I mentioned 5,000 or 6,000 bees as a swarm. It is the lowest, I freely allow. But I will add to your correspondent's knowledge. I had a caste thrown off last year, at the end of June. I despaired of its weathering the winter, but I resolved to feed it richly with barley-sugar till March. The maximum number of bees was 5,000. It had filled the lower box with at least 40 lbs. of honey by the middle of June this year. The bees had increased immensely. I opened the communication with a large super. This super has in it now not less than 26 lbs. of the whitest cells and honey I ever saw. I have shown it to many whose mouths watered for a slice of it. I never join stocks. We feed cattle on oil-cake: why not feed weakly stocks with barley-sugar? What your correspondent proposes as his explanation of 2,000 drones in a hive where there is only one queen, with, perhaps, a couple of princesses, is, like his whole philosophy, very absurd, and unworthy of a serious answer.
Your correspondent says:—
"Bees are never nursed by other bees. They are strict utilitarians, and totally devoid of sympathy. 'Those who cannot work shall not eat,' is a law applied with stern impartiality alike to the disabled worker and the useless drone. He, therefore, who would teach or learn a lesson in charity must look elsewhere."
My reply to this is, I have seen the disabled bee tended with exquisite and unwearied attention, rolled in the sunshine on the bee-board, and carried or helped into their homes. His testimony is negative, mine is positive.
He concludes his letter by informing us—
"As it is, I am very desirous of making it known to our continental and American friends that these letters [in The Times] do not convey an adequate idea of the amount of knowledge of the subject possessed by British bee-masters."
His letter, he reiterates, was written for the American market. I only hope they will not suppose that his crotchets are the measure of the amount of knowledge possessed or of the affection felt by English bee-masters.
If in his next he will mix a little honey with his ink, and eat a little at breakfast, he will do greater justice to himself.
I am, &c.,
A Bee-master.
Tunbridge Wells.