Jan. 4, 1900. 



americafn bee journal 



The "Old Reliable" seen thru New and Unreliable Glasses. 

 By E. B. HASTY, Richards, Ohio. 



BEES AND HONEY OK THE ANCIENTS. 



Prof. Wiley, page 740, seems to me to build far to much 

 on the mere phrase, " ethereal honey," in Virgil. The an- 

 cients were not such fools as to be unaware that bees, some 

 of the time, visited flowers for sweet. It was when they saw 

 them gathering dew, and when they saw them gathering 

 — we even now know not what — from the surface of 

 fresh or newly-thawed soil, and when they saw them at 

 work on what we now call " honey-dew," that they con- 

 cluded that another, and perhaps larger source, of sweet 

 direct from the air was open to them direct from the air. 

 And some persons stick to that opinion yet. Virgil, in the 

 same poem Mr. Wiley quotes, directed not to plant an api- 

 ary on a cattle-range or sheep-walk, and gave at least one 

 correct reason — because stock destroyed the flowers. This 

 shows clearly that Virgil thought flowers a material source 

 of supply, and not a mere trifling one. In fact. Prof. Wiley 

 heedlessly upsets his own position by quoting the ancient 

 yarn about $650 worth of honey from an acre of flower- 

 garden. 



DEMOCRITUS AND DEMOCRATS. 



I thank the Professor for the name of that fellow who 

 said, " oil without, honey within," when askt how to live 

 a hundred-and-odd years in vigor. Democritus his name 

 was, it seems, and 450 B. C. Have been looking for him for 

 some time. If I go to forget again I'll think of Democrats. 

 The Democrats are living out their first hundred years in 

 vigor, and are likely to go in for another century — but not 

 on oil and honey — " loam without, gall within," would be 

 the way the Republicans would state it. 



DAKOTAN METHODS AND APIARY. 



I laughtwhen I read Comrade Hobbs' boast that he 

 could sit in a chair and take his swarms. Let's send for 

 some of his queens — or, perchance, if we had a Dakotan or 

 South African veldt to keep bees on, our present stock 

 might fail to cluster on nothing 30 feet up. His apiary plan 

 seems to be excellent in some respects, and not so good in 

 others — badly lacking in location points. If he would move 

 that chicken-coop we see at the right, to the center front, 

 and then take a shovel and throw up a couple of mounds of 

 dirt midway between coop and wings — well, the aspect 

 would not be improved, but the apiary would be a better 

 apiary. The endless single row, every hive just alike, does 

 have a certain impressiveness poetically considered. 



DOOI<ITTI,E ON WINTER BREEDING. 



Doolittle puts it well about winter breeding, on page 738 

 — two old bees lost for each young one reared, while in 

 proper season two young are reared for each old one worn 

 out. 



STRAINING AT GNATS AND SWALLOWING CAMELS. 



Editor Leahy's a good fellow, but he deserves the clip 

 the editor gave him, page 745 — would strain out the national 

 convention essays (which are not even gnats at all), and 

 swallow the camel of five pages of romance. What an ap- 

 petite for camels most of us have ! Note how our not-so- 

 bad-as-it-might-be government abolisht the national cock- 

 fight the minute it got to Manila — and introduced the 

 American saloon ! 



A OUEEN-REARING SUGGESTION. 



And so the largest queen-breeder in Australia says bees 

 do remove all royal jelly given them with larv^ — yet he 

 gets more accepted that way, and thinks it works as a sug- 

 gestion. Page 747. Why not give them the suggestion on 

 a chip, and save the babies from being tumbled about ? 



A NICE HOUSE-APIARY. 



On page 7S3, Mr. Goudge gives us something out of the 

 ordinary line in a nice house-apiary built to accommodate 

 only five colonies. He did well to keep the cash cost down 

 to $3.00 a colony, he doing and not counting the carpenter 



work. At the very antipodes of Mr. Hobbs, just reviewed, 

 Mr. G. seems to be almost excessive in his painstaking 

 efforts to enable bees and queens to locate. He doesn't ex- 

 plain what the curious round-spottedness about the en- 

 trances is — possibly that also is location-marking of a 

 fancy sort. 



PROPOLIS AS GHAl'TING-WAX. 



Proper glad to see our Deacon again, page 754. Thought 

 we'd lost him. Quite interesting to see that he made a suc- 

 cess of using simple, unmixt propolis for grafting-wax. I 

 think climate must have something to do with it. It is in- 

 deed Nature's own grafting-wax; but I suspect that the 

 wax Nature makes in our July, and the average weather in 

 our grafting-time, are a little too unwilling to yield to 

 each other. 



SOUTH AFRICAN HONEY-GUIDE — A SOLILOQUISM. 



Of course, information concerning that little wise-head 

 (or lunatic), the African honey-guide can hardly be else 

 than interesting. Very few things in animate Nature seem 

 more worthy of careful study than the psychology of that 

 little chap. Early reports gave us the idea that he always 

 led to honey, and that his object was to get a share of the 

 plunder himself. The first, it .seems, is false, and the last 

 at least very doubtful. Bees are not usually taken imme- 

 diately on being found ; so the guide gets nothing, unless 

 he happens around weeks later. Theories have to be recon- 

 structed, apparently. I feel as tho I have evidence that 

 wild squirrels, and at least a few wild birds, are aware that 

 man is a higher creature than themselves, and that occa- 

 sionally they feel a strong desire to open communications 

 with him somehow (as our astronomers burn to open com- 

 munication with Mars). Honey-guide simply an extreme 

 example of the same sort — intense and excitable, and 

 chock-full of big thoughts and curiosity, he often wants the 

 companionship of some other wise being, wiser than him- 

 self, in the contemplation of some of his problems. Alas, 

 like children asking questions, he sometimes oversizes us ! 

 And one of his commonest problems is, it seems. Why (in a 

 world generally nice) should there be such disgusting crea- 

 tures as big snakes ? And at least once (many thanks to 

 Mr. Deacon for the evidence). Why should a human being 

 lie drunk on the ground ? The problem whether tiger would 

 eat Deacon, or Deacon eat tiger, is so-so, altho not so deep. 

 What the problem is in regard to bees is not so plain as one 

 could wish. We don't know from what point of view he re- 

 gards them. I guess he regards insects simply as proven- 

 der, and that the problem is. Why should provender have 

 such sharp tails, and get together in such armies that a fel- 

 low has to stand off and let them alone ? 



NON-SEPARATOR ED HONEY. 



Mr. stone rather threw— himself— in the eye of the no- 

 separator fellows, when he said that only about 20 pounds 

 of the entire lot of no-separator honey at the World's Fair 

 was fit to ship and sell. Page 758. 



FERMENTED HONEY FOR BAKING. 



If Chalon Fowls, indorst by Gleanings in Bee-Culture, 

 says some bakers prefer fermented honey to sound — well, 

 that militates pretty strongly against some recent " After- 

 thinks;" but let's have the whole evidence without fear or 

 favor. May there not be an adjustment possible, like this : 

 Slightly tart honey giving the better /fffz'or to some cook- 

 ery, and sound honey giving the more of the moisture- 

 attracting quality ? The latter quality is all that a baking 

 trust would ever buy a carload of honey for, I take it. 



don't " MONKEY " WITH FOUL BROOD. 



Some of us were not aware that young queenless bees, 

 and young bees with a virgin queen, were more persevering 

 and thoro in cleaning filth from combs than normal colonies 

 are ; but it's not altogether unreasonable, and if Editor 

 Simmins says it, it's pretty likely there's something in it — 

 a something which the bee-man who wants his general- 

 knowledge box fullv equipt would better make a note of. 

 But, on the whole, this critic would say, Dangerous business 

 for the boys to get at— these foul-brood experiments on 

 pages 762 and 764. Say, let the foul brood alone, and mon- 

 key with a toy cannon. 



Queenie Jeanette is the title of a pretty song in sheet 

 music size, written by J. C. Wallenmej-er, a musical bee- 

 keeper. The regular price is 40 cents, but to close out the 

 copies we have left, we vcill mail them at 20 cents each, as 

 long as they last. Better.order at once, if you want a copy 

 1 of this song. 



