_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.
Querist says--“Mr. Seay has much to say about brood chilling.” This is
true, and I have still more to say about it. It is this--it is brood
just hatched, or not more than four days old, that is so easily chilled.
This brood is very hard to see in the cells, and bee-keepers are not
looking for it to be chilled; but when it becomes so and is lost,
without having been seen in that state by the inattentive observer, its
destruction is not the less attributable to that cause. Querist says
where he lives, “sealed brood is not very likely to become chilled
during June and July--the swarming months, and but few bees are
necessary to keep it at the proper temperature to mature.” We do not
know where Querist lives, but we do know that in Iowa in the months of
July and August, on replacing our frames after handling them for some
time, when the temperature was rather low for those months, we have
frequently designated the place in the combs where young brood existed,
by piercing the combs in a circle around it, with short stems of timothy
grass, and left them there for a day or two that I might be sure to find
the exact place and cells again; and, in many cases, on re-examination,
I found no brood in those cells. I have repeatedly made swarms in the
Langstroth hive, and afterwards found that the brood, in what I call the
first stage, was gone.