1889 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



749 



without food ; but for all that their dinner 

 was abandoned without hesitation, and, to 

 the greater part of tliem, untasted. (Ian you 

 wonder that my heart bounded with the en- 

 thusiasm which I caught from themV and I 

 fairly longed to go with the dogs and their 

 master, off on a hunt. As I mentally go 

 over the scene I can not help but wish now 

 that I had stayed, even if it made me a 

 week longer in getting home. Next time I 

 will tell you about a wolf-hunt. 



A BLACK BEE. 



Here is a black bee, and it has long white hair on 

 two of its legs. I never saw any like it before. We 

 have 10 6warms of bees. I help hive the bees when 

 they swarm. Mr. Root, what kind of a black bee is 

 this ? Custer R. Brown, age 12. 



Colora, Md , Aug. 23, 1889. 



The bee you inclose we should say was 

 nothing but an old black bee. He has been 

 in the service a good while, and has worn 

 the fuzz all off his body, which makes him 

 look real black and shiny. 



HEAVY RAINS. 



We have two new swarms of bees, and we had 

 another one; but it went back into the hive. The 

 last one stung papa eight times, because they were 

 so cross. We had a heavy rain here in July, and 

 the wind blew branches off from trees, and it blew 

 the wild cucumbers oft from the windows. We 

 have not had any surplus honey yet. Our main 

 crop comes from heart'sease. The Japanese buck 

 wheat that papa got of you is in bloom. 



Everett Thiery, age 9. 



Waco, Neb., Aug. 16, 1889. 



uncle's bees. 



My papa has no bees, but I was down to Mr. 

 Stuck's, and he has 45 stands. I watched them a 

 little while. They are making lots of honey just 

 now. Uncle Joseph was hunting bees, and found 4 

 swarms; 2 were in large trees, and the men didn't 

 want them cut. He cut 2, and brought them home, 

 and each tree had about 25 pounds of honey. Mr. 

 Stuck told me he took off :S00 pounds of honey this 

 summer, and has a lot more ready to take off. We 

 live in the country. I go to Sunday-school. I love 

 to go. We have Sundayschool after church. I 

 wish all little boys and girls would go to Sunday- 

 school. Maggie Krebs, age 11. 



Schoolcraft, Mich., Aug. 19, 1889. 



THE EVILS OP THE TOBACCO HABIT. 



BY THE AUTHOR OF THE TOBACCO MANUAL. 



PAPA'S BEES. 



We live up here in Minnesota where there are a 

 great many who keep bees. Six years ago my papa 

 got two colonies, and he has now 115. Last winter 

 he got Mr. B. Taylor to make him 50 hives. Pa 

 thinks they are just the thing to have. He has a 

 place fixed off in the cellar that he winters his bees 

 in. Papa takes Gleanings, and he said that he 

 couldn't get along without it. And he also has the 

 ABC book. Papa never did feed any of his bees, 

 as other people do that keep bees. Papa had 4 or 

 5 swarms go off this summer. Do you think a 

 swarm of bees would go off without clustering first? 

 Some people that keep bees up here say that they 

 had a swarm of bees come out and go right off. 



Emma Levey, age 10. 



Preston, Minn., Aug. 27, 1889. 



Swarms do not generally go right off with- 

 out first alighting, though they have been 

 known to do so. 



a EAR BROTHER:— I usually read your Tobac- 

 co Column in Gleanings. In the issue of 

 Aug. 15th, 1 think there is no such column. 

 In seeing that it was wanting in one in- 

 stance, I thought that I would write you a 

 sketch of what 1 am doing this summer; and if you 

 can find nothing better to put in your columns you 

 are at liberty to use this. I thought that I could 

 not use a little of the latter part of the evening of 

 life better than to give a few lectures on the tobac- 

 co habit. In cold weather I am not able to be out 

 much, on account of a bronchial affection with 

 which I have been afliicted for some years. I be- 

 gan in May, after it became so warm that I would 

 not be exposed, and shall continue till cold weather. 

 I met with far less opposition than I expected in 

 this work. One fact I try to emphasize in all my 

 lectures, is the ease by which a person may fall in- 

 to, or contract, a habit, that it is so hard to get rid 

 of. Few are the boys that would wish to contract a 

 habit that would be galling to them the rest of their 

 lives. And yet this is just what most of them are 

 doing when they are smoking their first cigar. One 

 man said to me, just the other day, " I would give a 

 hundred dollars if I could quit the use of tobacco, 

 and be myself, without it." Another who had quit 

 said to his friend who wanted he should take anoth- 

 er smoke with him, "I would not do it for a hun- 

 dred dollars. 1 would not have the fight over 

 again." Still a third, who had four sons that he 

 wanted to keep from using tobacco, stopped him- 

 self to be an ensample to them; and on being im- 

 portuned to use it again he said, "Not for a thou- 

 sand dollars." That was his estimate of his exam- 

 ple to his sons. And yet a fourth, who had learned 

 to use tobacco— and yet a young man, but little 

 more than twenty, had the habit so firmly fixed 

 that he said, when importuned to stop, " I would 

 not promise to do it for a thousand dollars." It ap- 

 pears a matter of but small moment to smoke now 

 and then a cigar or take a quid of tobacco; but 

 when one has been beguiled into the habit, the 

 quitting is not so trifling a matter. I found an old 

 man the other day who had not used tobacco for 

 two months, and that day he was chewing hops vig- 

 orously, and the women in the neighborhood were 

 sympathizing with him in his effort, if possible, to 

 break up the habit of using tobacco. I don't know 

 how it will turn out; but a woman told me but yes- 

 terday that her husband, on quitting the use of to- 

 bacco, chewed poplar twigs for a whole year, carry- 

 ing them all the time in his pocket. So hard is it 

 often to break up the habit that is so thoughtlessly 

 acquired. A sure way to stop the tobacco habit is, 

 never begin. 



I find many wives, wherever I go, who tell me 

 that, if their husbands are out of tobacco, they 

 would go and get it for them, if they had to pay for 

 it by taking in washing; because they are so irrita- 

 ble and cross, if, perchance, they are without. One 

 of my gravest charges that I bring against tobacco 

 is that it is capable of bringing a person into such a 

 condition, in body and mind, that he can not be 

 pleasant and agreeable without that draught of 

 prison. There is not that family of children, whose 

 father ordinarily uses tobacco but knows, too well, 

 when he is without it. 

 The great evil that tobacco is doing in the com- 



