730 



AMERICAN BEE lOURNAL 



Nov. 14, 1901 



Bees that Sting Intermittently- 

 ferring. 



Swarming— Trans- 



1. I have a few colonies of bees I bought one year ago I 

 rolibed them the last of June and fjot IT pounds of comb 

 honey per colony; and auain the last of July 1 got 26 pounds 

 of comb honey per colony; but the last time I robbed them 

 thi'y all fouifht and stuny; me awfully. Now I want to know 

 why they all foujjht me so the last time I robbed when the 

 lirst time I did not }jet stung at all? How can I manage tci 

 avoid stings in the future? 



2. When is the best time to rob the bees? 



8. Why did I have so few swarms this year? 



4. When is the time to transfer? Alabama. 



Answers — 1. The great probability is that when you took 

 the honey from them the first time in June that they were at 

 that time gathering honey freely, and at such times they feel 

 quite good-natured and liberal, caring little how much honey 

 you take away. When you attempted to repeat the operation 

 the last of July, it is likely they were getting little or nothing 

 from the fields, with plenty of time and disposition to resent 

 any purloining of their hard-earned stores. Even if they did 

 considerable storing afterwards, there may have been a lull 

 in the harvest the latter part of July. It is also possible that 

 you were not quite so careful the second time about exposing 

 honey so as to attract robbers. If you do anything with bees 

 in a time of scarcity, avoid having hives open longer than is 

 absolutely necessary, and take great pains not to have supers 

 of honey exposed to the robbers. It may also be a little safer 

 to work late in the day, so that darkness coming on may close 

 the efforts of any bees with ambition to obtain a reputation as 

 highway robbers. 



2. Better take away all surplus as soon as the flow ceases, 

 or as soon as they gather no more than suffices for their daily 

 needs. Something can be told about this when you find that 

 the amount of honey in the supers is not on the increase, and 

 at such times the very fact that the bees are unusually cross 

 and inclined to rob may make you suspect that they are not 

 gaining in stores. 



3. Very likely the character of the season had something 

 to do with their not swarming, although other causes may 

 have prevailed. Without knowing any more particulars, it 

 would be pure guessing to say what. 



4. You may transfer in fruit-bloom, or three weeks after 

 the first swarm. 



^ The Home Circle. ^ I 



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



1 



USING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE CORRECTLY. 



You might not think it, but a singh' line of Prof. Cook's, 

 on page 69S, has sent me off into a brown study of many 

 minutes — minutes that I can hardly afford when I'm so 

 crowded that there's scarcely a minute to spare. One of the 

 hardest .jobs I've ever tackled is the one of trying to use the 

 English language correctly. And in my brawn study I've 

 gone over a good deal of the whole ground of getting the little 

 or much that I know of spelling, punctuation, pronunciation, 

 choosing the right words, putting them in proper order, etc. 



As to spelling, I was brought up under the old regime — 

 stood up in a row and "trapped to the head" as often as I 

 could, or " spelt on sides," and was always one of the first 

 chosen — and so I'm rather proud to say that I'm exceptionally 

 familiar with our present system of spelling, and ashamed to 

 say that I can do so little to prevent the rising generation from 

 going through the same drudgery tliat I did in mastering a 

 spelling that is a disgrace to a civilized nation. 



Punctuation — the whole thing is more or less a mystery to 

 me, and about the most I attempt is to sprinkle in a few com- 

 mas here and there so the printer will not take exactly the 

 opposite of the intended meaning ; and then I look up to him 

 as a superior being who will put in semi-colons and things in 

 the right places, so that other people can understand what 

 I'm trying to say. 



It would make a book of no small size to tell all the tribu- 

 lations I've been through in trying to learn to pronounce cor- 

 rectly. The times that I've consulted the dictionary I And 

 the worst of it is, that I'm not sure of speaking ten consecu- 

 tive sentences to day without mispronouncing some word or 



words. When to the difficulty of pronouncing correctly is 

 added the difficulty of choosing the right words and using 

 them in the right way, I give up in despair. I have no hope 

 of ever learning to use the English in a faultless manner. But 

 I am by no means in despair as to improving. I'm not as bad 

 as I was a year ago, and not nearly as bad as I was 25 years 

 ago. I'm willing— I'm anxious to learn. I consult the dic- 

 tionary oftener than ever bi'fore. There is no surer way for 

 a friend to command my gratitude than to call my attention 

 to some error in my use of the English language. 



And now I'rof. Cook wants me to act as arbitrator be- 

 tween him and that man Hasty. He wants me to say whether 

 " larva " or " worm '' is the right name for the thing that 

 destroys our nice combs when we neglect them. Frankly, I 

 don't know. But having made this confession of ignorance, 

 I want to emphasize in the strongest manner the fact that I 

 believe we should constantly be striving for a single name for 

 each idea, and a single idea for each name. We may not 

 achieve that in the present generation, but we ought in gen- 

 eral to speak and write in such a way as to have little fear of 

 having any one draw the dictionary on us. 



One trouble in the present case is that Prof. Cook speaks 

 as a scientist, and our sprightly " afterthinker "" as a layman. 

 An entomologist could hardly be forgiven for calling that 

 which hatches from the egg of a bee a worm ; a bee-keeper 

 would not be likely to call it anything but a ■■ larva ;" but the 

 average person who knows nothing about bee-keeping would 

 be very likely to call it a worm. And the dictionary would 

 justify him. For the dictionary says a worm is (third defini- 

 tion) : "In popular and archaic use, any creeping or crawl- 

 ing animal, whether large or small, as a serpent, grub, Cater- 

 pillar, or the like." That same definition justifies Mr. Hasty 

 in calling the larva of the bee-moth a worm. Prof. Cook is 

 saying that an added syllable should not stand in the way of 

 correctness. Mr. Hasty may reply that several syllables 

 must be added if we would not be misunderstood. If we 

 should say, " I lifted a comb out of the hive and found in it 

 hundreds of larvit," he would be understood to be speaking of 

 young bees. "Hundreds of worms" would be understood 

 correctly, and is very much shorter than " hundreds of larvae 

 of the bee-moth." Then think of the ditterence between say- 

 ing "wormy combs'' and "combs infested by the larv;e of the 

 bee-moth." 



Prof. Cook has scientific accuracy on his side. On the 

 other side is economy of words and a dictionary definition. 

 Gentlemen, please settle it between you. C. C. Miller. 



McHenryCo., 111. 



" HOME. SWEET HOME." 



What a picture we have in that home of the old patriarch, 

 Jacdli. which we have had in the Sunday-school for the past 

 two Sundays. Jacob commenced life in a bad way. If any 

 one thing savors more of heaven on this earth of ours than 

 another it is real accord among children of the same 

 home. If any one thing smells more of perdition it is hatred 

 aiul meanness among the boys of any household. Jacob's 

 Iving iiiid imposture to cheat Esau was morally as black as 

 lilacki-st iiiglit. No wonder his later years come full burdened 

 with sorrow. Then, too, polygamy came to blight his home. 

 What a sorry blot that would" be in any home. Glad we have 

 wiped it from our body politic. One favorite wife. Only to 

 think of the sore feelings and bitter heart-aches that would 

 come into any iiome when a favorite wife held sway. She 

 must be favorite or there never would have been but the one. 

 How the record states plainly that she was favorite. 



I am superlatively glad that Roberts was pushed from his 

 seat in Congress. The home circles of our country should 

 always frown on anything that tends to mar the home or les- 

 sen family accord. Let it be known that of all "Jacob's sons 

 Joseph was the favorite. What a blunder : The parent who 

 has favorites or shows favoritism among his children slumld 

 never have had a home. Yes, I know children differ, and 

 some are lovely and wise, and some are otherwise. Then 

 what a privilege has the parent of talking the less fortunate 

 so snugly in the arms of his love that the unlovclini'ss will 

 be surely squeezed out — all out. 



Joseph was exceptional in manly strength and beauty; 

 was alert to get tlie most out of life" and experience; was a 

 very Herciih's in moral strength and rectitude; yet even 

 Joseph in such a polygamously tainted household. C(uild not 

 pass unscathed. Hi's very ambition and confident ability, no 

 doubt, gave rise to the dreams. His warranted belief in his 

 own powiu- ami strength, aided, maybe, by liis ambition, gave 

 him visions wliich made possible a fight interpretation of the 

 dreams. How lovely it would have been could he have kept the 



