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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL-. 



"Huh!" grunted Sam, rubbing his 

 leg. "Don' tink I zamine 'em much. 

 Done let Mandy do dat." 



"Well, Sam, if you do much with 

 your bees, you will have to examine 

 them occasionally to see that they are 

 all right, though you must not handle 

 them too much." 



" Um-m-m-m ! dat sting hurts ! Don' 

 tink deys much danger in dat." 



"Now, Sam, there is the hive com- 

 plete, and here is where the bees store 

 the honey which is for you ; this lower 

 part is where they rear the young bees, 

 and you must not take honey from there. 

 I will sell you the hive for f 1.75, com- 

 plete." 



Sam surveyed the hive critically. 



" How you git de bees in um ?" he 

 asked. 



" What have you got them in now, 

 Sam '?" 



" Dey's hangin' on er tree, 'n de ole 

 woman's bangin' er dish-pan under 'em 

 t' keep 'em dar. Reckon Mandy's 'bout 

 deaf by dis time." 



"Well, Sam, you set the hive where 

 you want it to be, and spread a sheet in 

 front of it ; get a basket and brush the 

 bees off the limb into it, and empty them 

 on the sheet — a few at first, and as soon 

 as these few reach the hive, dump the 

 rest out on the sheet. They will then 

 all crawl into the hive, and you can re- 

 move the sheet. As no honey is coming 

 in now, you will have to feed them 

 then." 



" How dat ! Mars Frank ? W'at you 

 feed 'em ?" 



"Take a cupful of granulated sugar, 

 and pour enough boiling water over it to 

 make a thin syrup. I will come down 

 bye-and-bye and show you how to feed 

 them. Now, you had better hurry 

 along, or Mandy will knock a hole 

 through her dish-pan." 



"All right. Boss. Yere's de money, 

 an' I'll be gwine. How soon you be 

 down ?" 



" Oh, in a couple of hours, I guess. Be 

 sure and do as I told you, and make that 

 syrup when you get the bees hived, so it 

 will be cool when I come." 



"All right. Boss; much erbleeged ;" 

 and Sam disappeared down the road. 



In my next I will tell you about my 

 first visit to Sam and his wife " Mandy." 



Darktown, Blackland. 



The Great Droulli in Iowa. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 



BY E. S. MILES. 



One-Cent PoMtst^e Stamps we 



prefer whenever it is necessary to send 

 stamps for fractions of a dollar. By re- 

 membering this, you will greatly oblige us. 



Laugh, and the world laughs with you. 

 Weep, and you weep alone— 



Not if you're a bee-keeper of Crawford 

 county, for more than one will weep 

 when they look in their surplus-honey 

 receptacles this fall. Indeed, lamenta- 

 tions are now heard in the land, not only 

 from bee-keepers, but by bee-keepers as 

 well. 



The following from the pen of Hon. 

 J. R. Sage, of the Iowa Weather Bureau, 

 in the Iowa Homestead for July 27th, 

 describes the season, and also the reason 

 for the above-mentioned lamentations, 

 in a very interesting and truthful man- 

 ner : 



This is a peculiar season. As a matter of 

 fact all seasons are peculiar, in that no two 

 are exactly alike. But this season has been 

 so far off from the ordinary run as to be 

 unique and unprecedented in many re- 

 spects. It opened earlier than usual, with 

 most glorious promise. March came in 

 wrong end first, beginning with ethereal 

 mildness, and ending with zero and bliz- 

 zards. Farmers plowed, sowed, planted 

 gardens the first half of the month, and re- 

 joiced in the belief that the zone had slip- 

 ped a cog to the southward. The last of 

 the month they shivered over fires, or went 

 out with overcoats and mittens, and saw 

 the opening buds of tender plants frozen 

 solid. 



April was warmer than the average, 

 with plenty of moisture, making it an ideal 

 month for farm work and seeding opera- 

 tions. May brought phenomenal extremes 

 of temperature, the general range being 

 from 90 degrees down to the most damag- 

 ing freeze ever known in this section at 

 that stage of crop growth. This was a dis- 

 couraging set-back, but if favorable condi- 

 tions had followed it would have been one 

 of the best of seasons. But the most disas- 

 trous feature of the season thus far has 

 been the great drouth, which is likely to 

 become historic. Certainly it is entitled to 

 rank as a record-breaker, for this section 

 never experienced such a season for aridity 

 at this time of the y^r. Beginning early 

 in May, it steadily maintained its wither- 

 ing grasp. Though most promisingly 

 " broken " on several occasions, yet it de- 

 clined to stay broke, and resumed business 

 at the old stand. This State has been the 

 center of its greatest severity, but in its 

 scope it has embraced a considerable part 

 of the corn-belt, and stretched from the 

 Uakotas to Georgia. 



Since the above appeared, the great 

 drouth's business has certainly not fallen 

 off any — in this part of the State, any- 

 way. It has been the boast of this* 



