American Agriculturist, November 22, 1924 
357 
“How Doth the Busy Little Bee” 
An American Agriculturist Radio Talk Broadcast from WEAF 
A S FAR, back in history as we have 
written accounts e have records of 
bees and honey. The early Egyptians 
used the queen bee as a symbol of royalty, 
for, since she was the only one of her kind 
within the hive, large and always the 
center of a ring of attendant bees, she was 
thought to be the leader or king. Instead 
of being an adored monarch modern 
times have discovered her to be merely a 
highly specialized female, mother of all the 
bees in the hive and perhaps the hardest 
worker of them all, since she is a veritable 
egg-laying machine capable of laying more 
than her own weight in eggs in a day. 
Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher, 
was a beekeeper and wrote extensively 
about them. Virgil, the Latin poet, 
devoted a fourth of his great poetical 
treatise on agriculture, his Georgies, to 
beekeeping. But in those days bee¬ 
keeping was very important, for honey 
was practically the only source of sweet. 
Beekeeping or honey production is not so 
essential today, but that bees be kept 
abundantly in existence is more important 
now than then, for our agriculture is 
largely dependent on the pollination of 
blossoms by insects, chief among which 
insects is the honeybee. 
Honey Industry on the Increase 
The advent of cane sugar in the 
sixteenth century brought a cheap and 
abundant sweet and until the middle of 
the last century beekeeping slumbered on. 
From about 1850 until the end of that 
century great and rapid development was 
made in honey production, so that it 
emerged into the twentieth century a 
By R. B. WILLSON 
thoroughly modernized industry which 
affords a good field as an occupation to 
men adapted to the keeping of bees. 
This improvement has resulted in the 
raising of tremendous crops of honey from 
a natural resource, the nectar of flowers, 
that otherwise would be wasted, and the 
placing on the shelves of our food stores 
everywhere in our country at a price 
within the reach of all the only other food 
besides milk that apparently is made ex¬ 
clusively for food. 
What Bees Do With Honey 
The bees are able to do some remark¬ 
able things with honey. The baby bees, 
from the time the egg hatches until they 
are ready to spin their cocoons and 
pupate, multiply in size fifteen himdred 
times. Their diet is largely honey. The 
queen that was mentioned, some days 
lays more than her weight in eggs, is fed 
about every twenty-five minutes, and her 
food is mainly honey. In the winter 
the bees, contrary to general belief, do 
not freeze up and hibernate, but prove 
themselves to be in one respect equal to 
man, being the only other animal besides 
him capable of keeping its house warm. 
This they do by creating heat from 
muscular activity; and their food during 
the winter is entirely honey. Perhaps 
still more remarkable than these phe- 
nomona that we might be tempted to call 
feats is the fact that the beeswax itself 
is made from honey. This the bees do 
by gorging themselves with honey, when 
wax is needed, raising the temperature to 
about 95° F. and about twenty-four 
hours after the process has commenced 
tiny scales of wax start to appear on the 
four pairs of wax plates on the under sides 
of their abdomens. Delicate as we all 
know tender honeycomb to be, it is so 
strong and skillfully made that two 
pounds of wax will hold one hundred and 
eight pounds of honey. 
It is evident from these few things that 
honey is no common food. The very 
processes of its making are full of interest. 
Its source, as you know, is the nectar of 
flowers. In its search for nectar the bee 
carries pollen from one blossom to the 
stigmas of others and in this way very 
materially assists in the wedding of the 
flowers that the parent plants may bear 
fruit. Thus is honey born in the fra¬ 
grance of blossoms and in the purity of 
golden sunshine. 
What Goes on in the Hive 
Nectar comes into the hive a thin 
liquid about 60% water, but should you 
go out to a hive on a warm night late in 
June after bees had spent a busy day on 
the clover blossoms, by holding your hand 
at the entrance you could feel a great rush 
of air coming out. This evidence of 
insect power, the result of organized 
direction of self-created air currents in¬ 
side, will give a great thrill to any nature 
lover experiencing it. What the bees are 
doing, of course, is evaporating from the 
newly stored sweet all of the excess water. 
Not until it is but 20% water is it sealed 
over as the ripened product—honey. 
In the ripening process, fortunately, 
the essential oils which give to tbe 
flowers their fragrance and to honey its 
savor, are not dispelled. And somewhere 
between the time the nectar is gathered 
out in the fields and the time it becomes 
real honey there is added to it from the 
bee’s body a magical substance, an 
enzyme called invertase, which changes 
the sugars to simple invert sugars that 
render honey virtually a predigested food. 
This property of honey is one by which it 
may well lay claim to preeminence as a 
health food. 
There is something uncanny about the 
neglect by the public of this choice food. 
It'cannot be because of its price, for butter 
at twice the price of honey never ceases 
To be bought by all classes. It cannot be 
because it is not liked, for most adults and 
all children, as far as I know, like honey. 
The food experts and dieticians havejdone 
their best, for to a man, they recommend 
the use of honey. Perhaps it is the fault 
of the bee men themselves who, according 
to a prominent corporation lawyer in New 
York city, ought to have their bees taken 
away from them and “Any group,” he 
continued, “Who can so successfully 
withold from the public the wonderful 
story of the food value of honey ought to 
be put in the U. S. Secret Service.” 
As a result of this challenge to their 
wakefuhiess and as a result of stimuli from 
other sources, beekeepers in America this 
week are celebrating their first National 
Honey Week having decided that it will 
be good for them and good for the public 
that they divulge their secrets. 
(Continued on page 369) 
{Continued from page 353) 
But for the country community there is 
no organic means of expression whatever. 
There is, of course, in many States, that 
shadowy and futile geographical division 
known as the township—but it likewise 
often serves no purpose except to define 
voting boundaries and limit the spheres 
of constables and sheriffs’ deputies—a 
mere ghostly phantom of a social entity 
that we need not consider at all. 
So it is true we have Nation, State, 
County, and Town, each with machinery 
for self-expression and development, anti 
only the country community voiceless— 
formless, indeed, “powerless to be born.” 
Thomas Jefferson a hundred years ago 
saw just the situation thus described- 
saw that County, State, and Nation were 
organized and that the town was organ¬ 
ised, but that there was no organization 
in the rural communities; and time after 
time he declared that as long as he had 
breath in his body he would fight for two 
things—education and provision for or¬ 
ganized rural communities— 'the sub¬ 
division of the counties into wards, as he 
put it. His idea was to organize all over 
America rural communities of about six 
miles square into forceful, capable rural 
democracy—republics—corresponding in 
size somewhat to our consolidated school 
districts; and it is now our duty to work 
out in some fashion the realization of his 
ancient dream. Though we can t do it 
through government—as yet—we can do 
it through voluntary organization. 
As I see it, for the development of the 
Rural Community, there must be: 
(1) Community Organization; 
(2) Community Centers; 
(3) Community Self-Knowledge; 
(4) Community Rivalry. 
First of all there must be Community 
Organization. And foremost in effecting 
this result we must have the local organi¬ 
zation of the farmers themselves, a I arm 
Bureau, a Farmers’ Union, a Grange, the 
local organizations of the general coopera¬ 
tive marketing association, or some other 
farmers’ club—a practical, wide-awake 
| business organization that amounts to 
something. In learning the value of 
cooperation in making, marketing, and 
Developing the Rural Community 
financing farm crops, our farmers will 
learn the value of cooperation in a hun¬ 
dred brightening and socially uplifting 
ways, and in the long run this by-product 
of business cooperation may prove its 
more valuable result. 
God helps them that help themselves; 
and while other agencies may and should 
help, it is our farmers themselves individ¬ 
ually and through their organizations who 
must chiefly work out all our problems of 
rural betterment. It is better for the 
farmer to belong to the wrong sort of 
farmers’ organization than to none at all. 
The local farmers’ club must be the foun¬ 
dation of community organization, work¬ 
ing along with equally progressive local 
organizations of farm women and of the 
boys and girls. The most successful town 
organizations are now those that combine 
the ancient pastime of eating with their 
social and business activities—“luncheon 
clubs” such as the Rotary, Kiwanis, 
Lions, Civitans, etc. I am almost per¬ 
suaded that the most successful and en¬ 
during farmers’ clubs must be modeled 
along the same lines. Down in Georgia 
recently I was greatly interested in a 
club which has been working successfully 
for 40 years—twelve members meeting 
once a month at the farm homes of the 
members, in rotation, for a dinner served 
by the host, a tour of his farm, a discus¬ 
sion of some important farm subject, and 
the transaction of such business of buying 
and selling as they wish. I commend this 
plan to farmers everywhere. 
Then in the second place there must be 
Community Centers. The development 
of such centers must be a growth, of 
course, but if we only have the ideal and 
realize keenly enough the value of that 
ideal, it will come—slowly perhaps, but 
surely. The consolidated school with 
high school features—with its school 
farm, its cooking and sewing room, its 
library and museum of nature study and 
local history—this shoidd be the central 
feature, and about its beautiful lawns and 
-grounds should be grouped the neighbor¬ 
hood churches, lodge halls, fair grounds, 
the athletic grounds, the homes of 
preacher, doctor, school principal, etc., 
and to this center all the people of the 
neighborhood should come, not only for 
school and church and Sunday school 
occasions, but for the public speakings, 
the meetings of farmers and farm wo¬ 
men’s clubs, for picnics, ball games, de¬ 
bates, musicals, lectures, local fairs, mov¬ 
ing-picture shows, corn club or canning 
club meetings, etc., etc. There comes to 
my memory now the long twilight of an 
English summer evening when on such a 
community playground I saw a survival 
of the practice which obtained in Gold¬ 
smith’s “sweet smiling village” of an¬ 
other era: 
This is a snap- 
.ot of Isaac Bird’s 
.reshing outfit just 
; he finished the 
b on John Dil- 
lger’s farm, Ban- 
ill, Dutchess 
ounty, N. Y. Mr. 
illinger realized a 
eld of 600 bushels 
oats in 12 acres 
' land. Mr. Dil- 
lger is a very 
•ominent farmer 
zing in the north- 
n part of Dutch- 
;s County. It is 
teresting to note that all of the help in the picture are readers of the AMERICAN 
GRICULTURIST. The picture was taken by L. R. Wilcox. 
“And all the village train, from labor free. 
Led up their sports beneath the spreading 
tree . . . 
The young contending as the old surveyed.” 
The most encouraging fact I know with 
regard to the whole problem of rural com¬ 
munity development is found in the 
gradual but sure and steady recognition of 
the modern, consolidated rural school as 
the logical community center. Such a 
school fast becomes the virtual capital of 
alittle rural community—republic—just as 
Washington is the capital of our national 
republic and some other city our State 
capital. And the coming of the automo¬ 
bile, happily for this generation, has made 
it possible for us to enlarge our school 
districts and hence our community boun¬ 
daries so as to take in large enough rural 
groups to really get effective organiza¬ 
tion along all lines. 
Thirdly, there must be Community 
Self-knowledge, which means as a pre¬ 
requisite that there must be community 
surveys. It is a prime duty of the com¬ 
munity leadership to make such a survey 
covering roads, wealth, occupations, 
agricultural conditions, schools, churches, 
social life, sanitary and health condi¬ 
tions. 
Fourthly and lastly, there must be 
Community Rivalry. What stirs the 
civic spirit in our towns like generous 
rivalry with neighboring towns—rivalry 
exhibited in everything: Chambers of 
Commerce, baseball teams, population 
figures, post-office receipts, motto slogans, 
etc., etc. 
So I believe in our country districts we 
shall add this incentive of generous rivalry 
as soon as we get a sense of community 
boundaries and community organization. 
Besides having each community working 
to distinguish itself in each line of activ¬ 
ity. I believe we should have in every 
county a county fair or some organization 
which should award some form of trophy 
or pennant or certificate of honor to the 
school district or community distinguish¬ 
ing itself in any of a dozen forms of civic 
achievement. 
Such, all to inadequately sketched, is 
my vision of the Country Community of 
{Continued on page 370) 
