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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



milk diet, they may, especially if bee- 

 keepers find much benefit from it. We 

 know that milk is good for babes ; and I 

 can testify from my own experience that 

 it is very good for the aged, who may 

 not be very far off from " second child- 

 hood." Infants need to be fed fre- 

 quently. Let me suggest that old peo- 

 ple require the same, and many of them 

 are great sufferers by adhering to the old 

 rule of three meals a day, and nothing 

 between these meals. If upon the milk 

 diet, I would by no means recommend 

 that it should all be taken in the hours 

 of the regular meals, but at much more 

 frequent intervals — in short, as often as 

 the appetite craves it. 



Let me give a leaf from my own ex- 

 perience, when I was so constantly 

 handling bees. My dear wife once said 

 tome, "How strangely your appetite 

 for milk seems to vary ! Sometimes you 

 care nothing for it, while at other -times 

 you seem almost to live upon it ; and 

 • often you drink a quart or more at a 

 single meal." Having* my attention 

 thus called to the matter, a new and in- 

 teresting train of thought occurred to 

 me. I often remember hearing persons 

 say, "Mother would never allow us to 

 eat new honey unless we drank milk 

 with it, because otherwise it gave us the 

 colic." 



Extending my inquiries, I became sat- 

 isfied that milk is an antidote for bee- 

 poison ; for when I was not working 

 with bees, I cared little or notliing for 

 it; and it was only when my system was 

 fairly saturated with bee-poison, that I 

 had an almost insatiable craving for 

 milk. I then began to study what emi- 

 nent writers had to say about any con- 

 nection between milk and honey, and 

 found that, from the time of Hippocra- 

 tes, who was born 460 years before the 

 birth of Christ, down to modern times, 

 successive testimony could be found as 

 to the value of milk to prevent any in- 

 jurious effects from eating honey. 



Notice, now, how frequently the sacred 

 Scriptures commend the Holy Land as a 

 land flowing with milk and honey. 



Notice, also, the curious association of 

 milk with honey in " the Song of Songs, 

 which is Solomon's " — Chap. 4:11 : Thy 

 lips, O my spouse, drop as the honey- 

 comb ; honey and milk are under thy 

 tongue. 



I'KKHAI'S THERE IS SOMETHING NEW UNDER 



THE SUN. 



The bridegroom, meaning to compli- 

 ment his spouse, says, "honey and milk 

 arc under thy tongue ;" which is the 



same as saying, "Thou art a very sweet- 

 mouthed woman !" 



In conferring with Mrs. Kerr, my 

 friend and next-door neighbor, she said 

 to me, " My mother, who was a German, 

 often made us eat butter with honey, 

 because it pi'evented honey from giving 

 us the colic. This immediately sug- 

 gested to my mind a new train of 

 thought. In Isaiah 7:15, it is written 

 of the Holy Immanuel, "Butter and 

 honey shall he eat," etc. Verse 22, 

 " And it shall come to pass, that, for the 

 abundance of milk, that they shall give, 

 he shall eat butter ; for butter and honey 

 shall every one eat that is left in the 

 land." See, also. Job 20:19: " He shall 

 not see the brooks of honey and butter." 

 Unquestionably, milk and honey, and 

 butter and honey are, in the Bible, 

 closely associated together. 



In an article I wrote in 1870 for the 

 American Bee Journai,, I announced 

 my discovery of the reason why honey 

 so frequently disagrees with those who 

 eat it. I showed that it was scarcely 

 possible to take it from the bees, either 

 in the comb, or in a liquid state, without 

 more or less of the bee-poison being in 

 it ; that if any one said to me that he 

 could not eat honey with impunity, I 

 could assure him that, by bringing it 

 nearly to the boiling-point, the bee- 

 poison, which is very volatile, would 

 escape, so that he could use it freely, 

 while if a very little Of this poison was 

 put into any syrup which he had before 

 used with impunity, it would affect him 

 just as honey did. Unquestionably, the 

 sacred writers who so often refer to milk 

 and honey, and butter and honey knew 

 that milk or butter added to the honey 

 prevented the pain caused to so many 

 persons from eating pure honey alone ; 

 and thus milk and butter were so fre- 

 quently spoken of in the same connec- 

 tion. 



Might not cheese, another product of 

 milk, be also the right thing to use with 

 honey ? 



Putting all these things together, it 

 will be seen how naturally I was led to 

 what, I think, is something new in ex- 

 egesis, and gives a better understanding 

 of some passages in the Word of God — 

 " The good land!" "The land flowing 

 with'milk and honey !" Wherever milk 

 is found in abundance, there, as a mat- 

 tor of course, will bees and honey also 

 be found. 



At some future time I may give my 

 readers a new exegesis of some other 

 passages of Scripture relating to bees. 



Dayton, Ohio, June 6, 1892. 



