196 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



A Condensed View of Current 

 Bee Writings. 



fi 



E, E. HASTY. 



SWISS doctor, as it seem^ by Review 

 153, has found one of my old, abandon- 

 ed inara's nestf^, testing the origin of honey 

 by microscopic examination of the stray 

 pollen grains floating in it. I was once 

 greatly captivated with this scheme, and 

 spent quite a bit of time upon it. I was 

 sure our current all-out-at-seaness as to 

 what any given sample of honey really came 

 from could be happily brought into a defin- 

 ite port by means of floating pollen grains. 

 I was surprised to discover that it is a very 

 rare thing to find a grain of pollen floating 

 in honey. Apparently the bee's manipula- 

 tion of nectar is so flue and delicate that 

 any pollen grains originally dropped in it 

 are strained out, every last one of them. 

 When I came to reflect further than the 

 pollen grains actually found represent not 

 the original posies that furnished the nectar, 

 but imperfectly cleaned cells in the hive, or 

 a grain brushed from some passing bee's 

 jacket in the hive, why then the bottom 

 fell out of the whole thing— the mare's egg 

 was nothing but a pumpkin rolling down 

 hill into a brush heai), and the hatch was 

 nothing but a rabbit. Still the Swiss doctor 

 manages to rescue one practical point, albeit 

 a rather small one. If you fli.d pollen 

 which is produced only in Australia or South 

 America you can be assured that at least 

 part of the honey came from there. 



And who shall decide when big foreign 

 authorities disagree ? See Thomson's notes. 

 Review 1(!2. Authority Vogel tells us that 

 honey dew is all from plant lice : and author- 

 ity Bonnier sees with his microscope more 

 nectar ooze directly out from a perfectly 

 cleaned leaf . Perhaps it is not so with the 

 rest of you, but I, for one, dread solitary and 

 unchallenged statements by a solitary ob- 

 server. Very apt to be incorrect to some 

 extent, and we can't do anything else than to 

 go all on believing them. Contradictions 

 and tangles and conflicts of authority — that's 

 the normal state of things in actual search 

 after actual truth : and I've got so used to 

 that I almost like it. And if there are no 

 contraditions flying around I "smell a 

 mice" at once. Either this matter has not 

 been investigated sufliciently. else a ring of 



interested parties are trying to bolster up a 

 lie. Perhaps we should look a little out, for 

 Bonuier's conclusions for the very reason 

 that they are just what we would like to be- 

 lieve. I for one am willing to two-thirds be- 

 lieve, and put in the other third by and by. 

 Interesting to see how the insects ran their 

 sugar factory livelier by day, while the 

 plants exude most rapidly by night. Espec- 

 ially we like to hear that bees usually choose 

 the nectar exuding directly from the leaves 

 when they have both sorts at hand. 



AMERICAN BEE KEEPER 



Editor Merrill writes with so keen a pen, 

 on the occasional occasions when he does 

 write, that we almost dare to wish that he 

 would indulge in the freak more frequently. 

 His most notable recent outbreak was a raid 

 on the petty domestic and personal items 

 and details which some of our journals 

 abound in. See A. B. K. for March, page <>2, 

 Two sides to that question, comrade M. : and 

 it is doubtful if we ever get it fully settled. 

 To a large extent it is purely a matler of 

 taste ; and tastes difi'er — and also may change 

 decidely from generation to generation. If <^ 

 there had never been a journal printed on 

 the globe, and we were just beginning, we 

 should have at first an excess of personality 

 and egotism on the part of the editors, 

 After awhile the readiug public would get 

 disgusted, and call for a comi)lete reform so 

 decidedly as to insure for a time a sort of 

 editing almost entirely impersonal. Then 

 sooner or later the public ( or the public's 

 grand-children ) would begin to wonder what 

 sort of critters editors were anyway, and 

 wish they would occasionally say something 

 about themselves. In the course of time 

 this feeling would make itself felt until 

 some of the editors would drop the imper- 

 sonal style. Now I take it that the history 

 of journalism for the past 150 years hai 

 been something like the above. And I have 

 a sneaking motion that the current imper- 

 sonality of editors is an error and a 

 nuisance — a nuisance which is tolerated not 

 for its own sake, but because it renders im- 

 possible the much worse nuisance of editor- 

 ial garrulity and self parading. If this idea 

 is correct, has not the time fully come when 

 the true editor should seek to avoid both 

 evils, and strike the golden mean between 

 too many personal confidences to his readers j 

 and absolute, boodh— like inscrutability ? 



