THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



773 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Th€ Pollen Theory. 



JAMES HEUDON. 



On page 743 Mr. Doolittle writes 

 that a j'ear ago he stated that bees of 

 mature age do not eat pollen, except 

 to form it into chj'me for their lirood, 

 and further tells us that he has seen 

 nothing since to alter tliat opinion, 

 and that Dr. Miller's article in a late 

 number of the Bee Joukn.vl proves 

 him to be correct. I do not see how 

 the Doctor's statement and experi- 

 ence proves anything of the kind. 

 Mr. Latham, on the same and next 

 page tells us why mature bees do eat 

 pollen, either in the form of bee-bread 

 or floating in the honey, and why they 

 must eat it, if they exercise, to renew 

 the waste of tissue caused by such 

 exercise. One correspondent has 

 suggested that cold, causing the bees 

 to exercise, and this exercising caus- 

 ing a waste of tissue, inducing the 

 consumption of pollen, may be the 

 indirect cause of bee-diarrhiea. The 

 direct cause, however.remains— pollen. 



I think that Mr. Latham errs 

 greatly in his judgment as regards 

 which we may call direct, and which 

 indirect causes. "When we notice an 

 effect, we call its prime cause, the 

 cause just immediately behind it. We 

 know this cause is an effect of some 

 other cause, and so on infinitely in 

 either direction,makinga first cause or 

 last effect, something entirely incom- 

 prehensible. He says, " Whisky never 

 caused intoxication when let alone ; 

 a prompting thirst induces the victim 

 to imbibe, and inebriation follows." 

 Now, according to Mr. Latham's 

 logic, a drunken man has been made 

 drunk, not by liquor dealers, license 

 law. or whisky, but by a " prompting 

 thirst." 



Why do the Prohibitionists desire 

 to obtain power ? To make some 

 laws, I suppose. Laws about whatV 

 " Prompting thirst y" When they 

 have laws made, what are they going 

 to do with " prompting thirst," should 

 he violate them V I thought that it 

 was highly proper to say that whisky 

 was the prime cause of intoxication 

 that came about by the drinking of it. 

 I thought that the Prolnbitionists 

 proposed to stop drunkenness, if pos- 

 sible, by making some laws regarding 

 its cause, intoxicating drinks ; and 

 if these laws were not obeved by 

 those who handle such drink (not 

 prompting thirst), such persons would 

 be compelled to obey them, I cheer- 

 fuUy admit that pollen is no more the 

 prime cause of bee-diarrhcea than 

 whisky is of a whisky drunk. 



As my articles upon the subject 

 will show — I have been looking for 

 some cheap, practical system of 

 manipulation that might rid the hive 

 of most of its bee-bread, and see by 

 experiment it we could get along with 

 the rest. I am at that now, but it is 



too early to report yet. If the pollen 

 theory be the correct one, then all 



Fast efforts to winter bees success- 

 uUy, by all parties, have been direct 

 experiments according to the philoso- 

 phy of Mr. Latham's tirst proposition 

 at the top of the middle column on 

 page 744, 



To sum np : if pollen is the cause of 

 bee-diarrluea, then the removal of 

 combs containing it, and replacing of 

 combs which do not, but contain 

 plenty of oxygenized food, is a sure 

 preventive. It is, further, the only 

 one of which I know. Who knows of 

 any other ':* As soon as any one does, 

 let him report, and let us see if by his 

 method the cost and labor is lessened. 

 We have twice evidenced that the 

 non-pollen method was a sure preven- 

 tive. The coming winter will give us 

 a third evidence, or a re-buttal to 

 former evidence. If pollen is a cause 

 at all, it is the prime canse ; unless, 

 perchance, breeding in confinement 

 should prove to be the cause, " we will 

 anchor by-and-by." 



Dowagiac, p Mich. 



For the American B,;e JournaL 



Can Bees Be Bred to Fixed Types? 



G. M. ALVES. 



It is common to And in bee-litera- 

 ture the opinion that bees may, by the 

 skill of man, be successfully bred to 

 fixed improved types, as is done with 

 ordinary domestic animals; and al- 

 though we find so high an authority 

 as Prof. Cook advocating that opinion 

 in a recent number of the Bee Jour- 

 nal, the writer nevertheless insists 

 that such an opinion is held without 

 due regard to practical difficulties, 

 and is founded upon vagne and mis- 

 conceived laws of animal life. 



Chief among the practical difficul- 

 ties is, that the drones cannot be suffi- 

 ciently controlled. True, if we had 

 no other drones to contend with ex- 

 cept our own (a thing scarcely to be 

 expected), we could then do much 

 towards the proper mating of the 

 queens. But even in that case, could 

 we succeed in mating all of our virgin 

 queens with drones from a single 

 selected colony — a thing in practice 

 which we could not hope successfully 

 to constantly do — we would even then 

 have to assume that any one drone 

 from that particular colony was as 

 good as any other. 



AVould a skillful breeder expect to 

 maintain the fixed type of a breed of 

 hogs by accepting any one boar from 

 a litter to be as suitable for his pur- 

 pose as any other from the same litter'^ 

 Those who think that he would, for 

 the reason that they are all of the 

 same blood, know little of the critical 

 acumen of a skillful breeder. Now. 

 if we hold that bees can be bred to a 

 type because hogs can, are we not 

 compelled, from the very nature of 

 our assumpsit, to assume parallel laws 

 in both cases V 



But there is a broader philosophy 

 underlying this subject, and a better 

 reasonwhy our bees may not, by our 

 skill, be bred to improved fixed types ; 

 and that is this : Fixed breeds can 



oidy be maintained by fixed conditions 

 of the animal life. If the surround- 

 ing conditions vary, the animal type 

 will ultimately vary in harmony. An 

 investigation of modern thought or 

 an appeal to nature herself, properly 

 directed, will convince any thought- 

 ful mind, of the absoluteness of this 

 law in all animal life. 



In our ordinary domestic animals 

 we may change their surrrounding 

 conditions, and hence produce differ- 

 ent physical types. We may place the 

 hog in such conditions that his shelter 

 and food may be gotten with little 

 exertion to himself, and hence in gen- 

 erations his extremities and other 

 waste parts will relatively diminish, 

 and his bntcher meat will relatively 

 increase in harmony with his new 

 conditions. We may, by proper shel- 

 ter and food, increase the mammary 

 glands of the cow, and hence in gen- 

 erations she will conform physically 

 in harmony to her new conditions. 

 AVe may further hasten the improve- 

 ment of our domestic animals by the 

 proper selection of the sires" and 

 dams ; but how are we to control any 

 of these things in our bees V 



We have seen that it would be im- 

 practicable to control their mating. 

 The writer respectfully requests Prof. 

 Cook to tell us how we can con- 

 trol their surrounding conditions; and 

 if the conditions cannot be changed, 

 will they not assuredly gravitate in 

 harmony with that inexorable law of 

 animal life, to its surrounding condi- 

 tions—conditions over which we have 

 little or no control ? 



Henderson, *o Ky. 



ror tlie American Bee JoumaU 



Bees and Flower Colors. 



clarence 31. weed. 



In a recent article in the Bee Jour- 

 nal I attempted to show that the 

 petals of flowers were for the pur- 

 pose of attracting insects to carry 

 pollen from one plant to another, so 

 that the seeds would be more per- 

 fectly fertilized ; and, also, that petals 

 had been evolved from stamens. As 

 stamens are almost universally yel- 

 low, it is natural to suppose that the 

 primitive petals were also yellow ; and 

 the question arises, " How came these 

 originally yellow petals to assume the 

 many varied hues which they now 

 possess?" A quarter of a century 

 ago this question would hardly have 

 been thought of, to say nothing of an 

 attempt to answer it ; but now, thanks 

 to the researches of Darwin, Lubbock, 

 MuUer. AVallace and others across the 

 Atlantic, as well as Gray, Beal, and 

 scores of other enthusiastic workers 

 in our own country, we can at least 

 point to a very plausible solution of 

 the question. 



These researches have proved not 

 only what has before been stated, 

 that flowers with their colored petals 

 are parts of the plant specially set 

 aside to attract insects, but also that 

 certain colors attract certain insects. 

 Thus dandelions. May-weeds, and 

 other white or yellow flowers are 

 found to be most freely visited by two- 



