282 



THE BEE-KEEPERS REVIEW. 



time would make the fact manifest that bee- 

 keepers are interested. 



Fifth, experiment stations are not to be 

 employed for the benefit of existing apiarists 

 only, they should be used for the advantage 

 of the whole people. Most of the honey re- 

 sources are made to yield nothing for want 

 of bees to gather the offerings. It would ev- 

 idently be for the advantage of the country 

 if all its surface which produces honey se- 

 creting flora in any abundance were dotted 

 with apiaries no more than three miles an art. 

 To accomplish this or even to make a begin- 

 ning at it would require the popularizing of 

 bee-keeping. Apiarian lectures and discus- 

 sions under the auspices of the station in im- 

 itation of the course pursued in some other 

 rural branches could not fail to be fruitful. 

 But it will be objected that this would not 

 benefit an existing apiarist as such, but it 

 would as a citizen. My respect for a man re- 

 ceives a severe check when I leara that he is 

 willing to prosper financially at the expense 

 of the well-being of his country. This work 

 cannot be done unless the favorable influ- 

 ence of bee-keepers is felt by those who con- 

 trol the resources of the experiment stations. 

 With proper support from the stations this 

 work would be successful. Bee-keepers' 

 conventions are not always well attended 

 because only bee-keepers are invited and 

 they in order to attend must generally go 

 long distances, but let competent mc n go in- 

 to the country school houses, in districts 

 where the farming communities are starving 

 for want of social and intellectual excite- 

 ment during the months when they enjoy 

 comparative leisure, to speak on this subject 

 with an invitation to everybody and the 

 seats would be crowded with eager listeners. 

 Sixth, by the earliest possible publication 

 of the results of experiments made by those 

 in charge of the apiarian station in the api- 

 cultural journals. The importance of this 

 is manifest. The journals cannot conven- 

 iently criticise in a proper manner the work 

 of the station if the entire "report of that 

 work for a whole year comes in a body. 

 For similar reasons it would be much more 

 profitable to the bee-keeper if he were al- 

 lowed to digest it in sections than to be ex- 

 pected to perforin that operation at a silting 

 at the end of the year. At best the reports 

 are dry reading so that they iiutat be served 

 in moderate portions if they are to be gen- 

 erally digested at all. 



Seventh, by the co-operation of the sev- 

 eral persons in charge of the apicultural de- 

 partments of the experiment stations and 

 all perhaps under the direction, in a sort of 

 advisory way, of the united North American 

 Bee-Keeper's AFSociation and the Bee-Keep- 

 ers' Union, should the marriage of these or- 

 ganizations be happily accomplished. Such 

 co-operation would be used in securing con- 

 firmatory experiments under ditterent su- 

 pervision where such were deemed advisable 

 and to prevent repetitions when they could 

 be attended by no valuable results. 



Last, but, I may safely add, not least, by 

 the advent of better honey seasons. In my 

 opinion many of the more important lines 

 of experimentation depend for their success 

 upon swarming or an abundant honey flow 

 or both. Neither has occurred here for the 

 last two years — an embarrassing state of 

 things when considerable preparation has 

 been made for work depending upon them. 

 But times change, what has been will be 

 again, old time honey flows will surely return 

 and we shall reap if we faint not. 



Lapeeb, Migu, Aug. 30, 1895. 



Useful Apiarian Inventions. 



B. TAYLOR. 



nriBOUT the year 

 I\ 1840, my brother 

 bought and brouglrt 

 to our home a swarm 

 of bees. It was in 

 a circular straw hive 

 made by weaving 

 together a rope of 

 straw with splinters 

 of tough wood. The 

 management of this 

 hive was the first 

 lessons I remember 

 in practical bee-keeping, and I now vividly 

 recollect the interest 1 took in the first effort 

 to get some table honey from that hive. A 

 frosty morning was chosen for the work (so 

 the bees would be too cold to sting), a bundle 

 of rags set on fire, aud alter the bees were 

 smoked nearly to death by first one and then 

 another of our numerous family taking turns 

 in blowing, with their mouths, smoke into 

 the hive entrance, we proceeded to rob the 

 hive. It was turned upside down, and while 

 one person blowed smoke among the half- 



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