286 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 1 



We expect a fine honey-flo\v from orang-e 

 and lemon very soon. The bees are al- 

 ready working on them to some extent. 

 The buds are not open, but thej' secrete 

 some honey from the stems of the buds and 

 tender young leaves. 



Montemorelos, Mexico, Feb. 26. 



THE NEW NOMENCLATURE. 



A Plea for the Term " Forced Swarms," to Cover 

 "Jounced," "Shaken," and "Brushed" Swarms. 



BY R. C. AIKIN. 



Friend Root: — I have previously veritten 

 on the subject of proper names for swarms 

 other than natural ones; but 3'our remarks 

 on page 47 stir me again. The term driven 

 has already a special meaning in apicultu- 

 ral affairs that does not apply to any form 

 of shaking or brushing; but the term swarm 

 does applj' to a congregation of bees wheth- 

 er accumulated by instinct or forced and 

 unnatural methods. In that item you saj' 

 " shaken, shook, brushed, jounced, or forc- 

 ed." Don't you see that your last name 

 covers all the others? If you had left out 

 the term "forced" and put the "or" be- 

 fore "jounced," you would have said all that 

 you did saj'. The various terms you used 

 are but qualifying ones showing by what 

 method the forced swarm was made, so that 

 to use any one of them is not proper; but it 

 would be proper to say, " made forced 

 swarms by brushing, driving, etc." It 

 seems to me so plain a matter that there 

 should be no quibbling about it whatever, at 

 least along the lines so far considered. 



I should not consider the name " artifi- 

 cial " at all the one, for it does not fully 

 cover, because of its use. Artificial is not 

 real, such as a wooden horse, cow, or other 

 thing — wax flowers, etc., but we do make 

 a swarm of bees a real swarm, and not a 

 wooden or wax one. It would be more prop- 

 er to say artificial swarming than to say 

 an artificial swarm, for we are describing 

 the art of making swarms as compared 

 with the natural or instinct plan; but. the 

 division made, we have a swarm of bees 

 just as we have swarms of flies or any 

 other insect or any thing else that congre- 

 gates in great numbers. Even should you 

 scatter the bees until they cease to be a 

 swarm they again congregate and become 

 a swarm or aggregation. 



Many times I have thought to speak of 

 other uses of words that are superfluous 

 and amusing, but have refrained, partly be- 

 cause I am not a grammarian, yet the 

 blunders are so very plain that any one 

 should observe them. L-ook at these: The 

 house burned up; the dog chewed up; he 

 gathered up his apple crop (or anj' other 

 crop) ; I swept up (together) the bees, swept 

 out the house, cleaned oflf the porch, cleaned 

 out the stable, washed off" my face, or hands, 

 brushed down the walls, etc. I once heard 

 a schoolgirl criticise her mother for some 

 trivial mistake in the use of language; and 



to call her attention to the fact that she her- 

 self was not perfect I said, " Minnie, do 

 you ever sweep the house out?" She blush- 

 ed, and looked at the floor, then stammer- 

 ed, " Yes, sometimes." 



I replied, " You mean you sweep the dirt 

 out," which at once turned the laugh. In 

 almost every case the words out, off, up, and 

 down are superfluous. The house in re- 

 ality burned down; but even that is not 

 proper; it simply burned, or was consumed. 

 The poor man having his face and hands 

 washed off is surely in a bad fix. 



Now, friend Root, I would not have writ- 

 ten this but for the fact that that swarm 

 question is up for settlement; and the term 

 that will be adopted depends mainly upon 

 what }'ou and other editors and writers use, 

 especially editors; and it behooves you to 

 start right and insist on the proper name 

 until it is fixed. I am glad to see that 

 many are using the name I advocate, and 

 many say "shook or forced," you see, 

 naturally gravitating to forced because it 

 seems to cover or convey the thought better. 



Loveland, Col. R. C. Aikin. 



[I think it is pretty well agreed among 

 us that " forced swarms " is the term to use, 

 covering a variety of manipulations, and so 

 far I have endeavored to substitute this 

 term when it is used in a ge^ieral way ; but 

 it is perfectly proper to use "jounced," 

 "brushed," or "shaken" to indicate the 

 specific mode of handling such swarms, 

 and I do not see but we shall have to allow 

 the use of them when the precise means of 

 handling is to be pointed out. " Driven 

 swarm " may be proper enough for a gen- 

 eral term, and personally I should not ob- 

 ject to it; but the word " forced " has come 

 to be a part of our nomenclature. 



If you attempt to criticise the common 

 uses of the language which are recognized 

 as proper wherever the English language 

 is spoken, you will get into deep water. 

 The use of the adverbs in connection with 

 the verbs cited may, perhaps, be superflu- 

 ous, but they have come to be a part of the 

 language, and accepted by all the best 

 scholars. We could not change them, even 

 if we would. 



I would defend Minnie by saying she was 

 perfectly proper in saj'ing she could "sweep 

 the house out," on the ground that usage 

 recognizes the legitimacy of the term. If 

 you attempt to throw out the superfluous 

 adverbs all through the language 3'ou will 

 have a bigger job on your hands than to 

 try to reform our spelling. But it behooves 

 us, nevertheless those of us who are coin- 

 ing words, to make them as accurate as 

 possible to start with, so that foreigners 

 learning our language will not be confused 

 as was the Frenchman when his head was 

 sticking out of the car window, and he was 

 told to " look out." He protested that he 

 was looking out, notwithstanding a tele- 

 graph-pole was liable to take off his head. 

 But our language is not the only one that 

 is incongruous in some of its phraseology. 

 —Ed.] 



