HERR DOLLINGER asks
a question about the honey comb. There are people who eat
the wax as well as the honey, and in restaurants they used at
times to serve honey in the comb. He would like to know if it was
a bad thing to eat the comb.
As
to the diseases of bees, he thinks these could not formerly have
been as bad as they are today when the bees are over-exploited.
HERR MÜLLER said
that eating comb-honey was an idiosyncrasy with some people.
Naturally, these are the natural combs and not artificial ones.
He does not think that bee diseases are the result of
exploitation, but that formerly they were less considered. In
those days there were not so many weak stocks and so one was not
so much on the look out for them. A disease had appeared in
Switzerland from England which had not been known in the past.
Herr Erbsmehl thinks this may perhaps be owing to the use of
artificial manures, even the flowers sicken as the result of
this.
DR.
STEINER:
With
regard to these two points, one might say it is quite true that
the eating of honey-comb is a fancy with some people; the real
question is whether it is good for them, and this can,
unfortunately only be answered medically. It is only possible to
answer this question when one is really able to observe these
people who eat the honey-comb, thus the wax, from the point of
view of their state of health. I have seen various people who eat
the comb, but they always spat it out when they had sucked out
the honey. I have not so far come across people who eat any
considerable quantity of wax. One should take into consideration
that people digest in very different ways, not everyone in the
same way. There may be people who would get some kind of gastric
trouble simply by eating the wax, and such persons should be
advised not to take it. But there can also be people who are able
to digest the wax without any trouble and get rid of the residue
by excretion. With regard to these people one could certainly say
that because they eat the wax with the honey,
(thus leaving the honey as long as possible still in connection
with the wax which has entered the body), the honey is digested
more in the intestines, whereas otherwise it is
not digested till it has left the intestines and has passed into
the lymphatic vessels. It is a question of the state of health of
the person concerned. There are people who digest more in the
intestines, and others more in the lymphatic vessels; one cannot
say that one way is better than the other, for one is just as
good as the other. It depends on the individual. One could only
speak with certainty if one took a number of people who eat honey
in the comb, and others who eat it without the comb, and then
investigated how these two matters are related.
With
regard to bee-diseases the question is, as is usual in disease,
namely, that we must take into account what Herr Müller has
just said. It is so even with human beings that certain things
were not much noticed formerly, whereas today they are most
carefully studied. But here something essentially different comes
in question. The bee-keeper of the past had really many good
instincts: he did many things without being able to say just why
he did them. Today these instincts no longer exist. Today people
always want to know the reason why. To determine this why it
is, however, necessary to study the whole matter very
fundamentally. Modern knowledge is not as a rule in a position to
do this.
You
see, the bee-keeper of old had very good instincts as how to
treat the bees, I should like to say, in quite a personal manner.
For instance, you should consider that there is already a
considerable difference between giving the bees the old straw
skeps as in former days, and giving them wooden hives as one does
today. Box-hives are made of wood, and wood is an entirely
different substance to the straw of which the old skeps were
made. Straw attracts quite other substances from the air than
does wood, so we have already a difference in the external
handling. When I add to this all the bee-keeper did in former
times, and above all, the strong instincts he had to do them even
if he did not always know the reason why, he would, for example,
place his bee-hives on some chosen spot, where the wind would
blow more often from one quarter or another, and so on. Today one
sets the bee-hives wherever there is room for them, from reasons
of convenience. The climatic elements are still considered, but
no longer to the same degree.
HERR MÜLLER stated
that he pays great attention to this; he places his hives on a
ridge where they are sheltered from the north wind and the east
wind, and so on.
DR.
STEINER:
In
such matters wood is less sensitive than straw. I have no
intention of agitating in favour of straw skeps; nevertheless
differences do exist, and just such things as these certainly,
very definitely, affect the bees with regard to their inner
activities. A tremendous activity goes on in the body of the bee
when it must first gather the nectar from the plants, and in
absorbing it, transforms it. This is really an immense work. How
does the bee accomplish it? It is accomplished through the quite
special relationship between the two different fluids in the bee.
One of these is the gastric juices and the other the blood-fluid.
When you study the bee you find the whitish gastric juice and the
reddish sap of the blood; these are the two main elements of
which the bee is constituted, and all the other parts are
arranged according to the workings of the gastric juice and the
blood. The main point then is this definite proportion between
these two fluids; they differ very considerably in themselves.
The gastric juice is what one calls acid in chemistry, and the
blood sap is chemically called alkaline, which means that it is
not acid though it can be made so; in itself it is however, not
acid. When the pepsin is insufficiently acid, something takes
place within the bee which greatly disturbs its inner organism in
the honey-producing process. The blood sap is only kept
sufficiently strong when the necessary climatic conditions of
light and warmth, etc., are present.
It
will therefore be very important to take the right means of
establishing the proper balance between the gastric fluid and the
blood if one is to overcome the many diseases which have recently
appeared among the bees. As bee-keeping can no longer be carried
on as in past days, it is no longer possible to arrive at
preventive methods through climatic conditions of warmth, etc.,
for these are no longer able to work so effectively upon the
stocks of bees today; one will have to discover what will be able
to work most favourably on the blood sap of the bee. It will be
necessary in the future that bee-keepers take special care that
the blood sap of the bee is rightly provided for. The following
is important: you all know that there are years when the bees are
obliged to get nectar almost exclusively from trees. In such
seasons the composition of the blood sap is endangered, and the
bees are much more liable to disease than at other times. It will
be necessary in the future that the bee-keeper even contrives a
small green-house — it need not be a large one — in
which he can cultivate those plants which the bees not only like,
but must have at certain times of the year. It will be necessary
to have at least some small plot of flowers for the bees
especially, for instance in the month of May. They will not fail
to discover them for themselves whenever the plants they need
have failed elsewhere. By this special cultivation of the
necessary plants in the neighbourhood of the hives it will be
possible to combat these diseases. These are methods I can
recommend; I am giving only indications, but they will most
certainly prove satisfactory for they are derived from a
knowledge of bee-keeping, If they are put to the test you will
find that one day they will bear very good fruit for the
bee-keeper, for he will find that the diseases of bees can be
prevented by these means. But if one is to proceed in a practical
way all the connections mentioned above must be taken into
account. I have no wish to make assertions; I only wish to say
that these things arise out of the whole nature of the bees, and
that it would be well to make experiments with especially
cultivated plants in seasons when those most needed have failed,
either partially or altogether. It should be possible in this way
to considerably improve the health of the bees. I am myself quite
convinced that these methods will prove successful when one is
able to enter once again into these questions with a true
understanding of nature. You see, it is not possible to go back
to the old methods of bee-keeping. Just as little as there is any
need to be reactionary in the realms of politics, or of life, is
there any necessity to be a reactionary in any other domain. One
must move with the times; but what really matters is that while
we leave the old methods we are careful to balance this by
something which will replace what we have lost. This is
essential.
HERR MÜLLER stated
that bee-keepers were already working in the direction of the
special cultivation of certain plants. For example, the yellow
crocus, which is grown in large quantities for the bees; other
plants were cultivated also with similar small yellow blossoms.
Indeed, more than this, for a large amount of American clover is
now planted; a clover which grows six feet in height and flowers
the whole year round. It is cut only in the autumn; till then the
blossom is left for the bees. This might also be necessary
perhaps?
DR.
STEINER:
Certainly,
such things are no doubt done, but as a rule the right
connections are not known. What Herr Müller had mentioned at
first, was excellent and should be continued, but with regard to
the American clover that flowers all the year round, this will in
future be avoided, for this plant cannot bring about any
improvement at all in the blood-sap of the bees; it acts only as
a stimulant, and for a very short time. It is very much the same
as trying to cure a man with alcohol, the bees are stimulated to
more activity for a certain time. The very greatest care should
really be taken today not to grow plants for the bees that are
totally foreign to them; bees in their whole organic nature are
bound up with a particular country. This is very evident, for the
bees from different parts of the world differ widely from one
another. There is, for instance, the mid-European bee already
referred to here, the common domestic bee. The Italian bee again
is quite unlike the Spanish bee, and so on. Bees are most
strongly bound by their habits to their native country, and one
cannot help them in any real way by giving them the nectar or
honey belonging to entirely different countries. They have then,
so much work to do in their own bodies that there are great
disturbances there; the bees are forced to try and adapt
themselves, to make their organisation as much as possible like
that of the bees over there, in those countries where the clover
comes from. Hard facts will prove in time that though such
methods may appear successful for a few years, disastrous results
will follow. It is quite true as has been said, that so far there
are no definite indications of this, but it will none the less
occur, and then people must abandon all such methods, or continue
them as was done in the case of the vines. You will remember that
in the seventies or eighties, phyloxera appeared and is
destroying the vineyards of Europe, over immense areas. At the
time I was able to study this matter, as I had a very good friend
who was a farmer, and who also edited an agricultural paper, and
gave much attention to this whole problem. People began to wonder
why the American vine appeared immune to this disease. But what
did it all amount to? It amounted to this, that the remedies by
which the disease could be got rid of with the American vine,
could not be used with the same result on the European vine. The
consequence was, that even when everyone began to cultivate the
American vine, they could succeed in keeping it in health,
whereas the European vines died out. The cultivation of the
European vine had to be given up altogether; the whole
cultivation of the vineyards was Americanised, and everything has
been completely changed. This has happened in many places. To
think in this mechanical manner is valueless; one must be quite
clear that things through their whole nature may be bound up with
definite localities, and this fact must be taken into account.
Otherwise though some temporary success may follow, it cannot be
permanent.
Are
there any other questions you would like to ask? Or are all you
gentlemen content to eat honey without so much discussion about
it? Perhaps some question may occur to one or another of you.
Meanwhile,
I should like to say something quite briefly about the nature of
this honey-making process of the bees. It is something so really
wonderful that there should be these tiny little creatures that
are able to transform what they have gathered from the flowers or
plants in general, into the honey which is so health-giving, and
which should really play a far greater part in the nourishment of
men and women today. It is not realised how important the
consumption of honey actually is. For example, if it were
possible to influence the social medicine of today, it would be
discovered that if people about to be married would eat honey as
a preparation for the future, they would not have rickety
children. Honey when assimilated can affect the reproductive
processes, and greatly influence the building up of the body of
the child. The consumption of honey by the parents, and above all
by the prospective mother, works especially into the bony
structure of the child. Results such as this will appear when
these questions are considered in their essential aspects. In the
place of the trivialities put forward in scientific journals
today, it will be asked, when once we have some real knowledge of
these things: “What is it best to eat at this or that time
of life?” “What is best at another time of life?”
Indeed, gentlemen, this will be of immense value, for the general
state of health will then essentially improve, and more
especially will this affect a man's vitality. Today people attach
very little value to such matters. Those whose children do not
suffer from rickets are naturally very pleased, but they do not
think very much about it, it is taken as a matter of course. Only
those complain whose children are born with rickets. It is just
in the case of such most valuable social and medical methods that
people remain indifferent, for it is generally taken for granted
that such measures are concerned merely with what they regard as
a normal condition. They have first to be persuaded that this is
not the case. It should, however, be recognised that extremely
favourable results would appear in this direction, and I am sure
that if it could in this way be realised that through spiritual
science it is possible to arrive at such conclusions, people
would begin to look towards the things of the spirit. They would
do this to a far greater extent than at present, when they are
only told to pray that this or that may happen. Truly, gentlemen,
these things which can be learnt by the spirit, and which modern
science ignores, are such that one is able to know that during
the times of betrothal and pregnancy, honey can be of inestimable
value.
I
have just said that it is a most wonderful thing that the bee
should be able to gather substances from the storehouse of nature
and then transform them into this honey which is of so great
value to human life. You will best understand on what the origin
of honey actually rests if I describe to you the sane process in
the quite different form in which it appears in those relatives
of the bees, if I may call them so, the wasps.
The
wasps do not provide man with honey, but they prepare a substance
that can be made use of medicinally, though of a very different
kind to that prepared for us by the bees. In the next lecture I
will also speak about the ants, but first, will we consider a
certain species of wasp. There are wasps that have the
peculiarity that they do not deposit their eggs at random, but
place them on plants or on the leaves or bark of trees, even into
the blossoms of trees. [Drawing on the blackboard.] Here for
example is the branch, here an oak-leaf, and the wasp with its
ovipositor which is hollow, (the sting would be here) lays its
egg in the oak-leaf, or in some other part of a plant. What then
happens? Where the egg has been placed the whole surrounding
tissue of the leaf is changed; the leaf would have been quite
different if the egg had not been laid there. Very good, let us
now see what has happened.
The
whole growth of the plant has been affected, and protruding from
the leaf, entirely surrounding the little wasp-egg, we find the
so-called gall-nut or gall-apple, those little brownish coloured
nuts or apples so often seen on trees. They are there because a
wasp deposited an egg at this spot, and all round the egg there
is this metamorphosed plant-substance which entirely envelops it.
The wasp egg would perish if it were laid in any other place; it
can only exist and develop because this protective substance
encloses it which the gall-wasp steals from the plant. The wasp
robs the plant of this substance. You see, the bee lays its egg
in the cells of the comb; the larvae develop and emerge as bees,
which in their turn steal the substance of the plant, and
elaborate it within themselves. The wasp does this at an earlier
stage, for in the depositing of the egg the wasp already takes
from the plant the substance it needs. The bee, as it were, waits
a little longer, the wasp does it earlier. In the case of the
higher animals, and with man, the egg is already surrounded with
a protecting sheath within the body of the mother. In this
instance what the wasp has to take from the plant is provided by
the mother. This gall-nut is simply built up from the substance
of the plant, just as the chorion is formed as a sheath round the
egg in the body of the mother, and is ejected later with the
after-birth. You see how close is the relationship between the
wasp and the plant. In districts especially rich in wasps one can
find trees almost entirely covered with these galls. The wasp
lives with the trees; it depends on them, for its eggs would
never develop if it could not procure this protective covering
from the different trees or plants. These galls have very many
and various forms, there are some which do not look like small
apples, but are interwoven and hairy, but everywhere the small
germ of the wasp is in the centre. At times these galls look like
shaggy little nuts. We see how close is the relationship between
the wasps and the plants with which they share their existence.
When
the wasp has matured, it eats its way with its sharp jaws out of
the gall-nut, and emerges as a wasp, and after a period of living
in the outer world lays its eggs on a leaf or the bark of a tree;
the egg and larval stages are always passed through as a living
together with the plants.
Well,
gentlemen, you may perhaps say — what has all this to do
with the production of honey? It has actually a great deal to do
with it, for when such things are observed in the right way one
learns to know how the honey was first prepared in nature, and we
find once more an instance of how the instinctive knowledge of
the people in older times took these things into account.
Perhaps
some of you know that in the south, and more especially in
Greece, the cultivation of fig trees is of much importance. These
are the so-called wild figs which are certainly rather sweet, but
there are people with a still sweeter tooth, who wish to have fig
trees that bear still sweeter figs than those of
the wild trees. What do these people do?
Now
just imagine you have a wild fig tree; this wild fig tree is a
special favourite with a certain kind of wasp which lays its eggs
upon it. Let us picture this tree, and on its branches a wild fig
into which the wasp inserts its egg. Now the grower of the figs
is in his way a clever fellow; he lets the wasps lay their eggs
in the wild figs which he cultivates just for this very purpose.
Later this fellow gathers two of these figs, just at the moment
when the wasp eggs are not quite fully developed, when the wasps
are not yet ready to creep out, and he takes a reed and ties the
two figs together so that they are held firmly. And now he goes
to a fig tree that he wants to improve, and he hangs the two figs
he has tied together, and within which are the eggs of the wasp
not yet fully developed, and binds them on to the fig-tree which
he wishes to sweeten. And now the following happens: the wasps
within the figs feel that something has happened, for the figs
which were gathered now begin to dry up, for they are no longer
supplied with the sap of the tree, and get very dry. The immature
wasp inside senses this, even the egg is aware of it, and the
result is that the wasp is in a terrible hurry to come out of the
fig. The grower always starts this process in the spring; he
first lets the wasp lay its eggs, and in the month of May he
quickly gathers the two figs and carries out his plan. The little
creature inside thinks, now I must hurry up, now the time has
come when the figs dry up. In a terrible hurry the wasp emerges
much earlier than it would otherwise have done. If the fig had
remained where it was before, it would only have crept out in the
late summer; now it must creep out in the early summer with the
result that there is a second brood. It lays eggs in the summer
which would otherwise have been laid in the following spring. Now
these late eggs which are deposited on the tree that is to be
further cultivated, do not reach full maturity, they only develop
to a certain stage. The result of this is, that those figs into
which the second brood has been placed become twice as sweet as
the wild figs. This is the method of improving the figs, of
making them twice as sweet.
What
has actually happened here? The wasps, which though they differ
from the bees are yet related to them, the wasps take just that
substance from the plant which is on the way to become honey. If
in the clever way of the cultivator of the fig trees, the figs of
the wild tree containing the eggs of the wasp are thrown up and
tied so that they remain hanging up there, and if one then is
clever enough to induce the wasps to weave again into the tree
what they have taken from the other tree, then honey in the form
of sweetness is, as it were, filtered into these grafted
fig-trees; it enters into the figs in the form of sweetness
because the wasps have prepared it in an extremely fine state of
dilution; Nature itself has brought it about in an indirect way.
You
see, gentlemen, nothing has been taken away from Nature, the
essence of the honey remains within Nature. The wasp cannot
prepare the honey in the way the bee does, for its organisation
is not adapted to this. But when, by this by-path, it is
compelled during the stages of its growth, to carry the sweetness
of the honey from one fig-tree to another, the sweetness of the
grafted figs can be increased; a kind of honey-substance is then
within them.
You
see, gentlemen, we arrive here at something very interesting. It
seems that these wasps have a body which is unable to gather the
nectar, the honey-substance from Nature, and transform it into
honey within itself. But man can bring it about that from one
fig-tree to another a kind of honey-making takes place. The bee
is therefore a creature that develops a wasp-like body so much
further that it is able to accomplish this quite apart from the
trees; in the case of the wasp the process must be left within
the tree itself. So we must say: the bee retains within itself
more of that force which the wasp only possesses at a very young
stage, as long, that is, as it is in the egg, or larval state.
When the wasp develops further it loses the power of producing
honey; the bee retains it and can make use of it as a
fully matured creature.
Just
think, gentlemen, what it signifies that one can in this way look
into Nature's processes, and can say to oneself: within the
plants there is concealed this honey, this substance that tends
towards sugar-sweetness. It is there; it shows itself, if only
one follows the right path; one has only to assist Nature by
seeing that the wasp comes at the right moment to the tree that
is to be improved.
Here,
in our country such things cannot be done, it is no longer
possible today. There was once a time in the evolution of the
earth when from the wasps, which as long as 2,000 years ago, and
indeed, still today, could be persuaded by some clever fellow to
produce a second brood as I have described. These wasps crept out
and were given the opportunity of laying their eggs in the figs,
which were then again and again gathered. Thus, in the course of
time, it was possible that bees could be developed from these
wasps.
The
bee is a creature which in very ancient times was developed from
the wasp. Today one can still see that it is by
means of an animal activity, namely that of the
wasps, that honey is first prepared in the realms of nature.
So
now, you can also understand how closely related to this is the
fact that the bees place their honey in the cells of the
honey-comb. This comb consists mainly of wax, and wax is not only
necessary in order that the bees may deposit their honey there,
for the bee can only produce honey when its whole organism is
active in the right way. It must therefore secrete wax.
The
second fig tree in which sweetness arises of itself, is also
richer in wax than the wild tree. It differs especially from the
wild tree in that it is richer in wax. Nature has herself
increased the wax so that the cultivated figs, the sweetened
figs, grow on a tree which in a certain way, Nature has made
richer in wax.
You
can already see here a model, as it were, for what appears in
bee-keeping.
If
you now go to work very carefully, and make a cross-section from
the trunk of the cultivated fig tree, you will find, if you look
carefully, patterns just like the wax cells of the comb. Within
the tree-trunk you find certain growths similar to the honey
cells, formed from the precipitated wax of the tree. The tree
that is richer in wax uses it in a kind of honey-cell formation.
So
we can say: when we study this special cultivation of the fig
trees we discover a kind of honey production in Nature that has
not yet appeared openly, for the honey remains within the figs.
The bees, if I may so express it, bring out into the open what
remains still within Nature in the sweetened figs. Thus, what
would otherwise have remained within the tree-trunk, forming
there these natural cells, which are only less definite, less
substantial than the bee cells, and fade away again, this whole
wax and honey-making process is driven up into the figs, so that
Nature is herself a bee-keeper. The bees have drawn it forth from
Nature and have these processes within themselves.
What
does the bee then do? The bee deposits its eggs within the hive,
and the egg matures there. It does not need to change the
substance into a gall-apple, it takes the nectar directly from
the plants, neither does the bee need to go to the tree that is
richer in wax, for she accomplishes in herself what takes place
in the tree-trunk, and deposits in the comb the juices of the
plant which she transforms into honey, which in the case of the
cultivated tree, remains in the juices of the fig. One can say
that what in Nature lies concealed in the tree through the wasps,
now happens outwardly, and it becomes clear what it really is
that we have before us, when we look into the hive with its
marvellously built comb of waxen cells. It is indeed, gentlemen,
a wonderful sight, is it not Herr Müller? A wonderful sight
is the artistic construction of these waxen cells with the honey
within them.
You
have only to look at it gentlemen, and you will say to yourselves
— the bees with their waxen combs really show us a kind of
artistically formed tree-trunk with its many branches. The bee
does not need to go to the tree to lay her eggs there, but they
build for themselves a kind of picture of a tree, and in the
place of the figs growing there, she puts honey into the finished
cells. We find, as it were, a copy of the artificially cultivated
fig tree which the bees have made.
Truly,
gentlemen, this is to look into the very heart of Nature, and
realise what can be learnt from her. Men have yet to learn much
from Nature, but for this they must first learn to recognise the
spiritual in Nature. Without this recognition of the spirit in
Nature, one merely stands and gapes, and should one journey to
the south and see how those clever fellows there tie the figs
together, the figs pierced by the wasps, and throw then up into
the trees and bind and fix them there we shall gape as tourists
do, even when they are scientific gentlemen, and not know what to
make of it, They do not know that he saves the bees their labour,
for Nature will put the honey into the figs for him.
In
those countries where figs are plentiful, they are as
health-giving as honey, for it is honey at an earlier stage of
development that is already in the figs. You
see, these are things which we ought to know if we are to discuss
a matter of such importance as bee-keeping. I believe that by
such means we shall in time arrive at points of view of true
value.
Thanks
to the Rudolf Steiner Archive
Continued
in the next issue of SCR
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