376 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



May 25, 1905 



$3700 per pound, and that it takes 16 tons of 

 those flowers to produce a pound of perfume. 

 The essence of violet costs a still greater price, 

 and it requires 33,000 pounds of these blos- 

 soms to produce a pound of essence. These 

 wonderful figures caused me to deplore the 

 fact that so many acres of blossoms were sac- 

 rificed to satisfy the demand for a matter of 

 vanity and luxury when the same fields would 

 be of great use to our little bees and the com- 

 mon good. 



While I was thus pondering, my little im- 

 migrant had become warmed by the pale sun 

 of Alsace, and I soon heard it buzzing gaily 

 and striking against the panes, already hungry 

 for air and probably labor. Poor little one, 

 how you will wonder and wander in vain 

 through our cold country seeking for flowers 

 and plunder! How foolish you were to allow 

 yourself to be thus packed among those 

 flowers. If I were to turn you free you would 

 die of cold, or would be killed by your Alsa- 

 tian sisters. What shall I do? 



I then thought, as an anchor of salvation, 

 of the queen-cage, so ingenious and practical. 

 I introduced my little ward in one of these 

 with a few drops of honey. I was anxious to 

 see whether the little French bee would be 

 accepted. But how could I know? I was 

 determined to watch the hive that was to con- 

 tain it. I had recourse to the coloring rec- 

 ommended by our friend and bee-master, Mr. 

 Kraemer. I entrusted to the more experi- 

 mented hands of my husband the task of 

 decorating the corselet of our little friend 

 with a bright red spot. 



The cage has been opened and the prisoner 

 released. Yesterday, in a fine sunshine, I had 

 the pleasure of seeing the little southern bee 

 flying out of the hive among its companions 

 of Mutzig, and shortly coming back with a 

 load of pollen evidently gathered on the alder- 

 bushes near by. 



And now, dear little winged worker, have 

 courage. Be contented with the Alsatian 

 flora. If it is not as rich and as varied as that 

 of the romantic Riviera, it is yours all the 

 same, and you can harvest from it some 

 delicious honey. 



I do not know whether this page will please 

 my readers, but I found that trip of a bee in 

 a bouquet so pretty and so unique that it has 

 seemed to me worthy of being mentioned. 

 Mrs. Lucie Dennleb. 



No "Colored Line" in Bee-Keeping 



MiSTAH Editoh: — Ise now gwine to write 

 to you 'bout de Sistahs' department. My 

 good wife Dinah wants to know if dar is any 

 objeksun to a euUahed lady jinin' de circul ob 

 de Merican Bee Journal sistahs? If dare is 

 no cullah line, den how much does Sistah 

 Emma charge for a sistah jinin? Will you 



please refur de foregoin' quesshuns to Sistah 

 Emma to be anshured in de Sistahs' depart- 

 ment ob de Bee .Journal, and oblegei 



Well, as dis am de fust time dat I rote to de 

 Merican Bee Journal, I specks dat I better tell 

 de bruddern who I is. My maiden name is 

 '•Jeems," but de boys all call me Jim. I 

 specks I is more dan 40 yeahs old. I had been 

 keepin' bees fo' ni on to 25 yeahs. Obcose we 

 keep only de cuUahed bees, as dey seem mo' 

 in harmony wit de things around us, but 

 Dinah says dey had mose too warm a tatch- 

 ment too de childun, as dey am so familiah 

 wit deir biznes ends. 



My daughtah " Arrovis" says to tell you 

 dat aldo she is not quite 16 she is very sweet, 

 specially when she is helpin' wit de huney. 



If our huney crop turns out as well as we 

 spect this faul, me and Dinah specks to jine 

 de Nashional 'Sociation in a body. Dar am 

 some people here that come from China, and 

 they call huney " sting-bug juice." 



It hab bin said dat dar am nufin imposible; 

 but dar am, becase it would be impossible to 

 make my son Eb's mouf widah witout fust 

 settin' his eahs back. 



We hab a nectah plant heah called allum- 

 weed. De huney from hit am so stringent dat 

 a spoonfuU giben to a comon chile will pucker 

 up hits mouf so hit can't baul to' seben hours ; 

 but hit takes two spoonsfull fo' Eb. 



Oh, yes, I like to fogot to tole you dat I is 

 a cripple ; dey say dat I was bawn dat way- 

 crippled in de bed, or, as Dr. Sea Sea Miller 

 would say, "Crippled in de upper story of de 

 anatomy of de cuUahed jentleman." 



From your confectionate brudder — 



Whitman Co., Wash. Jeems Smith. 



There is no colored line that Sister Dinah 

 can not easily climb over to get into the 

 charmed circle of the Sisters' department, 

 and she will be welcome at any time to join 

 " in a body." 



Honey for Sleeplessness 



Honey has been reported as very helpful in 

 cases of sleeplessness, and it is well known 

 that milk helps to put to sleep grown-ups as 

 well as babies, but why has not the combina- 

 tion of the two been thought of as a remedy 

 for insomnia? 



Recently a Sunday-school institute was held 

 in Marengo, and the absence of one prominent 

 in both Sunday-school and public school work 

 was much regretted. From a letter just re- 

 ceived, the following is taken : 



" I had planned to attend, when, for some 

 unknown reason, I became a victim of in- 

 somnia, being unable to sleep for three weeks 



Honey and sweet milk before retiring 



brought back my natural sleep, so I am now 

 recuperating rapidly." 



The' 



Old Reliable " seen through New and Unreliable Glasses. 

 By E. E. Hastt, Sta. B. Rural, Toledo, Ohio. 



PATENTS AND SO-CALLED MAUnFACTURED 

 COME HONEY. 



Provoking, but very decidedly interesting, 

 is the language of that patent mentioned on 

 page 276. Seems to show that, notwithstand- 

 ing rules, a man may get Uncle Sam to give 

 him a patent on an impossible invention. 

 Examiners are human and finite — and may be 

 about as lacking in bee sense as the private 

 citizen we are oft amazed at. As a natural 

 result they don't always know what is possi- 

 ble, and what is impossible; and they give 

 the man who wants a patent the benefit of 

 the doubt. Somebody invent and patent a 

 machine for taking a certain leading mis- 

 representer of comb honey and making 

 him into a somewhat different sort of man. 

 The finished product of this machine would 

 try to compensate old wrongs instead of add- 

 ing to them. Said product would realize 



what great wrongs he had done in the past to 

 a section of the people he is paid to serve. 

 Therefore, said product would not put out 

 words sounding like the words of a lawyer 

 paid to do more of the same mischief— us 

 much of it as possible without out-and-out 

 untruth. 



And the New York Tribune, mainly right, 

 and ail along leaning on apparent evidence. 

 still loses sight of the main thing — as human 

 beings usually do when they argue. The 

 main thing is that a company of honest people 

 in an honest calling are confronted every- 

 where with the charge that their product is 

 completely fraudulent. And tlutt charge is 

 not a fact, and there is no danger of its ever 

 becoming a fact, yet The Tribune will not say 

 so in a way to count as it should. 



Still, when we get flo?ged for what we are 

 not guilty of, it's a good time to remember 



that we are guilty of some things that we are 

 seldom flogged for. Even The Tribune did 

 not tell them — because it did not know of 

 them. I have seen exposed for sale at a 

 grocery in Toledo alleged comb honey, sec- 

 tions that had no cappings on at all, and the 

 lower portion of the comb was not yet built 

 out to full thickness. This is a rare piece of 

 bee-man's wrong doing; but there are some 

 things not rare that we ought to be flogged 

 for. As we can't make our adversaries quit 

 their meanness, suppose we go to work and 

 quit ours. Suppose The Tribune had said, 

 *'If comb honey is never adulterated how 

 came t/iis taste of soap in It f'' 



SHORTER HOURS FOR MICHIGAN BEES ! 



Why, Comrade Bingham, if you didn't push 

 too far we might be induced to grant that the 

 air of Michigan may have something languid 

 in it, inducing laziness in man and bee — but 

 only two hours, out of the long June day, for 

 bees to gather — we feel that you must have 

 overdone your job somehow. Your trade 

 union hardly wants you to leap from the 8- 

 hour day to the 2-hour day all at one step. 

 Page 278. 



SEALINS HONET WITH HEAT OF HIVE. 



That's a queer question on page 279 about 

 sealing up honey with the heat of the hive 

 still in it. Not likely that such a practice 

 would (per se) do any harm. The trouble is 

 that the heat of the hive is not enough to do 

 any good particularly. Seal up honey when 

 it is as hot as your hands can well bear. Con- 

 siderable time must be given the minute float- 

 ing particles and air bubbles to rise, and the 

 attempt to utilize natural heat would prevent 

 this. 



DECOT HIVES WITH WORK IN THEM. 



About decoy hives. Dr. Miller, what do you 

 think of this? Don't have the combs and 

 floor too clean — hive rubbish on the floor and 

 combs calling for considerable work. The 

 idea is that when a swarm enters a hive vol- 

 untarily it is almost always because they have 

 become attached to that hive by doing lots of 

 preliminary work in it. How can they go 

 and work day after day in a hive where there 

 is no work to do? This is apropos to your 

 answer to "Michigan," on page 281. lam 

 not sure a perfectly clean decoy would be any 

 the less attractive for its cleanliness ; but I 

 suspect that scouts on first visit would go 

 away much quicker if they found nothing to 

 do, and therefore be less likely to return. 



CALIFORNIA'S VARIABLE HONEY PROSPECTS. 



Yum, yum ! Sure prospects now of lots of 

 California honey on the market — unless some- 

 thing new under the sun transpires — or again 

 unless an almost unprecedented succession 

 of cold winds continue all the time through 

 the time of harvest. Page 282. 



BIGGEST HONET-TIELD — SMELTER GAS. 



That was a splendid honey-yield of Mr. 

 Lovesy's, related on page "284 — one strong col- 

 ony increased to six, and made to yield close 

 to a thousand pounds of surplus. Pity those 

 384 sections were not weighed. We can 

 hardly assume that they weighed 3S3 pounds 

 without a little more evidence of it. I am a 

 little inclined to think that this is the most 

 satisfactory and best authenticated approach 

 to the 1000-pound yield that this continent 

 has had published so far. 



Probably where bees suffer in winter from 

 the gas of distant smelters, it helps them a 

 little to be in a 4-story hive — supply of pure 

 air inside. Where winters are severe and air 

 perfectly pure, I think all needless extra space 

 inside is more or less of a damage. When 

 the hives are so few why not winter them on 

 a high, 4-posted platform — providing the roof 

 of a building can not be fixed to answer? 

 Bees should live wherever human beings can, 

 if they arc kept as far from the ground. 



Introducing Queens 



I have many times introduced queens— both 

 virgin and mated — by using flour as a pacifier. 

 When removing a queen from nucleusfora 

 customer, I introduce another at once, 

 sprinkling the bees with a little flour, and 



