Part 1

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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL.

EDITED AND PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL WAGNER, WASHINGTON, D. C.

AT TWO DOLLARS PER ANNUM, PAYABLE IN ADVANCE.

VOL. VI. OCTOBER, 1870. No. 4.

[Translated for the American Bee Journal.]

Origin of Honey Dew.

In No. 11 of the Bienenzeitung for 1870, the Baron of Berlepsch urges bee-keepers to make diligent observations, to ascertain the origin of honey dew. I have for many years given special attention to the subject, as it is one of great interest, not only to bee-keepers, but also to pomologists. My observations fully corroborate the remark of the Baron, that honey dew occurs, in most cases, independently as a vegetable excretion, and only occasionally as the product of aphides. On last Sunday, June 19th, I had an opportunity to assure myself definitely of the correctness of this position. On that day, as early as seven o’clock in the morning, I received a visit from Mr. Heuser, of Westom, one of the intelligent apiarians who compose the Ahrweiler Association for Bee-culture. While we sat conversing about bees, a lad came to inform us that he had, the evening before, seen a fine swarm clustered on a large pear tree. We naturally hastened to the spot, but found that the swarm had already decamped. A loud humming among the branches, however, led us to suppose there might be a hollow limb somewhere, into which the bees had retreated, and friend Heuser was induced to climb up in search of it. He found none, but observed a multitude of bees busily engaged licking up the honey dew with which the leaves of the tree were covered--being evidently an exudation, for on the most careful examination we could not find a single aphis, though on the morning of the next day thousands of aphides were observable there.

It remains for me to mention the state of the weather at the time, for according to my observations this chiefly conditions the production of honey dew. On Saturday, June 18th, the weather was oppressively hot. Towards evening the wind began to blow from the northwest; and the night was cool, though without dew on the grass. This necessarily checked the circulation of sap, which I regard as the primary cause of honey dew, for I may state explicitly that I never saw any, except when hot days were followed by a sudden and great reduction of temperature. The same observation was made, many years ago, by an aged bee-keeper in Niederheckenbach, who, whenever he notices in summer a sudden change of weather, at night, from great heat to cold, will rise at three or four o’clock in the morning and close the entrances of his hives; as he is firmly persuaded that the honey dew certain to come, will be injurious to his bees. I must confess that honey dew has not always proved beneficial to our bees. In some cases they seemed to be sickened by it, and to remain so for nearly a week, as indicated by their inability to fly. This was more especially the case at an apiary which I had in an oak forest, where bark was largely stripped and dried for tanners’ use. I am unable to account for the occurrence, and must leave chemists to determine whether the consumption of _tannin_ had aught to do with it. Whenever honey dew occurs in my neighborhood again I will strip leaves from various trees affected by it, and send them for examination to Dr. Keermrodt, of Bonn, the chemist of the Agricultural Experimental Union of the Rhine province.

The views of Prof. Hallier, that the honey dew produced by aphides is of great practical account in bee-culture, I am not prepared to endorse. During the summer of 1869 I was a student in the Pomological Institute at Reutlingen, and very seldom saw a bee on any twig covered with aphides, yet we were there sorely annoyed by those parasites. Even now, I am compelled to use soapsuds, &c., to rid my plants of these unwelcome visitors, yet I have never seen a bee among them.

Your readers will probably be interested in learning the views of two of the most eminent pomologists, regarding the origin of honey dew.

Court-gardener Jager, of Eisenach, writes as follows to Regel’s Garden-Flora:--“According to my observations, honey dew is much more frequently exuded from the leaves of plants than produced by aphides. I regard honey dew, in many cases, as _a segregation of the saccharine portion of the juices of plants, which these are then no longer able to excrete out of their organism by means of the blossoms_. I was led to adopt this view by repeatedly observing that linden trees so kept under by pruning that they never blossom, excrete such a superabundance of honey dew that such as is not gathered by insects, drips from the leaves to the ground, and is often collected on boards and bottled. Linden trees which are allowed to blossom, do indeed likewise produce honey dew; but I have never seen it on trees that bloomed profusely, and as I live in the midst of lindens, I have the best opportunities for observation.”

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by Samuel Wagner, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

Next, my own respected teacher, Dr. Lucas, of Reutlingen, remarks, in a note on the foregoing passage--

“This observation of our esteemed friend Jager certainly deserves attention. Whether he is entirely right or not, is to me not altogether clear. I have seen honey dew indiscriminately on young trees and on old of various kinds; but always only after we had several successive hot and dry days, followed by dewless nights. It is very probable that then the juices of plants become more concentrated, and thus more highly charged with saccharine, in so much that drops of liquid sweet may exude through the pores of the leaves, and that then the aphides will quickly resort to the tables thus ready decked for them, and multiply with almost incredible rapidity, is a natural phenomenon observable in the case of other insects also. But that the aphides are the originators of the honey dew, as many foresters and others maintain, can certainly not be accepted as correct and true.”

Allow me, in conclusion, to request bee-keepers and pomologists to watch for the appearance of honey dew on the occurrence of such weather and temperature as above indicated, and to communicate the result of their observations.

A. ARNOLD,

_Travelling Lecturer of the Agricultural Union, Province of the Rhine_.

_Löhndorf_, June 22, 1870.

[For the American Bee Journal.]

Profitable Bee-keeping.--Letter from England.

The following account shows the very great advantage in keeping bees on the humane and improved system, over the old and barbarous practice of the brimstone match, so clearly, that I send it for your readers to go and do likewise.

In the autumn of 1865, I was at the seaside on the Lancashire coast, and found bees kept in that neighborhood in the most primitive and bad way I ever met with in any country. It was the system there to put the swarm in a large brown wicker basket, and at night to plaster a thin coating of cowdung over the outside, and leave it in this way all summer. I have frequently seen the bees coming out of holes all over the hive, from top to bottom, not being able to fill up all the nicks with propolis, and giving it up as a bad job; and if it was not a good district for honey, they would give up the ghost altogether.

When the bees give over working, the owner plasters the hive with mortar, for the winter. The entrance is made three or four inches high from the cold slate or flag on which they place the basket. When they take the honey, they suffocate the bees with brimstone. Wasps often destroy the stock.

In my perambulations I called upon a person who had kept bees for a number of years in the old way; but they had all died off except one stock. After talking with him for some time on the humane and profitable management of his bees, and showing him the great loss that he sustained by murdering his poor bees, to say nothing of the ingratitude or sin in killing them after they had been laboring for him early and late all the summer, and proved to him the very great advantage the modern bar-frame (thanks to the Rev. L. L. Langstroth, the inventor) from which the honey could be taken without killing a bee, and swarms made or prevented, as we liked. I showed him that in fact, with these hives, he had the full control over his bees, and could make them do almost anything he liked.

He asked me to get the man that makes my improved bar-frame hives, to send him some; and I afterwards sent him information he wrote for in several letters.

When I called on him last October, I found twenty stocks of bees in his garden, all very strong, with plenty of honey to last them over the winter; and he had sold nearly _three hundred weight of honey_, all of which he had taken that year, _without killing a bee_. He has now got his stock up to the number he intends to keep, so this year he will work for honey; and if it is a favorable season, his bees will collect for him an immense store and make him a nice addition to his income.

The same year that I called upon him, I called upon his neighbor, a person much better off than the other, and he then had three stocks of bees. I advised him to adopt the more profitable and humane system of management; but he did not; and when I called on him again last October, I found three weak stocks of bees in his garden, and he said he had taken _no honey_ that year and got very little the year before. I turned his hives over and found an accumulation of wet filth and dirt, nearly an inch thick on the slate floors on which his hives were placed, and the bottoms of the combs all mouldy.

I told him if he had done as well as his neighbor, he should now have sixty stocks of bees in his garden and have taken more than a thousand weight of honey that year. He is now, with others in that district going to adopt the humane system of management, and I hope bee-murder has forever disappeared in that locality, as I always find, when they see the loss to their own pockets, it is the most convincing argument that can be used.

WILLIAM CARR.

_Newton Heath, near Manchester, England._

* * * * *

Bees sometimes abandon their hives very early in the spring or late in the summer or fall. They exhibit all the appearance of natural swarming; but they leave not because the population is crowded, but because it is either so small, or the hive so destitute of supplies that they are discouraged or driven to desperation. I once knew a colony to leave a hive under such circumstances, on a spring-like day in December! They seem to have a presentiment that they must perish if they stay, and instead of awaiting the sure approach of famine, they sally out to see if something cannot be done to better their condition.--_Langstroth._

[From the Western Farmer.]

About Patents.

A student in the Michigan Agricultural College has invented a gate latch, for which he has received $10,000.

We find the above item in our exchanges. Assuming it to be true, we commend the good sense of the student. If the usual results follow, the purchaser will either lose money by the operation, or will speedily sell “rights” to parties who will lose money. We have no wish to discourage inventors, for they certainly are entitled to full reward for any improvements or discoveries they give the world. But we think it is clearly true that the great mass of inventors--especially those whose inventions relate to “little things,” or articles in common use--place too high an estimate on the value of their patent right, often holding it, waiting for better offers from manufacturers or purchasers of “territory,” until some one patents a better device for the same purpose, when the first becomes useless or nearly so.

There are certain inventions of very great value, because they supply a want universally felt. But even in such cases it is rare that the original inventor secures so high a degree of excellence that some one else cannot improve on his device. He may, however, succeed in patenting something which subsequent inventors will have to use, and for which privilege they must pay him. To illustrate: the plow is of almost universal use, yet there are objections to the best plow that has been or will be constructed. Suppose some one should invent an implement that would obviate all these objections, and do the work of preparing the soil for seeds better than any plow can, and do this work quickly and cheaply. Such an invention would be of almost incalculable value, and the inventor might well expect to become very wealthy. Yet it would be strange if some one did not improve on this invention, and thus divide the profits--perhaps take the larger share. Hundreds of men have suggested improvements of more or less value in reapers, after the main principle had been given to the public.

In case of such an invention as a gate latch, it must be remembered that there are already very good ones in existence, and probably a still better one may soon be invented; and so we say that, in all ordinary cases, it is better to sell the patent if any such price as $10,000 is offered for it. However useful such an invention may really be, the inventor as well as the intending purchaser of a “right” should carefully avoid forming extravagant opinions as to “the money there is in it.” The farmer or other business man who gives up his regular business to engage in the sale of patents, in the great majority of cases, does a very foolish thing.

We write this, because we have noticed in many cases the high anticipations of inventors or of purchasers of “territory” for some patent, and the disappointment and loss that followed. If any of our readers have invented anything they are convinced is of value, we say patent it by all means; but do not think of leaving your farm or other business to engage in its sale, or dream of sudden wealth to come from it.

[For the American Bee Journal.]

Hurrah for 1870, and the Honey-slinger.

The best honey season on record, and the most useful invention! Long live our German friend, who gave it to us without a patent!

The battle is past, and we can look back and see if the generalship has been, like that of the Prussians, well managed--or, like that of the French, left to manage itself.

I had two stocks last spring, and the empty combs from two hives that died about the first of March. The first swarm was hived on the 18th of June, and the honey-gathering on bass-wood closed July 26th--so that none of the young bees in new hives were then old enough to gather honey.

I have taken one hundred and eighty-seven (187) pounds with the machine, and on the 26th of July had from five hives, 228 lbs., or forty-five pounds each. They had gained forty pounds each, in thirteen days, on bass-wood blossoms. The best stock gained, 52 lbs. 8 oz. A queenless stock gained 33 lbs. 10 oz. The best day’s work, 7 lbs., Aug. 16. The best day’s work in June was Saturday and Sunday, the 25th and 26th--a gain of 21 lbs. 6 oz. on red raspberry blossoms, or 10 lbs. 11 oz. per day. I see that NOVICE reports 43 lbs. in three days, 25th, 26th, and 27th of June. As he reports bass-wood at its best July 6th, the flowers must be ten or twelve days earlier than at this place. So his best yield of honey, on the same days as mine, at 600 miles distance, was perhaps on account of the weather, or some electrical state of the atmosphere.

In June I took from my stocks what honey they had above twenty pounds each. While bass-wood was in blossom, I tried to take what they had above forty pounds each. The honey-emptier appeared to take away all disposition to raise a lot of drones in July. When I depended on box honey, the hive was crowded with honey before the bees would work in boxes.

As it took two pounds per month in winter to support a colony of bees, at this rate the twelve ounces of honey required to rear a thousand drones would keep a thousand workers four and a half months. I believe drones usually live about two months. So when NOVICE shaves off the heads of drone brood sealed over, he has already lost two-thirds of what it would cost to let them live; and the presence of drones might perhaps prevent the raising of more drone brood.

I would like to have NOVICE answer one question through the BEE JOURNAL, and that is--Do light queens make better honey-gathering stocks than dark queens from the same parents?

HENRY D. MINER.

_Washington Harbor, Wis._

* * * * *

A charlatan is an impostor who lives by the folly of those who are imposed upon.

[For the American Bee Journal.]

Comments on Querist No. 7.

On page 83, Vol. V., of your most valuable journal, Querist seems to be at variance with our position in an article on page 55, of the same volume, where we assumed, as we yet maintain, that “the first and highest law of nature in insects is self-preservation in caring for offspring, &c. The honey bee seems to be endowed with this instinct for the purpose of preserving the brood in the hive.” Querist asks--“Now, is this statement correct? If the preservation of offspring is the strongest instinct that governs the honey bee, then why does she remove unsealed larvæ from the cells, to make room for a rich honey harvest? Mr. Otis, of Wisconsin, claims that the strongest instinct of the working bee is the love of storing honey. So it seems the position assumed by Mr. Seay, is at variance with that of Mr. Otis, and one or the other must of necessity be wrong.”

As to being at variance with some eminent _bee_ologist, we have not a doubt that it is so, but you know, Mr. Editor, great men will differ. I deny emphatically that the workers will destroy the unsealed larvæ for the purpose of storing honey. I have never seen any evidence of it among my bees, and should be pleased if some correspondent (if he thinks such is the case) would take the affirmative and give the evidence.

To satisfy himself, that the first and highest law of nature in the honey bee is self preservation and the perpetuation of the species, Querist need only have a fair open contest with a hive of bees. Why do they sting? For self-preservation and the defence or preservation of their colony (species). Injure a single bee in the hive, and the whole colony is instantly exasperated. Cause the honey to run out without injury to any of the bees, and the effect is somewhat different. Tear the comb containing sealed brood, and the bees are at once enraged. And for what purpose? For self-preservation as a colony, in caring for the offspring. Why do they gather honey? For self-preservation and perpetuation of the species.

Is there nothing in all this to demonstrate the fact that the first and highest law of nature in the honey bee is self-preservation and the perpetuation of the species?

If this principle did not pervade the universe, everything would be chaos and confusion. It enters into and becomes the fundamental principle upon which the human family, the animal creation, and the vegetable kingdom have their existence. What causes the mother to care for her infant? It can be nothing less than this. If Querist were hemmed in some corner by an assassin who sought to take his life, and he had power to save himself by killing his antagonist, would he not do it? What causes the animal to care for its young, as the cow for her calf, or the sow for her pigs, or the birds for their unfledged young? What causes the bee to sting when the hive is improperly treated, or the smallest pismire to bite when its tenement is disturbed? You may pass from the human family down through the entire animal creation to the smallest animalculæ, and this (as it were) immutable principle pervades the whole series. Every once living thing that has become extinct as a species upon this earth, failed from some unknown cause, to comply with this grand fundamental principle--_self-preservation and perpetuation of species_.

Querist next says--“Again, is it not a fact that the self-preservation of the matured bees, is far stronger than the love of offspring? Witness, for instance, the destruction of drones during a dearth in the honey harvest?” I do not know whether I understand him here. When I say, honey harvest, I mean a time when there is plenty of honey to be found by the bees in flowers, honey dews, &c. Webster’s unabridged gives the meaning of dearth as “scarcity, want, need, famine.” These two terms then stand in direct opposition to each other. A honey dearth within a honey harvest is an utter impossibility. It implies two distinct terms, not both existing at one time, as a man within a man, or a horse within a horse. Language seems here to have betrayed Querist over to my side of the argument. It is true that the workers do destroy the unhatched drone brood in time of dearth. But why do they do it? It is in strict obedience and conformity to this alleged first law of nature.

Does Querist not know why his bees are so slow about entering their honey boxes, for the purpose of building combs? It is simply this grand fundamental principle that prompts. It is only because there are supernumerary bees in the hive that a portion of the workers leave the brood and enter the out of-the-way receptacle. The temperature required to produce brood is 70° to 80° Fahrenheit; and the amount of brood produced is governed by the number of mature bees in the hive. If the greatest instinct in workers be to gather honey, why do they not abandon the brood _en masse_, go into the honey boxes, and begin comb-breeding, when the grand flow of honey is to be found in the flowers? Because they would thereby doom the colony to inevitable destruction. Why do not bees enter honey boxes of their own accord, without waiting to be coaxed (as is generally the case) by placing therein small pieces of empty comb? Because their numbers will not permit them to leave the brood. And the same law of instinct, steps in and tells them that the brooding department must be run, whether combs are built and honey collected, or not. Why do they not build combs as readily in honey boxes above the combs containing brood, as they will in an open space below? Because they can thus produce the required temperature of 70° to 80°, and the heat generated below will ascend through the brood combs and bring about the same temperature above also (among the brood), thus accomplishing a double purpose, by virtue of the natural tendency of heat to ascend.