. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. 1918 AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 317 little, have become accustomed to reading not only in your delightful book but in your cor- respondence in Gleanings and the American Bee Journal, your characteristic "I don't know," and also your little joke, "I don't know enough to answer," but you do not fool us any; if you do not know, who does? My opinion is that you probably know as much about bees as any man could who is no older than vou are and has devoted practically his whole "life to the study; but as a man of high inteligence, you are
. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. 1918 AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 317 little, have become accustomed to reading not only in your delightful book but in your cor- respondence in Gleanings and the American Bee Journal, your characteristic "I don't know," and also your little joke, "I don't know enough to answer," but you do not fool us any; if you do not know, who does? My opinion is that you probably know as much about bees as any man could who is no older than vou are and has devoted practically his whole "life to the study; but as a man of high inteligence, you are only resorting to these harmless subterfuges in the knowledge that some of the works of old man Nature are be- yond human understanding. For instance, we are led to believe by all writers that certain bees function in certain things at certain times. The "books" say young bees build comb, feed young larva?, do sentry work, etc., and goes on and says that they change and relieve each other at times. I shall not be simple enough to ask you why at certain times or what is the ruling spirit of a colony of bees—in short, who is the "boss," and what prompts these "insects with small in- telligence" to do these things so methodically, but I would like to know just the same. In my small way I have found out, however, that they will often do the unexpected, and that "Old Man Experience" is about the best cri- terian to go by, and sometimes he fails. W. E. MEANS. Answer.—The story of your experiences, which you call "a long drawn out introduc- tion," is very interesting, and I'm glad you gave it. If your question about workers being produced from the eggs of laying workers had been asked before the appearance of the Au- gust American Bee Journal, I should have re- plied that in no case do anything but drones proceed from the eggs of laying workers; but that if by any means laying workers should get into the business of rearing worker
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubjectbees, bookyear1861
