Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/863

Rh I have no idea that Prof. Evans thought that he was doing any industry an injury when he wrote the article referred to; but it does seem that it is high time that people who write in the name of science about bees should inform themselves as to the facts, which may be obtained from any practical and intelligent apiarist, one or more of whom may be found in almost every community.

Editor Popular Science Monthly:

In reply to Mr. Abbott's strictures I may state in general that all accounts of the habits of animals contained in my paper, so far as they are not the results of my own observations, are based upon the very best authorities. In my rejoinder I shall leave my critic in the undisturbed enjoyment of his consciousness of superior knowledge, and confine myself strictly to the points at issue. I was perfectly well aware, before Mr. Abbott informed me of the fact, that the old queen goes off with the swarm before her successor is permitted to come out of the cell, and regret that in expressing myself too concisely my words convey an impression which any one who has observed bees or read Huber knows to be incorrect. For the purpose I had in view and the point I wished to illustrate it makes no difference whether the old or young queen leaves the hive; and, as I had this point wholly in mind, I did not state the minor fact as accurately as I ought to have done. In my paper nothing is said of cordial relations between the two queens; I fear Mr. Abbott is indulging here in one of those "pleasantries," which facetious gentlemen in that part of the country seem to be addicted to, when they write about such funny creatures as bees. What I mentioned was the closer and more cordial relations observed to exist between bee communities which have a genetic connection, or (as this phrase appears to puzzle Mr. Abbott) we will say between the mother-hive and its colonies. By whom has this been observed? Among others by Lenz, "a practical apiarist," and, what is more, a careful scientific observer, who kept bees, not merely to supply the market with honey, but chiefly in order to study their habits. The existence of such a relationship is recognized and referred to as a fact by no less an authority than Prof Wilhelm Wundt, who even suggests that the mother-hive and its colonies may form a sort of federation. It is somewhat arrogant, even in a practical apiarist, to denounce any statement as "utterly absurd," and to declare that it "has no foundation in fact," simply because it has not come under his own observation. I did not assert that bees "take oatmeal in preference to pollen," but that they "readily substitute oatmeal for pollen;" and, in remarking that they are "glad" to be relieved of the extra labor imposed upon former generations of bees, I reasoned perhaps rather recklessly from human analogy, and imagined them feeling as men would do under the same circumstances. Mr. Abbott insists upon it that they are sorry; if so, I am sincerely sorry for them, and would fain think of them as glad; but the practical apiarist is inexorable, and I must console myself with the reflection that we really know nothing of the state of their minds. Mr. Abbott says it is rye-meal; a German Bienenzeitung says oatmeal (Hafermehl). So far as my argument is concerned, it may be rye or oats, or "it may chance of wheat or of some other grain."

We now come to the most serious offence, and indeed the only one that seems to have constrained Mr Abbott to wield his pen in defense of a maligned and maltreated industry. I have asserted that "apiarists now provide their hives with artificial comb." Whether Prof. Wiley is the author of this statement or not I do not know, but I read it in an American scientific journal, with a full description of the manner of using it, how by revolving movement the honey is thrown out of the comb, and that the bees adapt themselves easily to the new arrangement. The interesting information was quoted by European journals of high standing; although one German paper suggested, rather maliciously as I thought, that the Yankees are a cunning folk, wonderfully productive of strange inventions, including all sorts of canards. Mr. Abbott now states that Prof. Wiley has explained over his own signature that his communication was only a "scientific pleasantry," a euphemism for what persons endowed with a finer moral sense call by a shorter and harsher name. But how are scientists in a foreign land three thousand miles away to know that an American professor has written, to a local paper perhaps, confessing that he is a liar, and that henceforth no one is to believe what he says? As for myself, I must acknowledge that I never before heard the statement contradicted, and I fully share Mr. Abbott's indignation against Prof. Wiley for deliberately fabricating and disseminating such a falsehood. A man so jocularly disposed and ethically slack-twisted should stop writing on scientific subjects and devote his talents as a professional "funny man" to the comical column of a country newspaper.

How artificial comb, if it could be fabricated and the bees should store it, would do injury to the bee-industry, I am at a loss to understand. In Switzerland, where honey is found on the breakfast-table in every inn, at least three fourths of it is artificial honey; and one proprietor of a large hotel recently admitted that he did not have a jar of real honey in the house. Real honey in an artificial comb is certainly preferable to