THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



739 



WEEKLY EDITION 



OK THE 



iHj^llHiEi 



THOMAS G. NEWMAN, 



Vol. XXI. Nov. 25, 1885. No. 47. 



APICULTURAL NEWS ITEMS. 



EDITORIAL AND SELECTED. 



Tlie First Bees bi-ought to America 

 were landed at Boston, Mass., in the year 

 1670, by some Englishmen. 



Dr. W. B. Rush, who formerly wrote 

 considerably for the Bee JouRN.ii., is now 

 settled at Oakland, Fla. 



Ma, did you read in the paper about 

 "vaccinating bees" in Maine? asked Mildred. 

 "Why, no, my dear," replied the old lady, 

 " I did not even know that bees ever took 

 the small-po.x."— Pitfsfiurg Chroiiicle. 



IVe Regret to learn that Mr. R. E. Scot- 

 ton, of Edenville, Iowa, lost his wife, by 

 malaria, on Sept. 2, 1885. She was 65 years 

 of age, and is mourned by a host of friends 

 and relatives. The Bee Journal condoles 

 with the bereaved ones. 



Tlie Honey Crop of California, this 

 year, was a very poor one. At Santa Ana, 

 last year, the average product of honey per 

 colony, was 240 pounds, but it has fallen to 

 an average of about 30 pounds for the crop 

 of 1885. 



The Wife of Mr. T. S. Hall, Kirby's 

 Creek, Ala., died on Nov. 6, 1885. She was 

 an expert queen-rearer and apiarist gen- 

 erally. She leaves a devoted husband and 

 four children to mourn her loss. The Bee 

 JonRNAL condoles with the bereaved ones. 



Mr. O. O. Poppleton and Wife, of 



Williamstown, Iowa, have gone to Florida 

 to spend the winter, on account of poor 

 health. Having spent some time in Florida 

 before, for the same cause, we hope they 

 will be benefited by that climate, and return 

 to their Northern home next spring full of 

 vigor. Mr. Poppleton is one of the most 

 successful apiarists of America, and usually 

 produces a large crop of honey. 



Are you Entitled to a pension? You 

 may be and may not know it. If you ex- 

 amine the Guide and Hand-Book you will 

 soon find out. Thousands of things worth 

 knowing will be found in it. The Bee 

 .JOL-K.NAL for 1886 and the Guide Book will 

 both be sent for $1.:!0. 



Eloquent Foolisliness. — The sheep- 

 bees lawsuit has brought out many a wail 

 from the shepherds and their friends, but 

 none, perhaps, so nonsensical as the fol- 

 lowing fi'om Grant County, Wis., Herald. 

 After reciting the facts upon which the 

 suit was brought, naming the attorneys, 

 and stating the decision of the Judge, the 

 Herald utters its wail thus : 



It appears that last spring Mr. Powers 

 was the happy possessor of a flock of mild- 

 eyed sheep, and it was the delight of his life 

 to sit beneath the ivy of his farm-house 

 j>orch anil watcli the innocent lambkins 

 disjiort 1lii'insi'l\-eM in the sunlight amid the 

 apple blossoms of tlie orchard and along the 

 green and grassy slopes leading gently down 

 to the purling brooklet, bordered by golden 

 cowslip and toothsome watercress. It was 

 a peaceful scene, and Hope, enchanted, 

 smiled and waved her golden hair. But 

 even as Satan, in the guise of a pretty ser- 

 pent, entered the valambrosia of Eden, so 

 the bees of Freeborn, actuated by a fiendish 

 malignity, and armed with the fiery darts of 

 Tophet, winged their remorseless way from 

 the Freeborn heritage to the clover blos- 

 soms of the said Powers, as aforesaid, and 

 sipped, and sipped, and sipped. 



Mark the result ! Deprived of the nectar 

 of the clover blossoms by the rapacity and 

 spoliation of Freeborn's bees, and worried 

 in mind at the loss of the very cream of the 

 meadows, Powers' sheep were broken of 

 their natural rest, and became nervous, 

 dispirited and melancholy. So deeply did 

 the infamous sacrilege and loss of nutriment 

 prey upon the minds of the sheep, and so 

 intense was their mental suffering under the 

 cruel wrong, that they began pining away, 

 broken-hearted, and one after another lay 

 down its burden and closed its eyes upon 

 the earth and all its beauties, to sleep the 

 last long sleep, the dreamless sleep of death, 

 callous and cold. The brutal bees still 

 flitted from fiower to flower, and it is 

 believed that Freeborn secretly encouraged 

 them in their scoundrelly work. 



Powers stood it as long as his nature was 

 capable of control. One after another, he 

 saw his pets fall by the wayside, turn up 

 their gazelle-like eyes to the floating cloud- 

 lets in the azure sky — clouds as light and 

 fleecy as their own downy coats ;— and then 

 the iron entered his soul. He did not strike 

 Freeborn dead at his feet, but brought suit 

 against him for the trespass of the bees 

 upon his premises, and entered court pre- 

 pared to prove all that he asseverated— 

 prepared to prove the loss of nutriment, the 

 mental strain to which the sheep had been 

 subjected by the predatory bees, their grief, 

 humiliation and repinings. 



But the attorneys for the defense raised 

 the point that no law existed defining the 

 exact number of bees necessary to con- 

 stitute trespass. One solitary little bee 

 could not justifiably be termed a trespasser 

 within the full meaning of the law, should 

 he wander away " into by and forbidden 

 paths " and pack his grip with surreptitious 

 saccharine ; and if one bee could not con- 

 stitute a trespasser, how many bees, they 

 desired to know, must invade a prohibited 

 pasture in order to commit a felonj' ? 



Judge Clementson said in effect that it 

 was too fine a point for him, and declined to 

 hear evidence criminating the little bees, 

 or proving an alibi in their behalf. The case 

 probably will go to the Supreme Court, 

 where some law may be laid down covering 

 this novel case. 



Stupidity and ignorance are combined in 

 the above. The writer assumes that the bees 

 stole from the clover something which the 

 sheep wanted. Instead of that, however, 

 had not the bees fertilized the flowers of the 

 clover, the .sheep would have had no clover 

 to feed upon I Instead of being a detriment 

 they were a blessing to the clover and its 

 owner. At the trial they did not assume 

 any such thing— they only claimed that the 

 bees were " trespassers." The last two 

 paragraphs contradict the . first three ! In 

 the former the sheep are said to have 

 endiu-ed " mental suffering," become " nerv- 



ous, dispirited and melancholy ;" and "so 

 intense was their mental suffering" that 

 they pined away, " broken-hearted " and 

 died I Why did they die? This writer says 

 that it was because they were " deprived of 

 the nectar of the clover blossoms by the 

 rapacity and spoliation of Freeborn's bees ! 

 and worried in mind at the loss of the very 

 cream of the meadows !" 



In the latter the bees were mere " tres- 

 passers" on the land, and were said to have 

 committed a " felony ! !" 



Evidently the Herald got out of its ele- 

 ment while trying to defend the sheep, and 

 became so " mixed up " that " no one could 

 tell what it was driving at !" 



One would suppose from reading the last 

 sentence that the Judges of the Supreme 

 Court were the law-makers ! If they go to 

 the Legislature to make new laws, there they 

 will be met by the apiarists who will prove 

 that without the bees to fructify the flowers, 

 the clover fields would be useless! Here 

 the sheep-man will be found to have tried to 

 " cut off his nose to spite his face !" 



Putting Bees in Cellars.— In the Pioirie 

 Farmer, Mrs. Harrison says that " a bee- 

 keeper must be governed by the latitude his 

 apiary is in, with reference to the time of 

 putting bees in the cellar. By a vote of the 

 Northwestern Convention last year, it was 

 decided that November was too soon to 

 store them. Last season ours were stored 

 Dec. 1, and two weeks of fine weather fol- 

 lowed, when bees that were put upon the 

 summer stands flew many days. Experience 

 teaches us that it is better to store late, and 

 then keep them there until warm weather 

 comes to stay. When the bees are to be 

 carried into the cellar, I fasten them la 

 until the next day, in the meantime leaving 

 the cellar ventilators open. When the bees 

 are quiet, the hives are opened. Do not 

 confine the bees to their hives in the cellar, 

 but leave fly entrances open, and the 

 frames covered with * comforts,' or better, 

 with woolen blankets." 



The Rev. li. L. Langstroth writes us 

 that he has been " alarmingly near to having 

 another attack " of his " old head troubles." 

 We are, however, glad to be able to chroni- 

 cle the fact of his escape, and to add the 

 following very encouraging words from his 

 letter : " I am better now than for some 

 weeks." 



He concludes his letter with a sentence 

 which will be enthusiastically read by all 

 those who intend to be at the Detroit Union 

 Convention. These are his words: "I ex- 

 pect to be at the Detroit Convention, and 

 bope to meet you there." Yes ; the editor 

 of the Bee Jodrn.vl now fully intends to be 

 there, and hopes to meet a large number of 

 the old veterans, and unite with them in 

 welcoming and honoring the father of 

 American apiculture— the Rev. L. L. Lang- 

 stroth. 



Barton Forsgard & Barnes, of Waco, 

 Texas, have sold their bee-paper to a pub- 

 lishing company, as we notice by the October 

 number which has just put in an appear- 

 ance. The company intend to " catch up," 

 and have the paper out on time, hereafter. 

 It contains 12 pages, and is published 

 monthly at $1 a year. 



