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(Entered at the Post-Offlce at Chicago as Second-Class Mail-Matter) 

 PubUshed Weekly at 91.00 a Tear by Ceorge W. Tork & Co., 334 Uearborn St. 



OeORQE W. YORK, Editor 



CHICAGO, ILL, DECEMBER 21, 1905 



VoL XLV— No. 51 



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(£bitortal Hotes 

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Father Langstroth's Heretofore Unpublished Poem 



The front page this week will, we believe, be admired 

 and also appreciated by every reader of the old American 

 Bee Journal. The poem was written and sent to us by 

 Father Langstroth himself, in August, 1895, just a month 

 or so before his death. We have kept it all these years, and 

 now, at this Christmas convention season we publish it 

 with the excellent full-length portrait of the great, loving 

 and beloved Langstroth, whose name and memory are 

 revered by every bee-keeper who knows anything at all 

 about the interesting history of American bee-keeping. 



As we read his tender lines to his wife, who had pre- 

 ceded him, we get a glimpse of his loyalty and devotion to 

 one whom he adored throughout the long years of wedded 

 bliss, and whom he expected soon to meet and greet in 

 "The Better Land." 



Langstroth I Some day there should be written a vol. 

 ume containing a detailed account of the life and work of 

 I,orenzo Lorain Langstroth, for the benefit of the world of 

 bee-keepers, for to his invention of the movable frame all 

 who to-day are enjoying profits from the honey-bee owe 

 their success. 



Shall We Take More than One Bee-Paper? 



The effort is constantly being made to have the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal so comprehensive and instructive that it 

 shall, as nearly as possible, contain all that is necessary to 

 keep its readers fully abreast of the times, so that they will 

 not need any other bee-paper. The same, no doubt, may be 

 said of other bee-papers. Please notice, however, that 

 phrase, " as nearly as possible" — it is advisedly spoken. 

 When all possible effort has been made, it still remains true 

 that some other paper may contain something of so much 

 value that its knowledge might well be worth the year's 

 subscription. The editor of Gleanings well says : 



" If any one keeps bees for the money he can make out 

 of them, he ought by all means to take not only one journal 

 but two or three of them. Gleanings does not pretend to 

 cover the whole field of apiculture. The personal bias of 

 an editor, even though that bias be unconscious, may cause 

 him to emphasize certain developments of bee-lore to the 



total neglect of all others. As I look over our exchanges I 

 can see fields that they are covering that Gleanings is not ; 

 and, conversely, I can see fields that we are covering that 

 they do not. 



" W. L. Coggshall, perhaps the most extensive bee- 

 keeper in the world, once said to me that he could not afford 

 not to take all the bee-papers published in the UnitedState s 

 and that, moreover, he could not afford not to scan every; 

 page after they came into his hands." 



Even if nothing entirely new were to be found in other 

 papers, it sometimes happens that the same truth presented 

 in different words appears in a different light to the reader, 

 so that it is almost like the reception of a new truth. " Keep 

 more bees " is likely to be good advice. Equally good is the 

 advice, " Take more than one bee-paper." 



A Western Convention on Wheels 



Editor Aikin, in Irrigation, suggests that if a number 

 are going to the Chicago convention from Colorado, they 

 might get together on the same train, " and so have a con- 

 vention all the way through." These traveling conven- 

 tions have proven very pleasant on other occasions, and 

 have some advantages over the more usual kind. But it is 

 somewhat cheaper to " hire a hall " than a railroad car. 



Prevention of Granulation of Honey 



An item in Praktischer Wegweiser says honey will re- 

 main liquid if put in tin or glass vessels and then allowed 

 to stand 5 or 6 days in the sun in a solar wax-extractor. 

 Whether this proves an entire success or not, one can easily 

 believe that the tendency will be in that direction. More 

 than one case has been reported of section honey kept in an 

 attic, where the fierce heat of the summer so cured it that 

 the zero weather of the following winter had no bad effect 

 on it. 



Caucasian Bees— Various Opinions 



Reports as to a new race of bees are generally more or 

 less contradictory, and there is no exceptiofl in the case of 

 the Caucasians, unless it be that accounts are more contra- 

 dictory than usual. Ratings vary all the way from worth- 

 less to the very best. As to their appearance, little has 

 been said beyond the fact that they are so like blacks in 

 appearance as to be difficult of recognition. The following 

 description, written by " Swarthmore," in the American 

 Bee-Keeper, is therefore of interest : 



" Caucasians are very dark, inclined to vary a little, 

 striped with narrow brownish bands, with a cast of brown- 

 ish hairs, somewhat like the Carniolans. The workers are 

 quite small, but very active ; the drones are as black as your 



