Jan. 10. 1901 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



21 



them to see the correct method, and not waste time upon a 

 machine that will be but little, if any, better than the pres- 

 ent knife. Instead of comforming to present usages they 

 should seek in a field where the improvement would be so 

 valuable as to lead the extensive bee-keeper not only to buy 

 queen-excluders but to revolutionize his entire apiary, hives, 

 etc., if necessary. There will be something of a reward for 

 the inventor who will climb to this mark. 



No. II.— Interesting Notes on European Travel. 



BY C. P. DADANT. 



DURING one of the sessions of the International congress 

 of bee-keepers, a French bee-keeper,Mr. Giraud, exhibit- 

 ed a frame containing dipt queen-cells, reared by the 

 Doolittle method. This was a new thing for many present, 

 and I wisht that Mr. Doolittle had been there to take a little 

 of the praise that was bestowed upon this practical demon- 

 • stration of the success of his teachings. Mr. Giraud and 

 his three sons are practical, wide-awake apiarists, and have 

 been for several years readers of an American bee-paper, 

 and it was in this that they found the Doolittle method. 

 They stated that they had reared 314 queens during the 

 season of 1900, in the best one of their colonies, while the 

 queen was laying and the bees working in the customary 

 way. They used an 18-frame hive divided in two by a per- 

 forated zinc, and on the outside of the zinc they kept two 

 frames with the dipt cells between two frames of brood, 

 and kept adding more queen-cells as they removed the ones 

 that were ready to hatch, and which were given to nuclei 

 made by our method. An account of their doings so inter- 

 ested Mr. Calvert that they gave him two photographs of 

 the artificial cell-breeding, and furnisht him with a state- 

 ment iu French that I translated for him. 



On the last day of the congress, the secretary of the 

 committee on Apiarian Statistics made his report on api- 

 culture thruout the world. He had received so voluminous 

 a correspondence from the different countries of Europe, 

 and from America, on this subject, that it was impossible 

 for him to give more than an abridgment of the statistics. 

 But the detailed report will certainly be very interesting, 

 and I hope to be able to give extracts from it to the readers 

 of American Bee Journal whenever the printed report reaches 

 me. I noticed with great pleasure that the report obtained 

 from our own country, sent by the Department of Agricul- 

 ture at Washington, was quite extensive. He also had re- 

 ports from some of the States of South America. 



During the afternoon session of the last day, the con- 

 gress decided to hold its next meeting at Bois-Le-Duc, Hol- 

 land, in 1903, with the same executive committee as for this 

 congress. Messrs. Bonnier, president; Sevalle, vice-presi- 

 dent, and Caillas, secretary. 



That same afternoon, as the business of the congress 

 was about over, and the sky was clear, as it had not been 

 since our arrival at Paris, we ascended to the top of the 

 Eiffel Tower — Mr. Calvert, my daughter, and myself. Go- 

 ing up into a monument a thousand feet high is not a thing 

 of very great interest after one has been on mountains 

 eight or nine thousand feet above sea level, but there is cer- 

 tainly no mountain in the world from which one can see as 

 great a gathering of civilized people, as many mountains, 

 or as many houses. The ascent may be made either in an 

 elevator or by a stairway, but we selected the former with- 

 out hesitancy, for just the looks of the spider-web structure 

 of the stairway was enough to make us dizzy, and it costs 

 just as much to walk as it does to ride. The elevators are 

 large enough to contain som^ 60 persons, and they were 

 full every time. And they are run very smoothly, and start 

 with so slow a motion that one does not at all experience 

 the sensation of falling down into a bottomless pit, as one 

 feels when let down with a jerk from some of Chicago's 

 sky-scrapers. 



From the first platform, 200 feet up, one can view all 

 the monuments of Paris, some 50 or sixty of them being 

 very conspicuous because they loom up above the houses. 

 The H shape of the Exposition grounds also shows itself 

 plainly, and in the background, on one side, the heights of 

 Montmartre, and on another the fortress of Mont Valerian 

 stand in full view above the sea of houses. But when one 

 attains the third platform, at a thousand feet of elevation, 

 everything flattens down — the monuments, the hills, the 

 white ribbon of the Seine, the Bois de Boulogne, the dozens 

 of villages, seem only like a living map. A trip in a baloon 

 would probably give a similar impression. The houses 



make a sea of red tiles, the river is a silver thread, and the 

 parks are green spots here and there. 



Speaking of parks reminds me that I failed to mention 

 my visit to the experimental apiary of the Garden of Lux- 

 embourg. It was a disappointment. The spot is unique, 

 for an apiary in the heart of one of the largest cities in the 

 world. It is a very quiet corner, among the trees, the 

 shrubs and the flowers, in the aristocratic garden of the 

 palace of the French senate, and the bees fly back and forth 

 unmolested and busy. But there are only a few hives, in a 

 rather dilapidated condition, and it is evident that no pains 

 are taken with them. The keeper very kindly permitted us 

 to look at everything. We found half a dozen different prac- 

 tical hives, rotting without occupants, while a half-dozen 

 straw-skeps and two or three odd patents seemed the only 

 experimental feature. I enquired for an observation hive, 

 and he showed me a hive with eight or nine frames with 

 glass all around. What one could observe with such a hive 

 is more than I could say. I was told that lessons in bee- 

 culture were gi\^en every two weeks, in this place, during 

 the summer. I doubt that any experiments of value are 

 ever made there. France can afford something better. 



In the evening of the last day, the apiarists of the con- 

 gress were gathered at a banquet, in one of the restaurants 

 of the exposition grounds, and numerous toasts were offered 

 to the visiting delegates, who returned the compliments as 

 best they could. On leaving, we opened our purses to pay 

 our share, but the secretary, Mr. Caillas, informed us that 

 the foreign delegates were guests, and that their expenses, 

 even to the tips for the waiters had been paid by the man- 

 agement. 



The following days two excursions were arranged, with 

 special trains for the delegates to visit the apiaries of two 

 of the members, all expenses paid by the association, and I 

 regretted very much that I could not take advantag'e of 

 this; but my time was limited, and I had to leave Paris that 

 very same day. 



if the Europeans are behind us in the matter of con- 

 venience of railroad cars, they are certainly ahead of us in 

 securing cheap transportation. If I remember rightly, the 

 amount paid by the association for these two excursions 

 was less than a cent per mile, per person. Perhaps we will 

 also get cheap travel here by-and-by, but in the meantime 

 we need not be afraid of the cost of traveling in Europe, af- 

 ter we are accustomed to travel in this country. But I 

 earnestly hope that we are not going to take the habit of 

 "tipping" the waiters and servants as they do over there. 

 It is sickening. You eat dinner — tip. You ride half a mile 

 and discharge the cabman, pay — and — tip. You go to the 

 theater, buy your ticket, and tip the ushers. You leave the 

 hotel, tip the servants, the boot-black, the chamber-maid, 

 the porter. Tip, tip, tip. Luckily they do not expect sil- 

 ver in every case, and this is the principal use of coppers. 

 Two cents, three cents, make a very passable tip. If you 

 give a dime, you get a smile. If you give a quarter, you 

 get a fine bow. But if you give nothing, you had best not 

 look behind, for a look of contempt will follow you till yott 

 are out of sight. 



" The Hum of the Bees in the Apple-Tree Bloom " is 

 the name of the finest bee-keeper's song — words by Hon. 

 Eugene Secor and music by Dr. C. C. Miller. This is 

 thought by some to be the best bee-song yet written by Mr. 

 Secor and Dr. Miller. It is, indeed, a " hummer." We can 

 furnish a single copy of it postpaid, for 10 cents, or 3 copies 

 for 25 cents. Or, we will mail a half-dozen copies of it for 

 sending us otie new yearly subscription to the American 

 Bee Journal at Sl.OO. 



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Our Wood Binder (or Holder) is made to take all the 

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 thus preserved for future reference. Upon receipt of $1.00 

 for your Bee Journal subscription a full year tn adi'ance, 

 we will mail you a Wood Binder free — if you will mention it. 



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



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

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 subscriptions, for which work we offer valuable premiums 

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

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