Oct. 29, 1903. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



695 



time. I think while he had it in charge we decided to start 

 a little quarterly. 



Our good friend, Thomas G. Newman, who has recently 

 been called to his last home, succeeded Mr. Clarke, and 

 managed the American Bee Journal very ably. We did not 

 realize his value until he was gone. The sorrow that covers 

 a man's grave is oftentimes the poultice that draws out his 

 virtues. 



About this time I got acquainted with Prof. Cook. I 

 found him connected with an agricultural college, and 

 while visiting him once we studied the plants and insects 

 along the grounds. He took me over to a man who got up 

 the first chaff-hive. You don't need them here, but they 

 were a grand thing there. It has been my pleasure to have 

 an automobile ride through Michigan, and they told me 

 there that the very best thing to winter bees in is a chaff- 

 hive. 



About this time somebody (Mr. Alley, I think) started 

 up queen-bees by mail, and that was getting to be quite a 

 business when some of the boys got careless, and some bees 

 got out and stung the post-office clerks, and Uncle Sam 

 passed a law that no more bees could be sent by mail ; but 

 just at the crisis, when we did not know what we ought to 

 do. our good friend, Prof. Cook here, went down to Wash- 

 ington, and succeeded in getting an audience with Presi- 

 dent Hayes, and the decision was reversed, and we bee- 

 keepers were happy again. 



There are lots of things I shall probably overlook which 

 will come to mind after the meeting is over. 



Of course, I began to be curious about bees in other 

 parts of the world. We had the best honey-bees on the 

 face of the earth. And then D. A. Jones, of Canada, got 

 the money together to send Frank Benton across to the Old 

 World, where he sometimes had hard work to find a place to 

 stay all night, and had hard work to live in comfort. But 

 we have had a chance to test these different bees. There 

 was a good deal of experimenting about it, and whether the 

 bees are superior or not, we are indebted to D. A. Jones and 

 Frank Benton for giving us the opportunity to try these 

 different bees. 



I was going to say something about Italian bees. If 

 our good friend Langstroth were alive he could tell you 

 something about them. Just here I may mention how many 

 things come up nowa-days that are called new inventions. 

 Ernest will come to me and say, " Here is something new." 

 "Why," I say. " that was published perhaps before you 

 were born I" For instance, queen-cells with rows as regu- 

 lar as the teeth of a rake. I think that was given in Glean- 

 ings in 1878. There was a beekeeper on a farm who had 

 rows of queen-cells equal along the whole length, made in 

 those wooden cell-cups, just the same thing they are selling 

 now. In " Langstroth on the Honey-Bee " there is some- 

 thing about a bee-keeper attempting to get straight combs 

 in the brood-chamber. I think he mentioned that as a good 

 deal of bother. But he says straight combs, with bees on 

 both sides, are better than money in the bank. 



Worker-eggs by mail. A bee-keeper, I think in the old 

 American Bee Journal perhaps, was the first who succeeded 

 in sending worker-eggs by mail and having them hatch 

 queens. 



Our good friend Harbison, here, has given us quite a 

 few items in regard to his work in getting the first car-load 

 of bees to the Pacific Coast, and I would like to ask him 

 now to tell us something about the first shipment of bees 

 to California. 



Mr. Harbison — My first shipment was 116 colonies. 

 Mr. Root — Those were Italian bees? 



Mr. Harbison — No, native bees, such as we reared in 

 western Pennsylvania at that time. 



Mr. Root — And Mr. Harbison has told us that people 

 said to him if he succeeded in getting the bees here there 

 was nothing here for them to work on. 



Mr. Harbison — Fortunately, I had been in California — 

 was here in 1854. My first experience was the importation 

 of fruit-trees, of which I imported the first varieties in the 

 Sacramento Valley. That was in 1855 and 1856, and at that 

 time I studied the flora of the country, and conceived the 

 idea of preparing a shipment of bees ; sold out my other 

 interests and returned. That was in 1857, in the spring. I 

 prepared the bees and shipped them in the fall of that year. 

 Mr. Root — Perhaps there are quite a number of other 

 names I should have included in my list here. A long 

 while ago Mr. R. Wilkin paid me a visit, and we had some 

 long talks. 



Langstroth and Ouinby were pioneers in bee-culture. 

 Mr. Ouinby's attention was called to the fact that Lang- 



stroth thought he was backward in giving his friend due 

 credit. Langstroth, as perhaps many of you know, had 

 periodic spells of mental depression. When I became ac- 

 quainted with him he told me about those spells he had. He 

 would go off by himself and would scarcely speak to his 

 own family. Then he would come out of the attacks with 

 a remarkably cool head, and gentle and genial manner. 



He paid me a visit after one of those spells, and I had a 

 good many talks with him about it. Sometimes he would 

 get headstrong. One day he got pretty rough, and we 

 pretty nearly had a quarrel. I felt quite sad about it. The 

 next morning he came up to me and said, " Mr. Root, I 

 want to beg your pardon for the way I treated you last 

 night. That has something to do with my malady, and the 

 next time I do that I wish you would come up, put your 

 hand on ray shoulder and say, 'There, there, old friend, I 

 guess we had better change the subject.' " We had a good 

 many talks after that, and among others about Ouinby. 

 He told me about his invention. " I did so and so, and Mr. 

 Quinby did so and so, and Mr. (Juinby was that or the 

 other." It made a pretty long story, and after it was over 

 I thought he was going home in a pretty bad frame of 

 mind. 



Mr. Langstroth, as many of you know, was not blessed 

 financially during the latter part of his life, and it used to 

 be customary for our bee-keepers' conventions to make him 

 a donation. He thought the world had hardly given him 

 what he ought to have had. I said to him, " Mr. Lang- 

 stroth, you and Father ijuinby have probably not a great 

 while to live. I would advise you never to go over the mat- 

 ter again as you did with me here, and let it all pass. It is 

 not worth while. Further, I wish you would go and visit 

 Mr. Ouinby and have a friendly talk, and let bygones be 

 bygones." 



He did not like that sort of logic. 1 urged t'he plan. 

 Finally he went to bed. The next morning he did not get 

 up, and I went into his room. He took his watch and 

 handed it to me, saying, " Mr. Root, will you please listen 

 to my watch." I said, '■ Isn't it all right ? It seems to me 

 to tick regularly," for you know I was a jeweler by trade. 

 He said, " So it says, ' tick, tick, tick ' to you, but to me it 

 has been saying, ' Ouinby, Ouinby, Ouinby,' all night long, 

 and I am afraid that watch will keep on saying ' Quinby ' 

 until I start down there and shake hands with Father 

 Quinby. and we two make friends 1" And he started off. I 

 tell you I felt happy. 



In due time he came back and said, " Mr. Root, I have 

 had one of the pleasantest and best visits I ever had in my 

 life. We talked things over, and he didn't find any fault 

 with me, and I did not find any fault with him, and we are 

 going to be friends as long as God lets us live. When I had 

 that talk with him I gave it up without any discourage- 

 ment. And it seemed to me there was not much use talk- 

 ing." 



It is a pretty big job sometimes to make friends in 

 matters of that kind. That lesson comes to me often. 

 There may be some people here to night whose watches, if 

 they do not say " Quinby," may be saying something else, 

 and will continue to say it until they get up and go and do 

 the right thing, as Mr. Langstroth did. 



But there are other friends here, and I would be glad to 

 hear from Mr. Harbison. Mr. Corey also is here, and we 

 want to hear from him. 



(Continued next week.) 



Why Not Help a Little— both your neighbor bee-keep- 

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 names and addresses of such as you may know do not now 

 get this journal ? We will be glad to send them sample 

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 and subscribe for it, thus putting themselves in the line of 

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 the premiums we are constantly offering as rewards for 

 such effort. 



.*-•-♦ 



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