1907 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE, 



707 



ear dimension, we find by extracting the cube 

 root of 614,1'25 that our bee shoultl be,'- the 

 length of our man. If our 137-pound man 

 be 51 feet tall, we find our bee f inch in 

 height, which isn't so bad. 



Of any two muscles of equal quality, the 

 strength will vary according to the area of 

 cross-section. Areas vary according to the 

 square of the linear dimension. The square 

 of 85 is 7225. To recapitulate, taking the 

 linear dimension of our bee as the unit, our 

 bee compares with our man as follows: In 

 height as 1 to 85; in area of cross-section as 

 1 to 7225; and in size, as 1 to 014,125, and the 

 ratio of cross-section, or muscle strength, to 

 size will be as 7225 to 014, 125, or 1 to 85. That 

 is, a man is 014,125 times as big as a bee, 

 but his muscle area only 7225 times as gi'eat: 

 or, in proportion to his size, his muscle area 

 is only i,\%th that of the bee. 



According to that, to show that its muscle 

 tissue is of equal efficiency, the bee must ex- 

 hibit a strength 85 times as great in propor- 

 tion to its size as a man in proportion to his. 

 If a man can carry himself, to show itself 

 equal in muscle efficiency the bee must carry 

 itself and 84 times its weight additional. If 

 the man can carry a burden equal to his 

 own weight, the bee must carry a burden 

 equal to 109 times its own weight. If our 

 man can pick up twice his weight, our bee 

 must lift a weight equal to that of 254 other 

 bees. Can it? 



This is not all, either. The bee, in carry- 

 ing its own weight, is under only ^^'-th the 

 muscle strain that the man is under in car- 

 rying his. A man, in carrying a burden 

 equal to his own weight, is soon overcome 

 by fatigue; but the bee should be able, by 

 walking, of course, to cany indefinitely a 

 burden equal to several times its own weight 

 without ever learning the sensation of fatigue. 



Let us look also at the matter of relative 

 nerve efficiency. A motor center can not 

 repeat a command until it has cognizance 

 that the pei'formance of the. first command 

 has begun; for example, if you wish to per- 

 form a repetition movement of lifting the 

 finger, you can not will the finger to lift the 

 next time until you feel it begin to lift this 

 time. All nerve action takes a definite length 

 of time, in proportion to the length of nerve 

 fiber traversed. To illustrate, if you will at 

 one instant to wink your eye and to lift 

 your foot, your eye will be shut and open 

 again before your foot is up; to have the 

 movements simultaneous, you must send the 

 command to the foot slightly in advance of 

 that to the eye. As the length of nerve fiber 

 in the bee is only ,'-,th the length of that in 

 the man, the bee should have 85 times the 

 nerve activity without exhibiting any supe- 

 riority. 



The movement, too, of the man must pass 

 through 85 times as much space as that of the 

 bee, and, therefore, take 85 times as long. 

 Nor are we through yet. The man has 

 614,125 times the inertia (or it might algebra- 

 ically be called "momentum minus") to 

 overcome, with only 7225 times the muscle 

 ratio to do it, or J^ as much in proportion; 



and it will, accordingly, take him 85 times 

 as long to get the inertia overcome as it will 

 the bee. To recapitulate again, in man it 

 takes a motor impulse 85 times as long to 

 reach its destination as in the bee; it takes 85 

 times as long to get the movement under way, 

 and 85 times as long to perform it, granted 

 that the nerve and muscle function in both 

 are of equal efiiciency. 



The wing movement of the bee, as is well 

 known, is extremely rapid, and, of course, 

 indicates high nerve activity. The movement 

 is, however, except in its starting and stop- 

 ping, automatic, or refiex; that is, it does 

 not depend on the brain for its nerve impulse, 

 but on a nerve center between the brain and 

 the point where the power is applied. In 

 vertebrate animals, the motor impulse for 

 unconscious voluntary movements is suppos- 

 ed to come from the spinal cord. In the wing 

 of the bee, the power is applied by a muscle 

 at the base of the wing, and the distance from 

 there to the main nerve channel of the bee 

 must be extremely small. Moreover, the 

 wing is extremely light in structure and in 

 inei'tia. Movement, then, does not have to 

 wait on slow nerve action, nor nerve action 

 on slow movement. In view of all these con- 

 siderations, a high rate of speed must not be 

 considered strange. 



It may be true, as alleged, that a bee has 

 higher nerve and muscle efficiency than a 

 man. but other data must be adduced than 

 the simple facts that it is stronger for its size, 

 and can repeat movements moi'e rapidly. 



One of my earliest statements hei-ein I wish 

 to qualify. When I had nearly finished the 

 final transcription of this thesis, memory re- 

 verted to a book with which I was familiar 

 when a boy, which remarked how fortunate 

 it is for the whales that they are adapted to 

 marine life, as it would be impossible for 

 them to have manageable legs strong enough 

 to support them out of water. 



A VISIT TO THE GREAT CORN-GROW- 

 ING REGIONS OF SOUTHWEST 

 OHIO. 



Something about Corn and Chickens. 



BY A. I. KOOT. 



When T. B. Terry, the great specialist on 

 potatoes, astonished the world some thirty 

 years ago by what he had accomplished, it 

 not only gave a great impetus to potato- 

 growing all over the world, but his efforts 

 and success gave a general uplift to agricul- 

 ture at large. Well, down in Butler Co., O., 

 there is a man who has spent almost fijty 

 years in studying and experimenting on 

 corn. I did not know about him until I 

 wrote up Prof. Holden's great work. A few 

 days ago, when I happened to be down in 

 that part of the State, I decided to accept an 

 invitation that I received some time ago to 

 call on Mr. Calvin S. Hunter, of Seven Mile, 

 Ohio. Friend Hunter told me to get off at a 

 station called North Caldwell; but the con- 



