THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



213 



out succeeding in making them afraid of 

 you. Next you lock them up in a house. 

 At this stage of proceedings you give them 

 100 pound*; of molasses and order them to 

 make it into molasses candy for you. After 

 a sufficient number of hours have elapsed 

 you rush into the house and make examina- 

 tions. Only five pounds of candy to be 

 found, and the molasses all gone. How 

 sensible it would be — how worthy of learned 

 and practical men, and leading journals, to 

 have it printed from one end of the world to 

 the other, to have it put in all the text books 

 and encyclopa?dias, that it takes twenty 

 pounds of molasses to luake a pound of 

 molasses candy ! If this is not a fair illus- 

 tration of the nonsense we have had loose 

 among us for the past twenty years, won't 

 some one please stand up and tell us where 

 the difference lies. 



There is another consideration which 

 ought to have opened people's eyes. The 

 current statement that it takes twenty 

 pounds of honey to make one of wax is not, 

 if I am right, the result of an agreement of 

 experiments. It is the result of a 7n ere substi- 

 tution of the ratio of twenty to one for a 

 very much higher ratio which the experi- 

 ments gave. It wouldn't do to say that it 

 took 100 pounds or 200 pounds of honey to 

 make one pound of wax. Nobody would 

 l)elieve it. By common consent the writers 

 came down to the twenty to one ratio in or- 

 der to secure belief. 



Now, to start off on a different line, it is a 

 feather in the Review's cap (and an illustra- 

 tion of the importance of having journalism 

 separate from the supply business) that it 

 dares to devote a special number to such a 

 subject. The foundation business is a big 

 business. It would be reduced very serious- 

 ly if the truth were generally known. Vet- 

 eran bee men, it may be presumed, do not 

 use very much more of the article than it 

 pays them to use ; but how about the begin- 

 ners, the enthusiastic young readers of our 

 books and journals ? Probably more than 

 half of their trade is sheer waste to them- 

 selves, and fat pickings to the supply firm — 

 and all because of the conservatism that 

 would rather support a venerable falsehood 

 than let daylight upon it — and self-interest. 



An unsupported assumption held by ten 

 million men weighs but a mere trifle more 

 than the same held by ten men. Yet is sur- 

 prising how small a faction, even of very 

 intelligent men, have any proper sense of 



this. What we find all men believing — East, 

 West, North and South — it seems to our 

 mind that it must be true as a matter of 

 course. Very few are level-headed enough 

 to ask, How did this get abroad in the first 

 place ? Aristotle made certain assertions 

 concerning physical phenomena. Some of 

 them were false. Too opinionated, vei'y 

 likely, or too lazy, to make the experiments 

 himself, and just said so out of his own head. 

 But the weight of his great name prevailed 

 against the facts for more than a thousand 

 years. Galileo made the experiments, and 

 demonstrated just what was what before an 

 immense crowd in an Italian city. What 

 then ? Why, so many people were mad that 

 he had to leave town to avoid personal 

 violence. I am not' sure that the, same spirit, 

 even at the present day, is entirely dead. 



After I reported the experiments you re- 

 ferred to in last number I devised several 

 additional precautions whereby the chances 

 of error could be diminished, and the proof 

 made more positive, and desired to repeat 

 the experiments another season. I was al- 

 ready satisfied myself, however, was busy, 

 and possibly a little oppressed by the sense 

 that I was stirring up a hornet's nest, and 

 that more positive proofs might not be very 

 kindly or very fairly received. At any rate 

 the experiments never actually came upon 

 the carpet ; and at present I find I have for- 

 gotten my plans for them. I think no ex- 

 periment has ever been devised as yet that 

 cut off all chances of doubt, and yet left the 

 bees in natural conditions working on natu- 

 ral stores. 



At any rate the doubts can only affect the 

 ratio to a small degree. (I am referring 

 now to the experiment reported on page 642 

 of Gleanings for 1886.) The general result 

 seems to me to be crushing. Please let me 

 quote it : " Here were bees that made almost 

 ten ounces of wax. The books say they 

 must have had over twelve pounds of honey 

 to do it with, while in fact they were allowed 

 to keep just three pounds and a quarter." 

 It should be added that this 'A}^ lbs. of honey 

 was not, of course, all devoted to secreting 

 the ten ounces of wax. The ordinary food 

 supnly of a swarm of bees for twelve nights 

 had to come out of it. I estimated this food 

 demand at two ounces per night, which is a 

 small estimate. It may have been nearly 

 double that. . I strongly suspect that my es- 

 timate of the ratio (3 to 1) is still too large. 

 In fact I am not sure that thick honey de- 



