1878. 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



335 



blossom, and tasted the uectar, lie knows 

 l>i-etty Avell where to look next. 



One afteinoon the door of the hoziey house 

 was left open, and the bees were doing a 

 •land office" business, before the niiscliief 

 was stopped. After closing the door until 

 the}' had clustered on the windows in the 

 I'oom, it was opened, and the process re- 

 jjeatefl until all were out ; but, all the rest of 

 the afternoon, tliey were hovering about the 

 door. Toward night they gradually disap- 

 l)eared, and when I went down about sun- 

 down to try a new feeder, not a bee was near 

 the door. I put the feeder in front of a hive 

 where the bees were clustered out, and as 

 800n as a few bees had got a taste and filled 

 themselves, they of course went into the 

 lave to unload. I exi)ected a lot to come 

 out, as soon as these entered with tlieir pre- 

 cious loads, but was much astonished to see 

 ;i regular stampede come tumbling out, as if 

 they were going to swarm, and still more 

 when they rushed right past the feeder and 



took wing for where do you suppose? the 



honey house door, of course. How should 

 they reason otherwise, than that it had again 

 Sjeen left open, and that was where these iu- 

 comers had found their rich loads. On find- 

 ing it closed, back to the liive they came, to 

 repeat the maiioeuvre over and over again. 



A beginner hears the feeding of oat meal 

 higlily recommended as a substitute for pol- 

 len. He places some near the entrances of 

 the hives, but not a bee touches it. He is 

 told again, to wait until early spring, before 

 the bees have access to natural pollen, and 

 then they will take it. He does so, but, as 

 before, not a bee notices it. He is next told 

 to put a heap of it in the sun, a few rods dis- 

 tant from the hives. This time he may suc- 

 ceed, but it would not be strange, if he 

 should once more report that his bees would 

 have nothing to do with it. Finally, he is 

 directed to take a piece of honey, and get 

 some bees to feeding on it, then to set it on 

 the heap of meal. The bees soon gather 

 over it in great numbers; those who go 

 borne loaded stai't out many more searching 

 all about the vicinity, to see where the treius- 

 iU'e comes from. The hum of the busy ones 

 on the honey soon attracts them, and in 

 snuthug about the pile of meal, some bee dis- 

 covers that it can be used as a substitute for 

 pollen ; the otlaers soon follow suit, and, in 

 a little time, both the bees and their owner 

 are happy, and the pile of meal quickly dis- 

 appears. After this, he never has any more 

 trouble in getting the bees to work on meal, 

 for he knows how. The bees and their own- 



er have both learned a valuable lesson about 

 i>ollen. Is there any very great difference 

 in the way they have Ix-en taught V Did 

 they not both learn by practical experiment? 

 The touch-me-not has learned by ages of 

 experiment, to produce a bright orange flow- 

 er, to secrete honey in the spur, to place the 

 pollen bearing stamens at the point where 

 the bee must rub against them in getting 

 the honey, to construct those wonderfid seed 

 pods, which explode and scatter the seed far 

 and wide, just that it may reproduce and 

 multiply its si>ecies. I should judge it had 

 succeeded pretty well, in a waste piece of 

 woodland near my home, for tliere are now 

 acres of it as higli as one's head, and it is 

 quite a valuable acquisition to oiu- apiary. 

 As near as I can make out, the plant has 

 much increased since the advent of the Ital- 

 ians, as might be expected; and instead of 

 having a dearth of pasturage for several 

 months in the fall of the year, we not only 

 have honey enough so that the bees trouble 

 the houses and groceries very little, but they 

 amass sufficient stores to ciury them through 

 the winter, with little if any feeding. This 

 is true of dandelions, as well, and the large, 

 brilliant, slrowy blossoms that now line our 

 roadsides and waste places, iiistead of un- 

 sightly weeds, should remind one of how 

 much an apiary of bees contributes to fulfill 

 the words of sacred prophecy: 



The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad 

 for them ; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom 

 as the rose.—Isaiah, 35 ; 1. 



Nov\Icamiot positively affirm that 'the 

 flowers were given tlieir gaudy colors by the 

 bees' selecting the brightest and most con- 

 spicuous, thereby inducing such blossoms to 

 bear seed in preference to those less gaudily 

 attired, neither do I know that cherries be- 

 came red, because the birds selected those 

 that showed a disposition to that color, 

 year after year, for many ceiituries ; nor 

 can I prove that the bright plumage of male 

 birds came about in the course of time, sim- 

 ply because the female encouraged the at- 

 tentions of, and showed a preference for 

 those most hantlsome. I can only suggest 

 tliat the actions of birds, bees, flowers, and 

 fruits, seem to point that way. You all 

 know how quickly we can get fancy colored 

 flowers, yellow queen bees, or birds of al- 

 most any shade or color, by careful selection 

 for several generations. Have not the bees 

 so colored the flowers, and birds, tlie berries, 

 etc., although they did it all unconciously ? 



My friend, before you again complain be- 

 cause you have found a cell or two of bee- 

 bread in your comb honey, would you not 



