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259 





EDITOR. 



voinv. April 2], m No, 11. 



llom'ti rosy light gleams everywhere 



To all the air. 



To perfume Lent ; 

 And every flower in beauty dressed, 



Wears jeweled crest, 



From heaven sent. 



The millc-white bloom of cherry-trees 



Hath charmed the bees 



From Winter's cell ; 

 And one can hear soft whisperings, 



And whirr of wings, 



And songs as well. 



—Seed Time and Harvest. 



Xlie ICcv. Dr. M. maliin has been 

 appointed to the pastorate of Grace Metho- 

 dist Episcopal Church in Richmond, Ind., 

 and his address will hereafter be at Rich- 

 mond, Wayne county, Ind. 



XliC Britisb Ree Journal for 



April 4 contains a good likeness of Mr. 

 Charles Nash Abbott, its former editor, to- 

 gether with a biographical sketch of his life 

 and work in the apicultural line. 



A Poultry Department is to be added 

 to the Canadian Bee Journal next week ; 

 the form will be changed, pages enlarged, 

 and cover omitted. This will be the second 

 bee-paper in America having added the 

 poultry feature. We wish it success. 



IVe Deeply Synipatbize with Capt. 

 and Mrs. J. E. Hetherington, of Cherry 

 Valley, N. Y., in their affliction— having lost 

 their youngest son, John Edwin, on the 3d 

 inst. He was 4 '4 years of age, and was a 

 bright and intelligent boy, giving promise 

 of becoming an energetic and useful man. 

 It is a sad blow to both mother and father, 

 for Johnny was the "sunshine" of that 

 home. The American Bee Jouknal now 

 offers its condolence to both. 



'rran!<t«-rriiiK' ll«,'«'«, et<r.— I. E. 



Myers, Mahtomedi, Minn., on March 27, 

 issil, writes: 



I am beginning bee-culture with one col- 

 ony, that 1 found in the woods last fall. I 

 have tliem in their " log-cabin" vet, but 1 

 want to change them into a Langstroth 

 hive. When 1 was a boy, yet at home, my 

 father would transfer the old colony into a 

 new hive once in ahout 4 years. We used 

 water to drive them from one to the other ; 

 but my " log cabin" is so long that the ex- 

 pense of building a tub around it to hold 

 the water would cost more than the colony 

 is worth, altliougli the bees are numerous 

 and apparently doing finely. 



I have made a feeder for them, so that I 

 can feed them and not compel them to come 

 out after the food. It is fastened to the log 

 with screw-nails, and a hole bored through 

 the feeder and the log to give them access 

 to the honey. By the sliding of a slat of 

 wood between the two I can close the pas- 

 sage while I clean out the feeder-trough. 

 The feeder works like a charm. It is amus- 

 ing to see the bees take in the rye-flour. 



I send you some of my bees, to learn what 

 kind they are. Some call them Italians, 

 and others hybrids ; but I do not see any dif- 

 ference from those that my father had 40 

 years ago. 



The bees did not come to hand— they were 

 probably lost in the mails. Mr. Myers asks 

 how to transfer the bees to frame hives. As 

 several have asked to have Mr. Heddon's 

 plan of transferring bees reproduced, we 

 give it here. He says: 



About swarming time 1 take one of my 

 Langstroth hives containing 8 frames of 

 foundation, and with smoker in hand, I 

 approach the colony to be transferred. First, 

 I drive the old queen and a majority of the 

 bees into my hiving-box. I then remove the 

 old hive a few feet backward, reversing the 

 entrance, placing the new one in its place, 

 and run in the forced swarm. In two days 

 I find eight new straight combs with every 

 cell worker, and containing a good start of 

 brood. Twenty-one days after the transfer, 

 1 drive the old hive cl&cn of all its bees, 

 uniting them with the former drive, and 

 put on the boxes, if they are not already 00. 

 if there is any nectar in the flowers, the 

 colony will show you comb honey. About 

 the queens : I usually kill the forced queen 

 as the bees run in. 



I run them together as I would one colony 

 in two parts. Now to the old beeless hive ; 

 of course there is no brood left, unless a 

 little drone-brood, and we have before us 

 some combs for wax, for more foundation, 

 and some first-class kindling wood. 



If you have no method by which you can 

 use a full hive of frames, of full, sheets of 

 foundation, running a full swarm'into them 

 at once, by all means procure it without 

 delay. 



We hope this will be sufficiently "de- 

 tailed" to oblige our correspondent. It 

 should be remembered that every beginner 

 ought to have a good " book " for conven- 

 ient reference at all times. 



Catalog-iics for 1S89 are on our desk 

 from— 



S. W. Morrison, M. D., Oxford, Pa.— 4 

 pages— Carniolan Queens. 



G. K. Hubbard, Fort Wayne, Ind— 10 

 pages— Hives and Bee-Keepers' Supplies. 



C. Mathews, Imlay City, Mich.— 4 pages— 

 Bee-Keepers' Supplies. 



J. B. Mason & Sons, Mechanic Falls, Me. 

 —20 pages— Bee-Keepers' Supplies. 



E. L. Goold & Co., Brantford, Ont.— 20 

 pages— Bee-Keepers' Supplies, etc. 



MiiK-ral Wax.— A. E. Maley, Au- 

 burn, Neb., sends us the following item 

 from the New York Mail and Express, and 

 wants to know if it is true : 



A car-load of a peculiar mineral arrived 

 in this city a few days ago. It was ozoce- 

 rite, or mineral wax, and it came from Utah. 

 Until recently this substance has not been 

 known to exist in any quantity except in 

 Moldavia and in Galicia, Austria. Three 

 years ago, however, a deposit of the queer 

 substance was discovered on the line of the 

 Denver & Rio Grande railroad, about 114 

 miles east of Salt Lake City. The mine is 

 known to cover at least loO acres, and over 

 1,0(10 tons per year can now be produced. 



Ozocerite resembles crude beeswax in ap- 

 pearance, and can be used for nearly all 

 purposes for which wax is employed, it is 

 now largely used in the manufacture of 

 waxed paper. It enters into the composi- 

 tion of several brands of shoe polish. 

 Mixed with parafline, it produces an excel- 

 lent grade of candles. One of the largest 

 fields for the new material Is the insulation 

 of electric wires. It is claimed that ozo- 

 cerite is preferable to any substance previ- 

 ously employed for this purpose. As the 

 mineral wax comes out of tiie ground in 

 condition to be used without refining, unless 

 it is required for some special purpose, it is 

 much cheaper than the product of the honey 

 bee, and it is evidently destined to be ex- 

 tensively used in the future. 



We have heard much about the mineral 

 wax product, in general, but have nothing 

 to offer about the "Extensive deposit of 

 ozocerite recently found in Utah." Per- 

 haps some of the wideawake bee-keepers of 

 that region can tell our readers something 

 about it. 



Several Copies of a circular sent from 

 Chicago, signed by F. Andrews, have been 

 received at this ofiBce. It offers a book on 

 the " Secrets of Bee-Keeping " for 15 cents, 

 and a model of a hive for S3.00. We have 

 made four trips to the address given, to buy 

 a book, but can find no one there. A woman 

 from another room in the same building 

 was found, who said that Andrews was 

 there only a few minutes each day, and that 

 he was going to California in May. It is 

 useless for us to caution any one, for our 

 readers do not send " a nickel and a dime " 

 for any " secrets " of bee-keeping. They 

 know better. It is the " novices " he is 

 after. The circulars seem to have been 

 sent to post-masters, and by them dis- 

 tributed into the " boxes," to catch the un- 

 wary, and obtain many 83.00, and " nickles 

 and dimes," for Mr. Andrews to go on "a 

 trip around the world." 



Xlie May number of Frank Leslie's 

 Popular Monthly, crowded as usual with 

 attractive pictures and good reading, opens 

 with a well illustrated article by George C. 

 Hurlbut, on "The Paris Exposition and its 

 Significance," which is of special interest 

 and timeliness, closely preceding, as it does, 

 the opening of the great French Universal 

 Exposition in commemoration of the one 

 hundredth anniversary of the fall of the 

 Bastille. Its many attractions, in the form 

 of stories, sketches, essays, poems, scientific 

 articles, art illustrations, make up a model 

 number of this popular magazine. 



