March, 1910. 



lOI 



to effect. In the early seventies it was cus- 

 tomary, in Wyoming, to rid wearing apparel 

 of vermin by tossing the garment on a den 

 of those big ants. Next morning the garment 

 was free from the pest. Maybe the same 

 cause produced the desired effect with his 

 swine and collie. Again, mayb^ mica or alkaj], 

 or both, had something to do with the effect. 

 Here is one for the man of the Big Basin 

 to crack: He says it is a long while since he 

 saw an old fogy who pinned his faith to bee- 

 stings as a remedy for rheumatism. I shall 

 relate effects from my own experience. Maybe 

 he can tell why it was that "Uncle Joe" got 

 relief from the old pest — rheumatism. 



In my younger days my occupation was that 

 of mining coal. For 20 or more years my as- 

 sociates were those strong-armed and big- 

 hearted fellows, who were not afraid to go 

 down into the bowels of the earth and wrest 

 from it the much-needed article — coal. 



While engaged at my occupation among 

 white and black damps, fires, and gas, mud 

 and water, and such as the miner has to con- 

 tend with, a something got hold of my arms, 

 between the elbows and shoulders, which re- 

 fused, many a night, to let me sleep in any 

 position except with arms crossed above my 

 head. The doctors told me it was rheumatism. 

 I have good recollections, too, of their saying 

 they could cure me. I paid the price, took 

 the dope, and retained the plague, and now 

 the family physician says no relief through 

 bee-stings. They can fool me once, but not all 

 the time. As we boys, years ago, would say, 

 "More ways than one to skin a cat." Allow 

 me to describe the first method of "skinning 

 the cat," after the doctors had "skinned" me. 

 You should know coal-mining is a dirty oc- 

 cupation, a good place for perspiration and 

 dust to mix and cling to the one who created 

 the mixture; we needed a bath each evening, 

 which needed to be taken with more than a 

 grain of soap. How good and refreshed we 

 felt after a good wash and a suit of dry duds 

 on our tired bodies. When complaining to 

 my good old raother-in-law about those sore, 

 rheumatic arms, she told me that many a 

 healthy baby was washed and bathed into a 

 frail, puny condition; try less arm-washing. 1 

 did so, by omitting arm washing except Sat- 

 urdays. One week's treatment and I had re- 

 lief. ' Cheap, wasn't it? and easy, too; but hard 

 'on the washerwoman. To convince myself, 1 

 would return to the old way of washing arms, 

 and so would the old pest return. Not a few 

 times dii I flit back and forth with the prob- 

 lem, but always with the same effect. I told 

 others similarly afflicted, of my remedy. They 

 would laugh, of course, just as you now are 

 doing, but the torment was such that they 

 gave it a trial. All reported relief. Who will 

 tell me why it was so? Don't all speak at 

 once. Let me say that, as a rule, the coal- 

 miner is a clean man when not at work. I 

 have read of one doctor who said the people 

 bathe too much. With my experience I pin 

 my faith tighter to that doctor than I will 

 to the doctor who says bee-stings have no ef- 

 fect on rheumatism. 



In the latter period of my under-ground ex- 

 perience, say some 6 or more years, I had no 

 arm troubles, nor did I wash them oftener 

 than once a week. Then through some hook 

 or crook it came about that "Joe" was to toil 

 on top of the ground instead of under and in 

 it, amidst sunshine, birds, and bees, and the 

 idea that "Old Joe" was to be where he could 

 see the sun all day — well, if it was "Joe," he 

 had lost his kit. if it wasn't "Joe." some one 

 had found a blooming coal-digger, and here 

 I am giving my bees the benefit of what 

 was created along some lines while digging 

 coal, the benefit of a well-regulated air-course 

 across the bottom-boards with both ends open, 

 which will furnish them with all the pure air 

 they need while toiling for me and storing 

 in my supers. 



I got to be considerable of a clodhopper on 

 the farm, but my old plague returned. What 

 to do I knew not. I had no faith in the 

 doctor's remedy, and my own I could not 

 make use of, as wife said I had got so I didn't 

 wash enough, so I grinned and bore it for a 

 few years when (come, listen, you man from 

 the Big Basin, also Dr. A. F. Bonney) "Joe" 

 got acquainted with the bee, and he got stung 

 unmercifully, too, for Dr. Miller had a stand- 

 ing order those days for the beginners, that 

 the best remedy for a sting was a good sting- 

 ing. I always believed in obeying orders, and 

 I took the stings, and soon got relief from 

 my plague in my arms, call it what you like. 

 After some five or more years I got wise; 

 also tired of Dr. Miller's remedy, and took to 

 protection along exclusive lines. I got prac- 

 tically no stings at all, but I did get a gentle 

 hint of the return of the old Pest, and had 

 him with his spurs on, too. Then a year ago 



American l^ee Journal 



tlie past sui imer I resorted to Dr. Miller's 

 suggestions again, took rhe remedy in no small 

 doses, either, for I had a whole yard of the 

 demons ready to help drive away the plague, 

 and **Joe'* along with it. That summer I 

 again got relief, and the past summer I saw 

 to it that the protection was scant, and today 

 I feel like — well, should a man come onto my 

 jilace hooting the idea of the bee-sting being 

 good for my kind of rheumatism, I believe 

 I'd set the dogs on him. 



The first summer with the bees my hands 

 reminded me of a standing shaft in the mines, 

 all there in one solid chunk, hut tight between 

 top and bottom. So after the last experience 

 I am like the Indian who rescued the com- 

 mander's daughter from an adjoining tribe 

 who held her in captivity. When the rescuer 

 returned her to her father, the father said, 

 "John, I'm well pleased with your doings. 

 You may make three requests and I'll grant 

 them." "John said, for first, "I will take 

 whisky." "All right John, you get all you 

 want of it as long as you live." For second 

 he asked for tobacco, w'hich was granted. _ For 

 the third he said he would take more whisky. 

 So if all are willing, I will take more stings 

 and less of that pest. If the honey diet should 

 afford relief, why did the pest return when I 

 was eating it constantly? When we become 

 positive a thing won't rope we should know 

 what rope does, especially when the rope has 

 the critter fast. J. P. Blunk. 



Moorland, Iowa, Dec. 24. 



Color of Wax-Scales Influenced by 

 Pollen. 



Hditor American Bee JouBtjALS — Since re- 

 turning home from the Chicago-Northwestern 

 Bee-keepers' convention, I have been thinking 

 over the matter of the discussion of the ques- 

 tion of the color of the scales of wax as they 

 come from the wax-pockets, and am persuaded 

 that the matter of the pollen, which is one of 

 the most important articles of food_ for the 

 bees, was not given sufficient consideration. 

 You remember, great stress was given, during 

 the discussion, to the different colors of 

 honey: but, it was said that food cut no figure, 

 for wax from buckwheat honey was of the very 

 whitest, overlooking the fact that pollen from 

 the buckwheat blossoms is of the very whitest 

 also. 



We know that cream and butter is colored 

 a deeper yellow when the dairy cows feed on 

 early summer grasses, while dandelion blos- 

 soms are plentiful; also, when fed on carrots. 

 Again, beef cattle fed on yellow Swedish 

 turnips will not only have the flesh tainted 

 with the feed, but the tallow will be tinged 

 with yellow. So, I believe, it is with the bees. 

 Pollen, being an important part of their food, 

 dominates the color in the wax. This ex- 

 plains why buckwheat honey is capped so ex- 

 ceedingly white. Whenever and wherever the 

 prevailing pollen is yellow, the scales will be 

 likely to partake of that color, and so of any 

 other shade of coloring. 



Once in Ohio, my bees, about 80 rods frorn 

 a 15-acre field of goldenrod, standing as thiciv 

 as though having been carefully drilled, put 

 in a very considerable quantity of surplus 

 honey from this field. The cappines were of 

 a duskv vellow — not travel-stained but the 

 wax was of that color. So I'm inclined _ to 

 think that the wax-scales are not always white, 

 as some think; nor always of a cream color, 

 as some others think, but partake largely of 

 the color of the pollen on which the bees feed. 

 So t.hat, where the flowers of a locality pro- 

 duceNvhite pollen, there the wax will be white; 

 where the flowers produce yellow pollen, the 

 wax will partake of the same color. To con- 

 tend over the matter, would be like the con; 

 tention of the two knights over the color of 

 a shield — both were right, and both were 

 wrong. Wm. M. Whitney. 



Batavia. 111. 



Hatching Chicks with Incubators.^While 



the American Bee Journal is not a poultry 

 paper, yet so many of its readers are also 

 interested in the raising of poultry, that we 

 have decided to publish the following ex- 

 cellent article by that long-time poultry- 

 man. Mr. Robert H. Essex, of Buffalo, X. Y.: 



Farmers are conservative in taking up new 

 ideas; conservative in buying new things. 

 They have to be. Nevertheless, when they 

 see prospective profits oozing through the 

 safety-valve of a new or improved imple- 

 ment, they feel that they must have it. even 

 if they have to give a note for it. or encumber 

 their farm with a new mortgage. 



That's fiiim proenss. which, interpreted 

 signifies firifsficrify on the fartn. 



No farm can be compleie. no farmer can 

 be superlatively prosperous, where progress 

 in labor-saving equiiiment is ignored. And 

 this applies as well to incubators as to any 

 other implement. 



Where not many years ago g out of o farms 

 had never heard of an incubator, today the 

 word is passing from farm to farm that the 

 profits are larger, the work less onerous, the 

 hatches more sure, and the liens are taking 

 fewer holidays — laying more eggs; not i'// on 

 account of incubators, but iirimarily on ac- 

 count of the incubator, and secondarily on 

 account of the large amount of book-knowl- 

 edge distributed with it. The farmer's wife 

 is doing her share in the profit-making. She 

 always has done it; but now she is gaining 

 recognition as a partner in the business. 

 This is having— it has had-its effect, and the 

 result is. farmers are now posted on poultry 

 profits. They will continue to be posted; 

 and those who have been operating incuba- 

 tors willgo back to hen-incubation onlywhen 

 they return to the old custom of treading 

 out the grain with oxen— only when they are 

 prepared to put the cream separator on the 

 shelf. 



Poultrymen who are in the business com- 

 mercially— whose living depends upon the 

 profits— would as soon think of threshing the 

 grain with the old-time flail, as they would 

 of hatching chicks or ducklings with hens or 

 ducks. The thought would be absurd. 

 Without the incubator they would have to 

 go out of business. 



Before the introduction of incubators 

 large commercial plants were an impossi- 

 bility. Mr. James Rankin gets the credit of 

 putting the first lot of ducklings and broilers 

 on the market in considerable numbers, and 

 making it pav. But James Rankin's only 

 salvation was the invention of an incubator. 

 Without its aid he found he could not make 

 a business of raising poultry for market at 

 a profit; so he made one. 



That was many years ago. The incubator 

 of today has improved as time has rolled on. 

 but no more need be said regarding the 

 future of the incubator (the built-to-hatch 

 incubator' in the poultry business. Hens 

 will continue to be used where only a dozen 

 or two chickens are intended to be kept for 

 home use; but on the farm where chickens 

 can be fed cheaply and are raised by fifties 

 or hundreds, the time-saving incubator, the 

 economic method will be— is— adopted. 



The farmer and his wife sometimes face a 

 disconcerting situation when they have 

 finally decided that they wish to get more 

 of the poultry profits by buying an incubator. 

 The Question arises, "Which incubator 

 shall I buy?" ,, 



I mav advise them here except generally. 

 There are a number of good incubators on 

 the market; and there area number of built- 

 to-sell machines that the farmer cannot 

 afford to experiment with; but the present 

 day farmer has his eye-teeth cut. and knows 

 he cannot get something for nothing. To be 

 successful in raising poultry one must use 

 business-like methods with business-like 

 eguipment, , .. »i. 



In buying an incubator go about it the same 

 way vou would if vou were buying any other 

 agricultural implement, I might advise 

 again and again, but I cannot give better ad- 

 vice than that. Think it over; and be as 

 particular as you would in trading horses, 



Mr. Editor, when you personally know of 

 poultry plants each using from 50 to 100 incu- 

 bators'; of plants hatching 40.000 ducklings 

 in a single season; of fanciers hatching their 

 New York-Chicago-Boston winners in incu- 

 bators, and raising them in brooders, there s 

 not much left for me to say. It is not evi- 

 dence of the utility of incubators that is 

 wanted, because anybody can get that in 

 any down-to-date incubator manufacturers 

 catalog— evidence on the size of the poultry 

 business; oil the profits in the business; on 

 the decadence of " mother hen iiinless the 

 hen that lays the eggs is the mother); and 

 the coming-into-her-own of the hen that 

 never could be made to sit. That is all com- 

 mon knowledge, . , - . cj 



I believe the farmer is lacking in confidence. 

 That's all. Confidence that he'll get what 

 he pavs for. Y'et. it is certain that he will 

 get exactly what he pays for— wn more, no less. 

 Manufacturers' profits are not big these 

 days There's not much money in making 

 incubators and brooders; and if the farmer 

 and his wife exercise their judgment in buy- 

 ing land not expect to make a silk iiurse 

 out of a sow's ear": they will certainly be 

 successful in the purchase and use of down- 

 to-date equipment for hatching. 



That is the way to secure the bulk of the 

 profits from poultry on the farm. 

 Buffalo. N. Y. Robert H. Esse.v 



