B. “Bees have only instinct, and were not intended in the beginning to produce their own swarms. They were created for the benefit of man, and if that had been the way swarms were intended to be made, they would be made in conformity with natural laws that govern them, and swarming would always be successfully performed in perfection. Man was given knowledge, by means of which it was intended he should manage his bees in his own way, independent of any will they may have. The penalty for man’s neglect in this respect is the loss of his bees in various ways—such as swarming and departing to parts unknown, loss of queen, extermination by robbing, &c. Man, therefore, endowed with knowledge and judgment, knows more of the management, for his benefit, of the internal parts of the hive, than the bees, with mere instinct, can possibly know.”
Q. “I perceive, sir, that these are the days of our ignorance spoken of in Holy Writ, though I was never able to see it till now. Some of my neighbors, a few years ago, purchased bees which were in common boxes and gums. They brought them home and set them down in a remote corner of the yard or garden, to live or die, as they might or could, with no attention whatever, except when the time came to secure some of their delicious stores, which, with shame I confess, is the practice in all the neighborhood now.”
B. “Your statement is only too true, if indeed the facts are not worse.”
This is a fair specimen of the questions asked by common bee-keepers.
While the inventive genius of the age has given power to water in the form of steam, causing the face of the earth to be alive with machinery and wheels that are almost daily circumscribing its surface at lightning speed—yea, the lightning itself has, as it were, been snatched from the heavens and made to do the bidding of man—yet the bee-hive, till within the last fifteen years, has in a measure remained as it may have been in the garden of Eden. The invention of the frames was the dawn of a new era in bee-keeping, by means of which we have advanced step by step up the hill of science to the present advanced stage, while progression still looms up and fades away in the distance. The mysteries of the hive that remained hidden from the beginning till now, are, many of them, solved and being solved, and all the various causes of the destruction of colonies plainly disclosed. The practical man, properly informing himself, need not lose a hive; while, in the old way, twenty-five per cent, of all the bees kept in the country are lost every year. While we have reached these advances, there are many things yet in embryo, that will be reached by and by—such as the control of fertilization, which enables the bee-keeper to select both queens and drones, and secure the purity of the race we prefer to cultivate. We also expect a forcing-box, hiver, and swarmer, all combined; and means which will enable the bee-keeper to compel a plurality of queens in every colony, without division, in the same apartment.
But I am wandering from my purpose, which was simply to start the inquiry—how shall we reach, and dispense the necessary knowledge among those who still keep their bees in unimproved hives? The State governments should foster bee culture as they foster other agricultural pursuits. Why not have a separate department for bee culture in every State, under the charge of a man qualified to superintend it and diffuse its advantages in the community? In some of the German States the number of hives will average hundreds to the square mile, and that too in soil comparatively sterile. How was this brought about? Simply by encouraging and fostering the business. And cannot the American States produce the same results? Millions of barrels of honey go to waste annually in this country, merely from the want of bees to gather the nectar of flowers. What, say you, bee-keepers of Iowa, shall we not make a united effort to secure the means by which those who have bees in our beautiful State shall be furnished with power (knowledge) to effect the gratifying change? The bees of every hive now in the State, producing ordinarily ten, twenty, or thirty pounds, may be made to produce annually from one hundred to two hundred pounds.
Mr. Gallup will please accept our thanks for his practical and instructive communications in the Journal. Will he not favor us with an article on this subject. Let Iowa be the first to take a stand in favor of promoting bee culture.
J. W. Seay.
Monroe, Iowa.
