534 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 1. 



Gleanings. Referring to the first question of 

 our correspondent, as to whetlier it would be 

 easier to put the foundation in a groove than 

 by the way recommended in our catalogue, we 

 say no; decidedly no. There is not the leas^ 

 difficulty at all in fixing the foundation to the 

 top-bar with the Hambaugh or Daisy founda- 

 tion fastener. 



As to the second question, we would say that 

 two colonies can be made, when preferred by 

 rtie Heddon short way of transferring. Yes, 

 the bees will be likely to raise another queen 

 in the box hive; but she can be either l<illed 

 when drumming out, or allowed to supersede 

 the old queen if she can. 



White is the best color to paint hives. We 

 formerly recommended, and have used, up to 

 quite recently, a straw - color paint made of 

 white lead and yellow ocher; but we find that 

 even the slightest shade of dark draws quite 

 perceptibly more heat from the sun. During 

 these very hot days we observe that the covers 

 painted white feel very comfortable to the 

 hand. Others, of a light straw color, are de- 

 cidedly hot to the hand. We now recommend a 

 first coat of pure white lead. Do not let any- 

 body delude you by saying that pure lead is too 

 expensive, and that cheaper paints will do just 

 as well for a primer. We find that pure lead, 

 even at more than twice the price of the cheap 

 stuff, is cheaper, because it goes more than 

 twice as far as paint made up of barytes, lime, 

 chalk, and difi'erent earthy matters. For a sec- 

 ond coat we would recommend putting in a 

 little pure zinc — say about 33 per cent. This 

 prevents the white lead fi'om chalking, and 

 really makes it more durable. 



As to the last question, we may say that bees 

 . may be left longer than 21 days in the box hive, 

 if desired; but nothing would be gained, and 

 something would be lost during the honey-flow, 

 because the bees will be filling up these old 

 crooked good for-nothing combs.l 



THE GOVERNMENT AND THE LlftUOR- 

 BUSINESS. 



A FEW STAKTLING TKUTHS THAT PERSIST IN 

 STARING US IN THE FACE IN SPITE OF US. 



Friend Root: — May I be allowed a few words 

 of comment on the article on page 446 of 

 (Cleanings for June 1st, from Mr. Julius 

 Tomlinson ? His argument, in brief, as I 

 understand it, is this: Since the appetite for 

 strong drink is a natural craving, which always 

 has existed and always will "exist, and since it 

 can not be eradicated, the means of gratifying 

 it should be restricted as much as may be by 

 taxation and other ways; therefore the govern- 

 ment, needing revenue in order to its mainte- 

 nance, has a perfect right to tax the liquor- 

 traffic and to collect that tax by any means in 

 its power. 



Let me apply this line of argument to two 

 other evils, and see If we can not prove its 

 weakness: 



Harlotry has existed from time immemorial, 

 and, so far as we are able to judge, it always 

 will exist. We can not eradicate the propensity 

 from which it springs, therefore let us regulate 

 it by taxation. It would be a very easy thing 

 for the government to derive a great and con- 

 stant revenue from this source; but would 

 friend Tomlinson think it wise for our govern- 

 ment to pass laws permitting houses of pros- 

 titution to exist for a price ? 



The gambling propensity is probably as old 

 as Adam. To gain riches without effort, men 

 have always been willing to take desperate 

 chances. The gambling propensity is inherent 



in human nature, and probably never can be 

 eradicated; why not, then, place it under the 

 supervision of the State, and make it a source 

 of revenue. We have the Lousiana Lottery as 

 an example of how easy a thing it would be for 

 the government to derive a great and easily 

 collectable revenue from the vice of gambling. 



For nearly 3.5 years the State of Lousiana, 

 though her legislators, gave this lottery the 

 right to exist and ply its nefarious business, to 

 the shame of the State and the degradation of 

 the people; and when lately it became neces- 

 sary to renew its charter it sought to bribe the 

 consciences of the people by an offer of a mil- 

 lion and a quarter dollars a year for a new 25- 

 year charter. 



We all remember what a storm of indignation 

 arose from one end of the country to the other 

 against those who favored the lottery; how 

 press and pulpit teemed with denunciation of 

 the sin of state partnership with this iniquity. 

 Now. there is not one scintilla of argument 

 more, from a moral point of view, for govern- 

 mental complicity with the liquor- traffic than 

 there is for governmental complicity with baw- 

 dy houses and gambling-hells. 



It is because the liquor - traffic is so all- 

 pervading; because it has become so entwined 

 with and so intimately related to our business, 

 our politics, our social habits and customs, that 

 the moral sense of the great majority of the 

 people seems to have lost the clear discernment 

 when the liquor-traffic is under discussion, that 

 they bring to bear on kindred evils; hence all 

 sorts of compromise and half-way measures 

 have been advocated to do away with the evils 

 of the liquor-traffic. But in spite of them all, 

 that traffic has grown and flourished and 

 strengthened itself on every hand, thus illus- 

 trating the truth of the saying, that a com- 

 promise with evil is a victory for the Devil. 



Now let me tell your readers a bit of news, for 

 news it will be to thegreat majority of them, and 

 it goes to the very marrow of this whole matter: 



At every session of our Congress for 30 years, 

 a bill has been presented, known as the " Com- 

 mission of Enquiry Bill."' the purport of which, 

 in brief, is that a commission be appointed and 

 authorized by Congress, to investigate the 

 liquor-traffic and its effects. 



This would seem to be a legitimate subject 

 for inquiry, because our Congressmen are sup- 

 posed to be sent to Washington to legislate in 

 the interests of the people; and we have it on 

 the authority of medical men, keepers of insane 

 and pauper institutions, prison officials, and 

 students of political economy and finance, that 

 the liquor-traffic, as Gln.dstone puts it, "is 

 worse than war, famine, and pestilence com- 

 bined." Yet our Solons in Washington vote 

 down or smother in committee every effort to 

 secure an official inquiry into this great iniqui- 

 ty; and it makes no difference which party is 

 in power, the result is always the same. 



It has been an easy matter during these years 

 to secure official inquiries into the causes of 

 cholera in hogs, and tiie grasshopper pest of the 

 Western plains; but a resolution to secure an 

 inquiry into a traffic which debauches and 

 degrades the manhood of the nation, fills our 

 prisons with criminals, our poorhouses with 

 paupers, and our asylums with the idiotic and 

 insane, — which annually sends to drunkards' 

 graves 70,(XXJ of our fellow-citizens, and entaiUs 

 an annual loss on the country of $2,000,000,000, 

 this is not to be considered at all. Why ? Sim- 

 ply because the party which would take the 

 responsibility of passing such a resolution 

 would be hurled from power at the next elec- 

 tion by the powerful political influence of the 

 liquor-traffic. " Save the party,''' says the poli- 

 tician, and let the hydra-headed monster — the 



