June 13, 1901. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



379 



may exi)i>ct the bee to realize that the weight is tiresome and 

 go home quite a bit before the limit of what it can carry is 

 reached. Still more so when a thousand or several thousand 

 flights must be made. Apparently this consideration ceases to 

 govern after awhile; and the bee comes home occasionally 

 (say each two hours or so) with whatever it may happen to 

 have. To teach that there is a steady and regular declini' of 

 the amount of honey in the flowers with the advance of the 

 season, would manifestly be incorrect ; but, with a great 

 many ups and downs, the general trend is that way, probalily. 



HOLDING QUEENS AND CELLS BETWEEN THE LIPS. 



Doubtless perfectly dry lips will do no harm either to a 

 queen or to a cell. It should be kept in mind, however, that 

 the human saliva is a poisonous fluid (greatly variable in the 

 degree of its poison) and we don't want our queens soaked in 

 poisonous fluid, as bunglers would do it, should you tell them 

 to hold queens that way. Even for delicate plants and seeds 

 the mouth is a good place to keep them out of. Try it on 

 nails, which can give and take in the matter of dirtiness and 

 poison. If a high and refined degree of dirtiness is desired, 

 with a spice of danger thrown in, try nickels and pennies. 

 Page 2B6. 



AN APIARIAN ROBINSON CRUSOE. 



Mr. H. T. Hanna, we shall have to compliment you as an 

 apiarian Robinson Crusoe, if you have a good location and no 

 other apiary for eight miles. Page 285. 



THAT bee-keepers' CLUB FOR QUEEN-REARING. 



To have 100 bee-keepers club together and employ an 

 expert queen-rearer at fair wages to rear 50 for each, is a 

 decidedly new departure. Certainly there are some very mani- 

 fest advantages and savings about it. Sure market in the 

 place of a glut of uncalled for queens. Reasonable in the 

 place of unreasonable dates. Fair lot and turn and ''divy" 

 in the place of clamor — or would the order of precedence be 

 a specially hard thing to adjust without ill-feeling? There 

 are also some weak points. I think I would rather collect my 

 wages from one man than from a hundred. And, while the 

 enlisting of half a dozen in the new SQheme might be very 

 easy, the fife and drum might be pretty well worn out before 

 man Xo. 100 "swore in." Page 291. 



FIRED AT LONG-TONGUED QUEENS. 



I'm right glad Mr. Doolittle fired himself off as he did on 

 page 293. Little guns are excellent for many uses ; but when 

 an enemy develops that needs (badly needs) to be intimidated 

 somewhat, then the heaviest gun in the service is just the 

 piece to turn loose. Exactly how much good will come of the 

 cultivating of long tongues by tneasure we don't know just 

 yet. Quite a bit I hope (notwithstanding the ''bang"), but 

 it's plain to be seen that inaccuracy, and pretense, and con- 

 jectures that hardly amount to more than pretense, were 

 going to get thick as the smoke of the pit. Long-tongued 

 bees were going to mean just about as much as "pure white 

 ead," or " pure baking-powder," or " pure gum drops," mean 

 where no officer looks after frauds. Attention, ye buyers I 

 When you get your long-tongued queens, get them with the 

 same circumspection that you get the pure lead to paint your 

 house. Testing the actual reach of bees at work is not so 

 hard as to be beyond the reach of the ordinary apiarist ; and 

 'spects it will have to come to that. Mr. D. pushes things too 

 far in claiming that long tongues are of no profit except in 

 red clover regions. Many long-tubed flowers have something 

 to do with furnishing the total of nectar supply. 



\ ^ The Home Circle. >^ \ 



Conducted bij Prof. fl. J. Cook, Glaremont, Calif. 



THE TOBACCO HABIT. 



Over 100 of our collefce folks — almost half of us — went 

 to Los Angeles last Saturday to attend the Intercollegiate 

 Oratorical Contest, and the second contest of three arranged 

 with one of the colleges to decide who were champions in 

 base-ball. I was proud, as our fellows won the trophies in 

 the ball game, as they had won in the tirst, with a great 

 score of 15 to 2. I was still more proud as we achieved vie-. 

 tory in the oratorical contest. But I was most proud of the 

 gentlemanly character of our students. One way this was 



shown, was in the entire absence of smoking among our 

 fellows. The others smoked. We did not. I rejoice that we 

 have no smoking at our college. I wish tobacco was 

 eschewed in all our homes. Our friend, A. I. Root, in "Our 

 Homes," has done splendid service in urging against this 

 habit. I wish I could be like happy in these " Home Circle " 

 columns. To the hundreds of students that I have taught 

 physiology, I have always spoken, as best I might, against 

 all use of tobacco. 



Boys and girls — and I rightly include girls — may I not 

 have your ears a little to talk tobacco ? We all wish to be 

 sweet and clean. The tobacco user is usually neither. We 

 do not wish to be offensive — a nuisance — to the most sensi- 

 tive lady with whom we may seek or find companionship. 

 The tobacco sot, certainly, the user of tobacco generally, is 

 just that. We do not desire, certainly, to acquire a habit 

 that will tend to dethrone health and court disease. Every 

 wise physician will condemn tobacco as guilty of both these 

 serious counts. Can we afford, in these days of keen com- 

 petition in business, to strike at our chances of success? 

 Several railroad companies no longer employ the cigarette 

 smoker, and many employers will tolerate no one as an 

 employee who uses tobacco at all. 



The money spent for tobacco — though to my mind the 

 least weighty argument against its use — should be thought 

 of. The sura is enormous. If saved, how quickly it would 

 pay all debts. How well it would clothe our people. How 

 generously it would " bread and butter " us all. I would I 

 might say the blessed word that would stay this frightful 

 expenditure. 



The worst count that perhaps can be brought against 

 this arch enemy of the well-being of our people, and espe- 

 cially of our youth, is the tendency of the habit to make its 

 patrons thoughtless — regardless of the comfort of others, 

 and thus to destroy the gentlemanly instinct among us. 

 How often in public places our ladies must endure the poi- 

 sonous fumes from cigar or pipe. Only a few days ago I 

 was presiding at a large picnic gathering, where speaking 

 was going on, when some ladies appealed to me to relieve 

 them from just such an annoyance. I have had to do this 

 unpleasant duty over and over again. Can people acquire 

 the tobacco habit, and preserve their gentlemanly instinct, 

 all unimpaired ? 



There is a verj' serious side to this question — that of 

 heredity. If, as many of our best scientists insist, the 

 taste, inclination, and diseased tissues consequent upon the 

 use of " the weed," are all likely to be transmitted to the 

 dear children, then how can any of us acquire —how can 

 any of us persevere, in this, oh, so common habit ? If, as 

 seems proved, wives and children are seriously poisoned by 

 simply breathing the emanations from fetid breath and be- 

 fouled clothing, then, indeed, we have most eloquent appeal 

 to do all we can to stay the evil. And so I say, girls as well 

 as boys. God be praised that our girls are saved from this 

 danger. 



But the girls have a proud privilege. The3' cin in- 

 fluence against the habit that will tend so greatly to impair 

 their happiness and well-being. God help all our girls to 

 say boldly. "Yes, the cigar is offensive to me." For 

 surely it must be offensive, morally at least, to every right- 

 minded girl. 



THE BOYS. 

 I read a pathetic account yesterday of a boy, just at 

 that awkward age of 13, who was the victim of neglect and 

 ridicule of his sisters. Home, that should attract, almost 

 drove him away. One of the sisters heard a lecture on 

 "Treatment of brothers." The words smote her to the 

 quick. She went home, surprised her brother by the re- 

 quest to tie his necktie, and soon more by a present of a 

 beautiful one. Within a day or two the big, awkward boy 

 found his room neatly fixed with some pictures and other 

 dainty attractions, which only the deft hand of girls can 

 fashion. Wasn't the sister paid when the great boy threw 

 his arms about her, and blubbered out, "Oh, but it's good 

 to have a sister care for you 1" 



We would all like to practice one kind of theft. We 

 would all like to rob the slums, the saloons, the street cor- 

 ners, and all other questionable resorts, where the dear 

 boys are led to the bad. Loving attention at home, the 

 words of kindly sympathy, the neatly fixed room, loving 

 interest in game or any plan that is dear to the boy, will 

 almost always result in this blessed robbery. The sister 

 almost more than mother can be the proud agent in this 

 worthy work. From 12 to 15 is the rapidly growing, awk- 

 ward, blundering, bashful age with the boy. This is the 

 time of sunshine. Let all in the home circle unite in the 

 efi'ort to make the boy, that it may be a good crop. 



