay make the 

 most of it. 



My position in regard to the dis- 

 order is now well-defined, and in the 

 light of which we will examine Mr. 

 Heddon's arguments as set forth on 

 page 501. As to the primary cause, I 

 have stated that sometimes one and 

 again another cause seemed to pre- 

 dominate ; hence, when bees suffer in 

 a mild-tempered cellar, cold is the 

 lesser factor in the list of causes, for 

 anything below 50° Fahr. is cold to 

 the bees. In such cases humidity 

 may be the primary cause, as cellars 



