518 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE- 



JULY 1. 



were soon dropped. Mr. S. turned away with a 

 wicked leer in his eyes, and tauntingly remarli- 

 ed, "Yes, brag about the size of your calves; 

 but you couldn't blow up a lung-tester, could 

 you ? " 



That remark sort o' riled me; and as he slid 

 around the corner of the house I shouted, 

 " Bring on your old lung-tester; if I can't blow 

 it up I can kick it up.'' 



I picked up my various traps and proceeded 

 to put one foot before the other until my cabin 

 was reached, and I mentally resolved to exer- 

 cise ray kicking powers on the next lung-tester 

 I came to. 



The next episode in my recent life was a very 

 pleasant call from my friend Harry (in the 

 name H. E. Wilder the H stands for Hai'ry). 



" Why, good morning, friend Harry; step in 

 and sit down. I have one chair and a bee-hive 

 to sit upon. You can take your choice. You 

 see, we don't put on much style. Take an 

 orange; or, won't you have a glass of lemonade ? 

 No sticks in it, mind you, on this ranch." 



"Well. Rambler. I don't cai'e if I do take a 

 little ade; and you know that I do not like 

 sticks M mine any more than you do in yours. 

 Hellol got a typewriter, have you? Where did 

 you find that?" 



"Foreign Fingering. 



"Oh, that is one of those Odell machines; 

 and friend Hutchinson, of the Review, sent it 

 to me, and I am just leai'ning how to run it. I 

 find that, if I put it down on this box and get a 

 general bird's-eye view of it, it works much 

 better. Our friend Pryal, of Oakland, as soon 

 as he learned that I had a writer, sent me a 

 whole grist of directions; said that I must not 

 get on to it with my feet and try to write with 

 my toes: and then he further insinuated and 

 said, 'If you wear false teeth, go slow at first 

 or you will rattle them all out on the table.' 

 and wound up by advising me to take lessons of 

 a lady teacher, just as he did, and added much 

 about romantic results, harmony, felicity, etc. 

 Of course, you met Mr. Pryal at the convention. 

 Oh! he impressed you as a very suave and dig- 

 nified gentleman, did he? Well. Harry, did 

 you ever see a Tennessee moonshiner? You 

 didn't? neither did I; but I have some ideas of 

 them." 



" Mr. Rambler, I see that you have a sign up 

 on the borders of your grounds, ' Danger to 

 horses and women.' Have you been troubled 

 much with those quadrupeds and bipeds?" 



"Well, Harry, you see my cabin is right up 

 here among tht; bees; and people riding along 

 the trail sometimes take a sudden notion that 

 they want some honey," or wish to inquire the 

 way to Riverside; and the first I know they are 

 up here among the bees, where themselves and 

 horses are in danger of getting stung. Not 

 wishing to pay for a dead mustang I put up the 

 sign. 'Danger to horses;' soon after, a man and 

 young lady drove up to the sign, and. instead 

 of the man getting out, he sat on his cart and 

 sent the woman past the danger-point. The 

 bees began to hover around the posies on her 

 hat, and at about every three steps she would 

 give a little shriek, and say, 'OhI I am afraid 

 of them.' The little woman was of a nervous 

 temperament; and, a bee hovering too near her 

 ear, she made a desperate pass at it and hit her 

 ear-ring. In her nervousness she thought the 

 dangler from the ring was a bee, and she pad- 

 dled it for all it was worth, and sent it flying 

 into the bushes, and then discovered that she 

 had lost her ear-ring. I sent her back to the 

 big man in the wagon, and hunted in ihe grass 

 for the jewel, and at length found 

 a sort of glass object which I pre- 

 sume was very valuable. Then, 

 after all said and done, I had no 

 honey to sell, for I hud not com- 

 menced to extract. They sadly 

 departed, and I dittoed to my cab- 

 in, and straightway added ivomen 

 to my sign. The next time that 

 couple came, the man had evident- 

 ly had a course of repentance; and, 

 leaving the woman in the wagon, 

 he came up with a bold front; and 

 the first pass a bee made at him it 

 got in its fine work. It lightened 

 my labors all day to think how 

 neatly a bee can take the starch 

 put of a gi'eat big man when the 

 occasion demands it. Well, Harry, 

 we have had a very pleasant chat. 

 I must now go to extracting honey. 

 I can not sit still long now. You 

 know I want to run oiJ enough to 

 make six tons this week. Come 

 along and I will show you how I 

 do it." 



" Hello, Rambler! you have one 

 of those new Crane smokers, have 

 you? Well, it has a crane's neck 

 to it, anyway. How do you like 

 it?" 



"I like it very well; it has a fine 

 blast, burns fuel that my old smo- 

 ker would not burn, and holds out well; but I 

 have one fault to find with it — that nozzle is 

 lined with sheet iron, and it seems to hold the 

 heat more than a single thickness of tin, and 

 it makes a hot thing to handle. I should think 

 that, if asbestos is applied anywhere, it should 

 be applied around that nozzle. A good thick- 

 ness here might make it more comfortable to 

 handle. You see, it works easily. Now, Harry, 

 we will go out into the apiary. Y^ou carry the 

 smoker and I will run the wheelbarrow. Bees 

 going up your sleeves? they — well, grin and 

 bear it, or bandage your wrists with a white 

 strip of cloth, as I do. I do my ankles ditto 

 sometimes." 



"See here. Rambler; what is this thing on 

 these two hives, sort o' tying them together like 

 the galling bands of matrimony ?'' 



"That is the new and famous Langdon 

 swarm-preventer. The inventor sent me one, 

 desiring me to give it a trial. Colony No. 1 was 



