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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



to appoint a committee to mal^e that test. If he had 

 refused to submit to this, or submitting failed, the 

 case would have been braveiy altered, without im- 

 pairing the dignity of the Convention. As the mat- 

 ter stands, it is left at least in doubt. Prominent 

 members of the Convention— themselves excellent 

 and eminent apiarians, reject Mr. L.'s pretensions ; 

 while the Rev. Mr. Kleine, Mr. Gravenhorst, and 

 others equally eminent as the former, speak con- 

 fidently of the process as an efficient remedy. Time 

 will show who is right. The proceedings referred to 

 have at least given greater prominence to the siib- 

 }ect ; the disease will be more diligently studied by 

 scientific men ; and sooner or later probably we shall 

 have a remedy— whether it be that devised by Mr. 

 Lambrecht, or one proposed by some other successful 

 investigator. 



Cheaper than Cheap! 



Honey at four cents a pound incredible ? We fear 

 that our esteemed correspondent — the more comraeud- 

 ible for his singular brevity— is yet greatly " behind 

 the times," and far from being fully posted in the 

 matter of the prospective production of honey. Why, 

 sir, the new inventions and improvements in bee- 

 culture, like the discovery of gold in California, are 

 destined to unsettle the markets of the world ! Does 

 he not know, too, that mankind are no longer jogging 

 along in old-fashioned snailpace style, but tripping it 

 on " fantastic toe," with the speed of light 1 Has he 

 not yet learned that, in these days of rapid locomotion, 

 even seven-league boots are slow; while telegraphic 

 despatches shoot ahead of the passing hour, 



" And pauting Time toils at't^n- them in vain?" 



Vv'hy, at the present rate of itrogress, and in view 

 of the astounding advances in bee-culture, with which 

 the " impending crisis" threatens to overwhelm us, 

 honey, that " sweetest of all sweets" (so universally 

 coveted and so unanimously admired), will doubtless 

 quickly become a drug in the market, when, like a 

 ride in a New York ferry-boat, you will be solicited 

 by importunate runners, to take it ! — There, now, for 

 instance, confronting us comjilacently, is that admi- 

 rable, multiloeular, protoplastic protean Hive, which 

 can be indefinitely expanded and enlarged like an 

 India rubber balloon, or subdivided inflnitesimally 

 like a polypus ! Will not this original and most 

 ingenious device, just brought down bodily from 

 Shakespeare's "highest heaven of invention,''^ foster 

 increase of stock ad infinitum, and accommodate with 

 comlbi table quarters, hosts of busy workers, though 

 far more multitudinous in number than the grand 

 army of Xerxes ? And will not these hosts garner up 

 and convert into "surplus" every particle of saccha- 

 rine found in the vegetable kingdom from " Green- 

 laud's icy mountains to India's coral strand," or 



ong the entire terraqueous circumference of the 



ire-girdled earth ? 

 hen, too, there is that newly conceived most 



delectable theory of comb probuction, whereby 

 those admirably constructed cellular repositories of 

 honey, which have been the admiration of sages and 

 the puzzle of scientists in all ages, and which hitherto 

 exacted the patient and persevering labor of toiling 

 multitudes ; have become a thing of pure organic 

 development ! Why, in these latter days, 'tis found 

 that honey combs grom, actually grow, and not by 

 slow accretion either, bjit with therapidity of Jonah's 

 gourd, to the voluminous amplitude of a nocturnal 

 mushroom ! How many hundreds, aye thousands, of 

 the capacious protean hives aforesaid can thus be 

 thoroughly furnished, on the spur of the moment, 

 with the requisite outfit, while the " singing masons" 

 are relieved from the time honored duty of bull ling 

 " roofs of gold !" Just think of many-celled honey- 

 combs continually springing forth and sprouting out, 

 en masse and in order due, like rank cabbaij;es and 

 cauliflowers, and visibly swelling into progressive 

 enlargement and distension under the very eyes of 

 the fascinated and delighted novice, till the " cubic 

 contents" of the novel structure are thoroughly sur- 

 charged with superabounding " surplus !" 



Then, again, look at those wonderful new Bees — 

 the Apis miraculosa Mehringii — ^just imported from 

 that famed part of modern Germany, ycleped 

 " Schlarafifenland," bordering on the ancient Utopia ! 

 Are they not surpassingly beautiful, astonishingly 

 prolific, indefatigably industrious, inconceivably pro- 

 ductive, and most delightfully gentle? Ah, this 

 new race— the ne plus ultra of honey gatherers, is 

 just what was needed to cap the climax, after the in- 

 vention of the protoplastic protean hive, and the 

 discovery of the spontaneously growing honey-combs. 

 For, lo, these admirable creatures convert the old 

 tripartite colony into one single animated homo- 

 geneous machine, of every joint compact and working 

 together harmoniously with every limb. No longer 

 shall we see separate instincts, diverse impulses, and 

 conflicting interests, interfering with each other 

 in- our hives. No, by these new bees the colony is at 

 once transformed into one sole body corporate — like 

 the defunct French republic, "one and inseparable" — 

 coadunited on the " one horse " system of internal 

 economy and external co-operation, which must in- 

 fallibly produce results in bee- culture such as were 

 never dreamed of in the rhapsodies of Homer, the 

 theogony of Ilesiod, the mythology of Ovid, or the 

 philosophy of Virgil ! Will not the land literally flow 

 with honey, when this new miraculous insect, these 

 unrivalled protoplastic hives, and those spontaneously 

 growing honey-combs, are generally introduced, uni- 

 versally used, and come to be superabundantly 

 plentiful, in these United States ? And, oh, the price 

 of honey, when all this comes about ! How will the 

 merchant manage to give us " quotations," when 

 values drop down below nihility itself? 



What marvellous acquisitions are these ! Hives of 

 gum elastic extensibility and of divisibility infinitesi- 

 mal ; Combs of growth spontaneous, extraneous, in- 



