THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



355 



WEEKLY EDITION 



OF THE 



^.^-^'^lME3S3^ie^, 



^«^£ 



iiijoiiwi 



PPBLISHED BY 



THOMAS G. NEWMAN, 



Editor and Pkopkietou, 

 925 WEST MADISON-STREET, CHICAGO, ILL. 



Weekly, S»S a year ; Monthly, «0 cents. 



Vol. XXI. June 10, 1885, No. 23. 



APICULTURAL NEWS ITEMS. 



EDITORIAL AND SELECTED. 



"Wliatever you do in the apiary— always 



do it well, thereby saving much valuable 

 time and endless trouble. 



Some P^-iople, says a philosopher, "are 

 always finding fault with Nature for putting 

 thorns on roses ; I always thank her for 

 putting roses on thorns." 



Avoid B]o\viii<>- your Bi'oatlt among: 

 the bees while handling- the combs. They 

 are inclined to resent anything objectionable 

 in rather a pointed manner. 



Doiii": Good should not be a studied act. 

 By doing- the best we can, minute by minute 

 and hour by hour, we insensibly grow to 

 goodness, as fruit grows to ripeness. 



If CN ; that was the reply we made to Query 

 No. 1, on page *2ni( ; but the treacherous type 

 made us say *' No," and thus contradict our 

 owu writing elsewhere, as well as all author- 

 ities on that subject. 



Hee» as Storm-Warners.— A German, 

 who has studiously watched every movement 

 of the honey-bees, asserts that they are 

 excellent storm-warners. He says that on 

 the approach of thunder-storms, bees, other- 

 wise gentle and harmless, become very 

 irritable, and will at once attack any one, 

 even their usual attendant, approaching their 

 hives. A succession of instances are given 

 in which the barometer and hygrometer 

 foretold a storm, the bees remaining quiet,' 

 and no storm occurred ; or the instruments 

 gave no intimation of a storm, but the bees 

 for hours before were irritable, and it came. 



Beauty Everywiiere.— The country all 

 over the North is now beautiful. The trees 

 are loaded with budding fruit; the wheat and 

 grasses are waving in the gentle breezes ; 

 Nature's rich, green carpet covers the undu- 

 lated fields of •' the broad prairies " as well 

 as the thousands of hillsides and valleys 

 variegated with yellow and white blossoms. 

 The warbling of the feathered songsters are 

 wafted upon the gentle breezes, and billions 

 of fiowers are perfuming the air I The bees 

 are at work gathering the rich nectar that 

 "wells up " in the white clover which is now 

 just springing into bloom. It is several 

 weeks late— but welcome alike to the bees 

 and the apiarists. - 



Mr. Henry Hootb, a bee-keeper of 

 Marshall County, W. Va., died of typhoid 

 fever. His daughter asks us to state the fact 

 in the Uek Jouunai., so that his many bee- 

 keeping friends may be informed of his 

 demise. He always said that he should be a 

 life-subscriber to the Bbe Journal, and he 

 was. 



lIope»« Bh&Mtcd should give courage to 

 battle afresh with the causea of disaster, and 

 rise above it. Experience is an expensive 

 instructor, but some of us will learn of no 

 other. One writer says that " the mere lapse 

 of years is not life. Knowledge, truth, love, 

 beauty, goodness, faith, alone can give 

 vitality to the mechanism of existence." 

 We must live and Icani, and thus we shall 

 Jearn to Jive. We learn to climb the hill of 

 difficulty— not by looking at disasters in the 

 past, but by keeping a steady aim on the 

 mountains of truth that lie before us. 



The Honey Prospects.— Although the 

 weather during the past winter and spring 

 has been very disastrous to many colonies of 

 bees, still there is a redeeming feature— the 

 weather in the Northwest for the past month 

 has been very favorable for honey-produc- 

 tion ; the many warm rains and intervening 

 sunshine have been very good for vegetation, 

 and promises a large honey crop, if there is 

 no great "set-back." Those who have the 

 colonies "bred up " to full strength will, we 

 think, realize very satisfactory results. At 

 least that seems to be the "indications" now. 



The A B C of Carp Culture, a neat 



pamphlet of about 100 pages, is on our desk. 

 It explains the simplest, cheapest and most 

 effective system of carp culture, and being 

 written by Mr. Milton P. Pierce, of Philadel- 

 phia, Pa., Secretary of the American Carp 

 Cultural Association, it cannot fail to be of 

 inestimable value to all interested in the 

 "finny tribes." It is published by Mr. A. I. 

 Root, Medina, Ohio. We will mail it to any 

 address upon the receipt of the price, which 

 is 50 cents. 



Bee and Honey Classification,- The 



thanks of the bee-keepers of the United 

 States are due to Mr. S. C. Boylston, of 

 Charleston, S. C, for his efforts in their behalf 

 to remedy the unjust discrimination of rail- 

 road tariffs. Mr. Boylston was appointed the 

 chairman of a committee for that purpose, 

 at the Bee-Keepers' Congress, held at New 

 Orleans last February, and how well he has 

 performed the work assigned to him and his 

 associates, may be learned by his report, 

 published on page 302 of this paper. It will 

 be remembered that the editor of the Bee 

 Journal, made an address on the subject, 

 and presented the case to the Congress at 

 New Orleans, and the appointment of that 

 committee was the result. Now, we will 

 have another interview with the freight 

 agents at their next meeting in this city, and 

 endeavor to have all the railroads centering 

 in Chicago make the same classification and 

 rates. Those having influence at the head- 

 quarters of railroads in other Cities, are 

 requested to present the claims of bee-keep- 

 ers to them, and get a copy of the rates and 

 classifications from this oflice for that 

 purpose. Mr. Boylston's aid in this matter 

 has been verygreat. as he himself is a rail- 

 road official, and we congratulate the bee- 

 keepers of America upon having such an 

 efficient representative apiarist. 



I*:<;yptlan Bee*Danre. — On June 2, a 

 magnificent ball was given in Paris, France, 



in a sj)letididly illuminated and royally deco- 

 rated hall. Thecoatumcs of the ladies and 

 gentlemen wore radiant with thousands of 

 diamonds, pearls, rubies, emeralds, etc. The 

 telegraphic report ends thus : "During the 

 banquet an orchestra of 120 performers, 

 concealed behind dense shrubbery, played, 

 and a splendid corps de hallet, each hatlcfine 

 being in the costume of a bee, danced the 

 Egyptian bee-daneo." We know that very 

 often a single bee makes a man dance, but 

 what kind of a spectacle girls dressed up like 

 bees would present, we are left to conjecture, 

 as well as what were the peculiarities of the 

 Egyptian bee-dance. 



Historical.— A correspondent desires U8 

 to give a brief historic statement of the rise 

 of modern bee-culture in America, and we 

 give the following review : 



In 18.53 the Alps bees were introduced into 

 Germany. Madame de Padua, of Mira, Italy, 

 wrote to the Rev. Dr. Dzierzon, who resided 

 in Lower Silesia, for a model of his bee-hives, 

 and she sent him a colony of the yellow race 

 of bees, which were the first ever seen in that 

 part of Europe. 



In 1856, Mr. Samuel Wagner, of York, Pa., 

 attempted to import a few colonies of Italian 

 bees, but they all perished on the voyage. 

 In 1860, Messrs. Wagner and Colvin first 

 succeeded in importing the yellow-banded 

 bees, from Dr. Dzierzon's apiary. 



Until then but little thought had been 

 devoted in this country to bee-keeping as an 

 occupation, and still less to it as a science. 

 True, many kept a greater or less number of 

 "gums" or " skeps," and a few, comparer 

 tively very few, master minds had conceived 

 rational scientific views regarding many of 

 the internal mysteries of the hive; some had 

 to an extent comi)rehended the phj'sio logical 

 history of the honey-bee. but they were so 

 very few that their wisdom was ahaost 

 covered with disrepute by the ignorant and 

 siiperstitious ideas of the masses, who kept 

 bees as did their great-grandfathers, and 

 whose comprehension had only kept pace 

 with their improvements. The master-works 

 of Rev. L. L. Langstroth and the late M. 

 Quinby gave rise to much thoughtand study, 

 which in turn led to experiments, and these 

 created the necessity for a periodical, in the 

 columns of which new discoveries could be 

 heralded, accepted theories be discussed, old 

 prejudices be corabatted, and apiculture be 

 elevated to its proper position among the 

 progressive sciences. 



In 1861, the American Bee Jouknai, was 

 started by the late Sarauel Wagner, and in 

 1873, it became the property of the present 

 editor. That much progress has been made 

 during the 25 years of the American Bee 

 Journal's existence, all will acknowledge. 

 Many doubtful problems have been solved, 

 and new ideas iiromulgated; all the standard 

 works on apiculture have been revised time 

 and again, as published experiences have 

 proven to the several authors thattheir books 

 inclined to ei'ror, and none but the most 

 conceited have dared to assume that they 

 knew it all. 



Now there are nearly 300,000 beekeepers 

 in the United States and Canada, and the 

 annual product amounts to 100.000,000 of 

 pounds of honey, valued at about fifteen 

 millions of dollars. 



