1883 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



701 



shut out of it. The final result was, I believe, that 

 with more careful puriflcation of the ingredients, 

 and more careful filtration of the air in the bottle, 

 the insects failed to appear. But the present gen- 

 eration has no right to laugh at Virgil till all those 

 experimenters are dead. 



Does organic life demand parentage? or is blind 

 chance able to compass it? or is nature full of intan- 

 gible molds, as it were, into which teeming life is 

 cast, under the superintending eye of God? or do 

 evil spirits take the liberty to play at making insects 

 sometimes? If parentage is demanded, must it al- 

 ways be like parentage, or may there be a wholesale 

 transformation when in a nascent state, as from flies 

 to bees? These have been open questions, if they 

 are not now; and it is not specially discreditable to 

 Virgil that he inclined to a losing side. 



Living creatures do appear in great numbers in a 

 decaying carcass. They do put on legs and wings, 

 and fly away. Not one species alone, but different 

 species thus appear— why not bees also, if the exper- 

 iment be conducted just right? Flies often resemble 

 bees, enough to deceive careless observers. Doubt- 

 less some who failed to get a swarm in this way act- 

 ually thought they bad some bees, only they failed 

 to capture them when they swarmed away. As you 

 remark, friend Root, every swarm that flew over a 

 dead carcass, or out of a grove into which a carcass 

 had been dragged away, would be "confirmation 

 strong." And frequently, no doubt, colonies would 

 be found inhabiting an old sun-dried carcass, as in 

 Samson's case; and these would be supposed spon- 

 taneous. 



And now as to the rest of this Georgic, I think we 

 will have in Gleanings just a brief review, with se- 

 lections; but if the work is reissued as a book, we 

 will want the whole text of the poem in that. 



E. E. Hasty. 



Richards, Lucas Co., O., Nov. 9. 1883. 



Friend Hasty, I am going to call you to 

 order. You ought to know that our old 

 friend Mr. Langstroth would not accuse any 

 one whom he knows as well as he knows 

 you, of purposely introducing ideas that are 

 not in the text. And furthermore, you 

 should know that I would not print such a 

 suggestion, if anybody would mention it to 

 me. I should write and tell them to tell you 

 about it, just as I tell you in the Home 

 Papers this month. "• Go and tell him his 

 fault between you and him alone." What 

 Mr. Langstroth said was rather compli- 

 mentary, if any thing ; or, in other words, 

 he accused you of doing exactly what you 

 tell us you have done, and I think you have 

 done it nobly too. — In regard to spontaneous 

 generation,! am glad indeed you have given 

 us this little talk on the subject. Grown-up 

 people do to-day insist and declare, that 

 weeds as well as insects grow out of nothing. 

 You tell a lot of old farmers that fireweeds 

 do not grow without seeds, and they will 

 make it hot for you right away. Try it, and 

 see. Probably you will give up the task of 

 trying to convince them, and go away leav- 

 ing them more of the " same opinion still" 

 than they were before. How many of the 

 boys who read this are there who believe 

 that horse-hairs grow into snakes, if left in 

 the water? They will tell you they know, 

 because they have seen horse - hairs that i 

 would wriggle, and were alive, an4 no mis- 1 



take. I suppose the boys will believe me 

 right here when I tell them that no horse- 

 hair ever came to life since the world began; 

 and that these little snakes are only snakes 

 that are so small and slender that they look 

 exactly like horse-hairs. When I was a 

 child I remember being gravely infornied 

 that different kinds of hairs made different 

 kinds of reptiles, and that there was a " var- 

 mint " in the woods whose hair would pro- 

 duce fish ! All you had to do was to pull it 

 out and sprinkle it in the well or cistern, 

 and behold, in a little time you had lots of 

 little fish teeming around. Now, I want to 

 emphasize another thing : Any man who 

 talks of perpetual motion is behind the 

 times, and totally misunderstands science 

 and scientitic progress. Electricity, magnet- 

 ism, light, and heat, do not avail a particle 

 in helping wheels to go without any thing to 

 turn them, or weeds to grow without any 

 seeds to start them. Truly, Virgil was ex- 

 cusable ; but people are not excusable now- 

 adays for holding to such exploded super- 

 stitions. 



HONEY-BEES IN BIJRIIIA. 



A CONTRIBUTION FROM ONE OF OUR MISSIONARY 

 FRIENDS. 



>jiHERE are many kinds of honey-bees in Burma, 

 India, both large and small. Every freshly 

 flowering tree or shrub is soon covered with 

 swarms of bees of various sizes and colors, and their 

 humming wings are very musical. 



There is little or no effort made to domesticate 

 them, though there would seem to be but little dif- 

 ficulty in doing so. Whatever attempts have been 

 made have been altended with some success. Some 

 tribes of natives care for certain trees where they 

 find swarms housed, stopping up the entrances, 

 save a small place for the bees, to shut out enemies, 

 or surrounding the tree with sharpened sticks to 

 keep away bruin, who is as fond of honey here as 

 his brother in America. 



The bee I am now speaking of, and which I will 

 designate as No. 1, resembles, so far as I can judge, 

 the domestic bee in America very much, speaking 

 generally. He has three yellow bands, is about the 

 size, and as lively and social as the home species. 

 The honey and brood are deposited in any safe hol- 

 low place, usually in trees, and, of course, the flavor 

 of the honey depends much on the kind of flower 

 from which it is gathered; but it is very good, and 

 much sought after. The bee is very industrious, 

 and of a peaceable disposition, and will seldom mo- 

 lest one, except its nest be attacked, when it knows 

 how to sting as sharply as his mate over the sea. 

 The natives say, the time for taking the honey is the 

 full moon during the dry season. The swarms are 

 usually small, a few pints only, and a few pounds of 

 honey is the most obtained from any nest. These 

 bees are often seen flying through the air in a bee- 

 line for some distant home, and in old forests are 

 very abundant. The bears often find them, and 

 wrench off, if able, lapge spl nts from the tree with 

 their tejeth and claws, to ge the honey; but many 

 trees, as varieties of the ebony, defy the teeth of the 

 strongest bear. 



I see no reason why this species could not be do- 

 mestipat.ed, >in(J become very profitable leryants. 



