May 16, 1901. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



315 



■were not omitted in my visitations and sojourns. It is g-ood 

 to see how the other folks live. It is good to share with 

 them their crusts, and break doughnuts with them in good- 

 fellowship. I wish all our Carnegies, Vanderbilts, etc., 

 could have taught school and have " boarded around " in 

 the early, impressive years of their lives. It would cer- 

 tainly have wakened in them a real heart-sympathy for the 

 hosts of poor people that would later be associated with 

 them. 



As I sat in all these homes, about the evening candle — 

 those were still the candle days in the country homes : or, 

 as we enjoyed the evening meal, or sat at the early break- 

 fast, served usually by candle-light, and usually before six 

 o'clock, I had good opportunity to study manners, and to 

 note the words and address of my pupils in the close inti- 

 macies of their homes. 



One morning, in my opening talk at the school, I es- 

 sayed to inspire the pupils with more deference and cour- 

 tesy in their associations with each other, and especially in 

 the home. I was quite specific in urging them to politeness 

 in the home, and at that best of places — about the home- 

 table. I thought they seemed impressed, and that my ex- 

 amples of proper and improper address and phrase would 

 sink deeply in their memories, and bear fruit in a better 

 habit and manners in the homes and about the home meals. 



That night we had hardly taken our seats at the supper- 

 table, before one of the boys, in a large family of children, 

 piped out in emphatic tones — "Dad butter I" I wondered if 

 all my good advice and suggestions had taken as shallow 

 root as in this case. 



A lady said to me a few days agone, " How can we keep 

 our children from slang ?" I rejoice that mothers wish to. 

 A flower, a mountain, a woodland, not only pleases the eye, 

 it elevates the taste, and purifies the life. Ugly sights in- 

 fluence in just the reverse waj-. Happy the child who is 

 only familiar with beautiful scenes, and lovely pictures of 

 life and environment. Words are like pictures, they make 

 or mar the taste, refinement, and the life. I have so often 

 blessed God that I never heard a profane word, a vulgar 

 phrase, and hardly a byword from my father's lips. I have 

 three children ; I think their language is so clean and pure 

 that it would grace any company, and would never be 

 criticised. 



We parents wish so earnestly that our children should 

 use only good words. We have the matter largely, if not 

 entirely, in our own hands. First and best, we must be 

 " living epistles." If we occupy the place every parent 

 ought to hold in the minds and hearts of our loved ones, 

 what we say, or do not say, will tell tremendously to fix 

 their habits of speech. Example is our best weapon in this 

 warfare. 



Again, we must so interest ourselves in our children — 

 be so one with them that our advice will always tell. Let 

 us advise that bj'words and slang, sarcasm and abrupt and 

 discourteous phrases, be never heard ifi the home, or used 

 by the children. " Dad butter " may get the unctuous 

 solid, but I am sure it will not taste as good as if it came 

 with, "Father, will you please pass the butter?" Home 

 courtesy, and everything that makes toward it, is a rich 

 adornment in every household. 



When I left home for college my blessed mother said to 

 me — her arms encircled my neck, her tears enriched the 

 words, and a blessed kiss was her seal — " I am glad to know 

 that no word, phrase or story will you utter that you would 

 not be willing that your mother should hear." I am so 

 glad my mother said it. I believe my college life did not 

 disappoint her. How I rejoice that it did not. 



To paraphrase : " A word fitly spoken is like apples of 

 gold in pictures of silver." I hope none of our " home 

 circles " will be marred by any other. 



" 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 one new yearly subscription to the American 

 Bee Journal at $1.00. 



The Premiums offered this week are well worth work- 

 ing' for. Look at them. 



i(*4siiiavfev*ij!V*iJ<v*iJ^*iJ'V*iav>!iJ*o*j*K*i.;< 



^ The Afterthought. 



■?K 



The "Old Reliable" seen through New and Unreliable Glasses. 

 By E. E. HASTY, Sta. B Rural, Toledo, O. 



THE UNCAPPING FORK. 



If the implement known as the uncapping fork has befin 

 in use 2<) years, and has occupied all that tiuie in getting itself 

 heard of on this side of the world— welt, one would say it can 

 hardly be of very great value. Perhaps that's not the way to 

 look at things, however. At any rate the slowness of truth 

 when chasing a popular falsehood seems to have found its 

 match. This is anent those pictures furnished by Mr. Griener, 

 on page 215. All tools for uncapping, one would say, which 

 operate like a garden-rake, and draw all they get hold of in 

 front of them, must manifestly be self-clogging and too slow 

 for general business. 



THE UNCAPPING ROLLER. 



How about that roller full of fine prickers to puncture the 

 cappings instead of removing them ? Can it be depended on 

 to let go of the cappings ? The prickers must be near 

 together else some of the cells will be missed; and if near 

 together will it not, first you know, pull off small patches of 

 capping and hold on to them until its operation is clogged "? I 

 have a little pricking arrangement not a roller which deports 

 itself in about that style : and picking things clear is an unen- 

 durable waste of time. Perhaps a rolling motion instead of 

 a patting motion would obviate that, in whole or in part. I 

 fear, however, that the uncapping roller Is one of the Gala- 

 tians — " run well for a time " — and short time at that. It is 

 by no means absolutely necessary that an uncapping device 

 should remove the cappings at all. It's nice to have that 

 done: but if the new device works rapidly enough, and well 

 enough, we can afford to float out the cappings with the 

 Inverted syphon, or lift them off the gravity tank. There is 

 another thing to be thought of, however. If we give back 

 most of the cappings to the bees in a ragged condition they 

 may take a notion to throw away the most of them, to our 

 serious loss. 



MR. CH.\P.MAX'S METHODS AND MANAGEMENT. 



The long article of S. D. Chapman, pages 2 l.n-2 17, very 

 valuable as it is, needs lots of discrimination on the part of 

 the reader. Things which will work in one locality will not 

 work In another : and a series of two or three operations may 

 work well when the most captivating member of the series, 

 torn out and used alone, might be ruinous. Or, again, take 

 the plan of killing all queens early In .Inly— the man who 

 overworks his queens so that they need killing has a great 

 deal more occasion to follow that plan than the man does 

 whose bees run their brood-rearing according to their own 

 sweet will — albeit there are some other reasons not directly 

 connected with premature old age. 



The Idea that queens will lay much faster in the middle of 

 the brood-nest than in outside combs will come to some of us 

 as rather a novel one. It is quite likely to be correct ; and if 

 correct it is a large-sized item to conjure with. 



Another prominent idea is not exactly new, but one which 

 many of us have entertained (perhaps a little sheepishly or 

 clandestinely) that the time spent on very weak colonies in 

 spring is time thrown away. 



I note that he does not claim for his diligent taking 

 out of brood and putting In of empty combs that it doubles 

 the size of the colony, nor yet half doubles it, but only puts 

 it 4U percent to the good. It is of value to have the experi- 

 ence of an expert that a dozen queens hatching in an upper 

 story do not necessarily make the colony swarm. I believe it 

 has been said that running the same colony for both section- 

 honey and extracted is a practice poor If not uneconomical. 

 Here we have a forcible and plump denial at strong hands — 

 more bees, and more comb honey, and some extracted honey 

 as a sort of free gratis. 



Raspberry bloom and berries in all stages In northern 

 Michigan up to November 1st. is simply another of the many 

 evidences that last autumn was a very abnormal one indeed. 



That out of 140 colonies 80 should neglect to start cells 

 when queens were killed, until brood was all too old, Is a 

 very strange experience. Oood case to bear In mind as evi- 

 dence that " one can't pretty much always tell" what bees 

 will do, or what they will not do. 



