120 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ February 10,1887, 
his queen and ruin his prospects for another year to gain this 
season’s profit; but by simply adopting an easy practical 
management during the autumn of the preceding year, he 
makes his own success in the following season. Yes! after 
all a bee-keeper does “make his own success!” The bees 
work, but the bee-keeper directs their efforts. He feeds, pro¬ 
tects, and robs them; but when he has despoiled them of 
their sweets, gathered by generations of short-lived bees, he 
returns to them a sufficiency of good and wholesome food, 
protects them from their enemies, and insures them a queen 
to take the place of their weak and enfeebled summer 
monarch. 
By such a management not only is the yield of honey 
increased, but the cost of producing this increased weight of 
honey is less than the expense incurred in producing the 
lesser weight by other means. Again, it cannot too often be 
pointed out that he who produces honey by the aid of expen¬ 
sive appliances, even if he sells his honey at a less cost than 
he incurred in producing it, is doing a material injury to 
those who look after their own interests, and not kind enough 
to make the consumer a present every time he uses a pound 
of their honey. If no honey came into the English market 
at less than cost price there would be a rapid rise in value, 
and those who produce now cheaply enough to combat the 
present low prices, would have a great benefit, but as long as 
tons of honey are thrown upon the market, and sold at less 
than cost price, the market will be glutted. Those whose 
honey costs, say, lOd. a lb. to produce, and who sell it at 9 J., 
derive no benefit from its production, rather the reverse ; but 
if all the honey sold under such conditions was withdrawn 
from the market, say next year, there would, in all proba¬ 
bility, be a rapid rise in value. But how can we keep this 
honey from the market ? It cannot be done, and therefore 
we must attempt to increase production, and, at the same, 
to raise the greater yield in future at a less cost than we have 
raised the smaller yield in the past. This can be done; and 
all ought by every means in their power to do their utmost to 
assist each other. How to do it must be reserved for a future 
issue, but if by discussing the subject thus broadly, even 
a dozen bee-keepers have been led to reconsider their position, 
the effort has not been made in vain.— Felix. 
MR. S. SIMMINS v. MR. J. HEWITT AND “ A HALLAM- 
SHIRE BEE-KEEPER.” 
It seems, according to the British Bee Journal, page 597, No. 743, 
that Mr. Simmins presumes because I did not take on myself to castigate 
him for his article on September 23rd, page 285, that I am gagged, and 
that he can go on saying and doing anything he likes. It is a pity this 
is so, for there is room for everyone, and plenty for everyone to discover or 
find out ; but when a writer makes all his discoveries after someone else 
has published the same thing, and by dint of advertising, writing, puffing, 
and putting his own name to it, he places himself in an unenviable 
position, and a writer who labours for the advancement of knowledge 
and not his own personal profit, ought to be excused from answering 
such writers, particularly when articles based on careful experiments 
and much work disproving the claims he puts forth are quietly dropped 
in the waste paper basket by the Editor of the paper he writes in, with 
not even a word of excuse in the column devoted to “ Answers to Corre¬ 
spondents.” But as some are misjudging me, and drawing wrong con¬ 
clusions, I will once more reply to Mr. Simmins, and unless he gives 
credit to the writers for the original discoveries he redresses, or tries to 
bury truth by mistatements, I shall not in future consider him worth a 
moment’s thought. However, to the point of answering him. 
Direct Queen Introduction. —Here he first of all called uniting 
bees, brood, queen, and combs—a process well known and described by 
every author under the name of uniting—Simmins’ Method of Direct 
Introduction, and by dint of persistent advertising all novices who did 
or do not know better, thought he discovered the plan. For three years 
this was what he claimed, and after it had been questioned by various 
authorities, both on the question of novelty and cfliciency, he re¬ 
dresses Mr. Pond’s system, and calls it “ Simmins’ (No. 1) Method of 
Direct Queen Introduction.” Already after twelve months’ advertising 
many bee-keepers think it is the same as he has always been writing 
about, and after I have let a little light in he has practised the plan for 
the past five years, and refers to page 8 of his original pamphlet. I have 
the said pamphlet before me, and nothing is stated on page 8 about letting 
queens “ run in alone,” and had he found it such a reliable process in 
1882 I think all intellgent persons will agree with me that he would have 
published it before 1886, and certainly all will agree that it would 
have been more candid of him at least to have called it his “new” 
system, but now, he prefers to call it his “No. 2,” and, therefore, I 
submit it is quite fair to charge him with attempting to foist on bee¬ 
keepers a system of recent birth in place of one registered in 1882. 
I maintain it is no argument to assert that his system is preferred by 
bee-keepers to mine. Whether such is the fact or not does not concern me 
in the least ; but if it is, allow me to point out that business men well 
know the value of continuous advertisements, and quack doctors know 
full well that any stuff will sell if only well advertised. My law is of 
more importance in the science of natural history than a dozen systems 
of queen introduction, as all intelligent persons will admit when we 
remember that all authorities, Mr. Simmins included, have always laid 
it down as an axiom that old bees, or those that have long been queen- 
less, will not under any circumstances readily accept another. This 
teaching was believed by nearly all bee-keepers the world over twelve 
months ago ; and what have I done to teach them the truth ? Well, a. 
short letter in the Bee Journal for 1883, page 83, where I first published 
the “ Law.” Since then I have sent others, also to the American Bee 
Journal, all of which appear to have been considered by the Editors as 
heresy, which, like perpetual motion and the philosopher’s stone, was not 
to appear ; and not until the Journal of Horticulture published it did I 
succeed in laying it clearly before the public, only to be ridiculed. As 
to whether I never let queens in from the top in accordance with the: 
“ Law ” until after Simmins’ last pamphlet was published or not, can be 
answered by some of the Editors looking through their rejected contri¬ 
butions, particularly one sent to the American Bee Journal in the fall 
of 1885. I have mostly let queens run in at the entrance when warm 
enough day or night, and when chilly I always drop them in from the 
top day or night. 
The “ Law ” is to be tested, I see, next season by such a reliable 
authority as the Rev. Geo. Raynor, and no doubt others will do the 
same. I have not a penny to gain by it any way, not even as an adver¬ 
tisement, having been obliged to adopt a nom Ae plume, because the 
public classed me with Mr. Simmins and thought I must have something 
to sell, and seemed determined to kn >w what it was. All I have to gain 
is a good word, and he who would rob me of this enriches not himself, 
but would make me poor indeed. 
Feeding Dry Sugar.— Mr. Simmins, in the Journal for September, 
adapts his usual style of misstating facts, and then demolishing them. 
Here is a sample. “ Mr. Hewitt knows as well as I can tell him that it 
was not until after his theory had been advanced that I made any 
mention of the subject, and my letter will be found in the British Bee 
Journal, vol. xi., p. 195.” Please note the above extract well, and turn 
to page 98 of the same Journal and volume, from which I make the 
following extract, signed John Hewitt :—“ Mr. S. Simmins condemns 
* candy ’ for bees. I hope bee-masters will give this article careful 
study. I am of opinion it will prove in the future more valuable than 
foundation. I have not had much experience with it so far, but I may 
say what little I have has opened my eyes very wide indeed.” Mr. 
Simmins’ letter condemning candy or hard dry sugar will be found on 
page 66, and all the rest of the correspondence was on these lines, 
simply giving all the information I could ; none of which would 
probably have been given had not Mr. Simmins first condemned such food, 
though he says the converse is the fact ; anyhow, readers can see for 
themselves. Then he says, “ Mr. Hewitt conveniently forgets that no- 
letter of his, in defence of his theory, appeared in the British Bee 
Journal after my own condemning the same was inserted.” But there 
is though, which is to be found on page 197, his last letter being on 
pp. 195-6. This may be put down as a quibble on my part, but mind he 
says no letter of mine appeared after his own, and at the end of my 
letter, on page 197, is an intimation by the Editor “that the corre¬ 
spondence on the subject should now be brought to a close.” Very 
honourable this of Mr. Simmins, when he knew I could not make; 
further reply. In this article I do honestly and candidly give credit- 
for what belongs to others ; what I claimed and what I still claim is- 
the fact (which I settled by experiment, guided by scientific knowledge) 
that bees can eat hard crystallised sugar without any water, providing 
the crystals were sufficiently small ; and to get them thus I reboiled 
and recrystallised the sugar to get the crystals small enough. Mr. 
Simmins talks big about “ uncooked ” sugar ; perhaps he does not know 
that sugar can no more be “ cooked ” or altered under the boiling point- 
than sand can. You may alter its form, turn it into syrup, crystals or 
toffy, and from any one of these into any of the other ; it obeys all the 
laws of crysta lisation. Remove its water to 50 per cent. ; on cooling it 
sets into a clear ice-like substance, corresponding in fact to ice ; aerate 
it, and it crystallises, corresponding to snow ; pour this out in a semi¬ 
fluid state, and we have “ candy,” and he perhaps also does not know 
that if a small bit is broken off any crystal and placed in a saturated 
solution of its own substance, it will always first replace the bit broken 
off before growing larger ; and, again, no crystal will dissolve on only 
one part of its surface, or quicker than on another side. The knowledge 
of these facts has led to the success in queen mailing, and if for no- 
other reason I can with pride point to that controversy in 1883 on dry 
sugar as food for bees ; for dry as sugar looks, the dryest is just one-half 
water, and after being assimilated in the body of the bee, is thrown off 
in perspiration, saliva, &c. 
He also insinuates that I did not succeed in wintering my bees on 
hard sugar. Well, for one difficulty, I found my bees had gone to the 
moors, nearly seven miles away, and filled their combs with honey, 
which I could not extract ; and if he had turned to page 52 for- 
February, 1884, he would have seen I had my hives blown over on 
