140 



THE AMERICAN APICULTUIUST. 



this season, tuul if there is any one 

 in New England who wants to try 

 twenty colonies of any kind of bees 

 (excepting Holy lands) against 

 mine, I will give the best colony 

 of bees that 1 own to the party 

 procuring more section honey from 

 his twenty colonies than I do from 

 mine. 



Now, if the other races are so 

 much superior to the Holylands, 

 give them the trial, and if any one 

 has an axe to grind, I will furnish 

 the grindstone and turn it also. 

 W. H, Norton. 



North Madison^ Me. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



The most interesting and in- 

 structive address on '•'Agriculture : 

 its Needs and Opportunities," de- 

 livered by Prof. W. J. Beal, Vice 

 President, Section F, before the 

 American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science, Minneapolis 

 meeting, contains the following 

 notes which will doubtless interest 

 our readers, and show us that some 

 of our leading agriculturists would 

 willingly advocate apiculture as a 

 branch of agriculture, and work 

 for its interests, if our beekeepers' 

 associations were to assume their 

 proper position, and bring apicul- 

 ture to the notice of our agricul- 

 tural associations. Prof. Beal 

 speaks as follows : "I need hardly 

 add, that he who finds or breeds a 

 race of honey-bees, which is har- 

 dier, more industrious, longer-lived, 

 quieter, possessed ' of longer 

 tongues, and, last but not least, 

 possessed of blunter stings, with 

 less inclination to use them, he 

 who can succeed in any or all of 

 these objects is entitled to rank with 

 the man who shall cause two blades 



of grass to grow where only one grew 

 before." 



" If it maj^ be true, as my experi- 

 ence during the past six years helps 

 to indicate, that bumble-bees aid 

 in fertilizing red clover ; then farm- 

 ers should try and encourage these 

 interesting insects, even though 

 tbe}^ be disagreeable companions. 



Bumble-bees prefer to raise their 

 colonies in old nests of meadow 

 mice. I mentioned in my last re- 

 port, that it had been suggested 

 that we should not keep many cats, 

 nor allow hawks, foxes, or dogs to 

 catch these mice ; for the}^ make 

 nests which are quite necessary for 

 the bumble-bees, which help to 

 fertilize our red clover, and thereby 

 largely increase the 3'ield of seed. 



Perhaps it may not be altogether 

 visionary to predict that men will 

 yet engage in raising bumble-bee 

 queens, and sell them at a fair 

 profit, for starting colonies to im- 

 prove the yield of clover seed. 

 We may yet have conventions and 

 societies where the leading object 

 shall be to discuss the merits of 

 different sorts of bumble-bees." 



[While it may be possible that 

 more attention will be paid to the 

 care of the bumble-bee-, we think 

 that the time will yet come when 

 we shall have a race of honey-bees 

 which will find no difficulty in 

 gathering honey from the red 

 clover, and it will be. far more ad- 

 vantageous to develop a race of 

 honey-bees, which shall be capable 

 of doing this because they will 

 jield more profit for the labor and 

 trouble devoted to their care. 



There are a few of our old sub- 

 scribers who have not sent in their 

 renewals as yet, and we hope that 

 they will notice what we said last 

 month regarding this and reneiv at 

 once. We are pleased to state 

 that only two of all our old sub- 

 scribers have asked to have their 

 subscriptions discontinued, and 



