Oct. 13, 1^04, 



THE AMERlCAiN BEE JOURNAL. 



697 



Conducted by Emma M. Wilson, Marengo, III. 



Bee-Smoker With a Weak Spring. 



A smoker forms a very important part of a bee-keeper's 

 outfit. It is one of the very first things he buys after get- 

 ting, his bees. It is in almost constant use when at work in 

 the apiary. So it is a matter of no small importance in 

 deciding as to which smoker to get. In any case it ought 

 to be one that can be used with the least labor possible. 



Personally, I like a smoker with a very weak spring, so 

 weak that perhaps most people would not like it at all I and 

 for that reason I have held on to the same smoker year after 

 year, although it is a most disreputable looking affair, 

 coated with bee-glue, and smells a good deal like an old 

 pipe that has been used many a long day. So you see it is 

 not for its beauty that I have such an affection for it, but 

 for the good that it has done, and can still do, for many an 

 arm-ache has that same smoker saved me. 



If you have never tried using one with a very weak 

 spring, just try one and then trj- one with a strong spring, 

 and note the difference. When one spends almost the en- 

 tire time in the apiary, and uses a smoker so much of the 

 time, I believe that most of the sisters will agree with me 

 that a weak spring will be a very important factor in the 

 saving of fatigue in a heavy day's work. 



What is a spring for ? Just to throw the bellows open, 

 and to have enough force remaining to resist the pressure 

 of the fingers so that the bellows will not slip out of the 

 hand. Xow, if the spring' is strong enough so that it re- 

 quires just a pound more force than is needed for this, you 

 will readily see that there is just so much strength wasted. 



Some people that have tried my smoker, not being used 

 to such a weak spring, wonder why it does not slip out of 

 my fingers ; but it never bothers me in the least in that 

 way, neither do I think it would them if they were actually 

 to use it ; but they are so used to the stiff spring that they 

 imagine it would. 



If you order a smoker without specifying, you'll get one 

 that will make you lame after a day's work ; but insist upon 

 a very light spring, and perhaps you may get it. 



Bee-Keeping for Women in Newspapers. 



The experienced bee-keeper is always on the alert to 

 learn something new, eager for information from any 

 source, but there is one sort of literature that he always 

 reads with interest without any expectation of gaining in- 

 formation. It is that obtained from the daily papers, and 

 to a greater or less extent from the agricultural papers. 

 Some of it would fit well in a comic almanac ; and the bee- 

 keeper reads it with the expectation of being amused at the 

 absurd things written — generally without being disap- 

 pointed. 



Some writer for a daily thinks it would be an interest- 

 ing thing to write about bees, and he — perhaps oftener 

 she — concludes it is best to be fully informed on the subject, 

 so she goes directly to the scene of action, visits the apiary 

 of a successful bee-keeper, asks questions which are cheer- 

 fully answered, and after that half day's visit has obtained 

 the sum of all wisdom about bees, and is ready to tell the 

 dear public all about it. 



An instance is to hand in a late Chicago daily. It is 

 written by Cora Roche Howland, who may be a very esti- 

 mable lady, but it would be well for her to learn that before 

 any writer attacks the subject of bee-keeping, she needs not 

 only a day, but many days, of observation and study to 

 make sure that none of her statements may be classed 

 among the ridiculous. 



The article is headed, " Bee-Keeping Best Suited to 

 Women ". That heading ma^- have been part and parcel of 

 the article, or it may have been conceived by the editor of 

 the daily. In either case, the ground for it seems to b. in 

 the following paragraph : 



••In the nature of things, bee-keeping is woman's work. Ic the 

 hive the womenfolk are the whole thing. Upon the health o: ; i;e 



queen-bee the prosperity of the colony depends. The working bees, 

 according to the naturalist, are undeveloped females. The queen^s 

 fat and lazy consort lives merely to die for his queen, and all his 

 brother drones, the unsuccessful suitors, are tolerated by her faithful 

 subjects only so long as they are needed, and then are pierced to death 

 by the poisoned javelins of a horde of angry amazons." 



That's original, to say the least, for whatever reasons 

 have been given as to bee-keeping being suited to women, 

 it has not before been urged that bee-keeping was espe- 

 cially a female business because worker-bees were females. 

 By the same reasoning the dairy business, including milk- 

 ing and feeding the cattle, should be turned over to women, 

 because cows are of the female persuasion. 



But how about the drones being " pierced to death by 

 the poisoned javelins of a horde of angry amazons"? 

 Farther on the writer says, " At a given signal they die, 

 massacred by the virgin workers". What is that signal ? 

 and who gives it ? And if there is such a general massacre, 

 who has seen it ? Did any one ever see workers by the 

 dozen stinging the drones, or did they merely see a few 

 workers driving the drones and making feints at stinging? 



•• At swarming time occasionally a swarm hangs so high on a tree 

 that she has to mount a ladder to reach it. But the task is an inter- 

 esting one. Grasping the bough from which the swarm depends, she 

 shakes the bees down into an inverted hive. If they do not go readily 

 she pushes them with her hands or with a big ladle. There is small 

 likelihood of stings, for the bees are full of honey and good natured. 

 They will follow their queen submissively." 



Did any of you sisters ever mount a ladder and shake a 

 swarm into a hive turned upside down ? And did the bees 

 go right down into that inverted hive ? and did the queen 

 go down first and all the rest "follow their queen sub- 

 missively "? 



Just one more interesting item : 



••The intelligence with which a bee accommodates itself to cir- 

 cumstances certainly seems human. It you interrupt her in her work 

 by contracting her hive, she will contract the size of her cells." 



So if you want cells of a little smaller size, all you have 

 to do is to give a little less room. 



There are some nice people among newspaper writers, 

 but they should learn that one can't cram in a day so as to 

 write intelligently about the little busy bee. 



Bicycles for Out-Apiarles. 



Replying to the charge that when a man has gone to an 

 out-apiary on a bicycle, he has already done a day's work 

 before reaching the apiary. Editor Root, in Gleanings in 

 Bee-Culture, thus comes to the defense of the bicycle ; 



This is not according to my experience, and I therefore 

 judge that the correspondent in question had never ridden 

 a bicycle enough to toughen his muscles to the point where 

 riding is a real pleasure rather than a wearisome exertion. 

 I have ridden repeatedly to our out-yards on a bicycle, and 

 have done a good day's work on arriving at the yard. I 

 have sometimes been very tired from working in the yard, 

 feeling as if I could not drag my feet around any more, 

 when, presto I as I got on my machine a new set of muscles 

 were brought into play in a different way ; and on arriving 

 home it is an actual fact that I felt refreshed and rested. 

 Why don't I go to out-yards now on a bicycle? Because the 

 automobile is quicker, and enables me at the same time to 

 carry along extra stuff. 



Please send us Names of Bee-Keepers who do not now 



get the American Bee Journal, and we will send them sam- 

 ple copies. Then you can very likely afterward get them 

 subscriptions, for which work we offer valuable premiums 

 in nearly every number of this journal. You can aid much 

 by sending in the names and addresses when writing us on 

 other matters. 



