146 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



June 



It would be diflScult to make a Long 

 Islander living on the boarders of the 

 Great Plains that abound with a shrub 

 known by the natives as Kill calf or 

 Staggar bush, believe that they do not 

 gather poison from the flowers. Sheep 

 or calves eating the tender leaves, 

 reel as though drunk and are partially 

 blind, but seldom die from the effects. 



Honey gathered from it will on 

 many, act in a very short time in a 

 strange way. The person eating the 

 honey will become dizzy and uncon- 

 scious and face and throat will swell, 

 and unless prompt emetic is given the 

 result is very painful and dangerous. 



The neighborhood where this is 

 written was once so afflicted with poi- 

 sonous honey that few kept bees; but 

 taking up and cultivating the land 

 has destroyed the bush, and there has 

 not been a case of honey poison in 

 forty years, while twelve miles east of 

 here where the plant is still abundant 

 it is of not uncommon occurrance. A 

 party offered me his stock of bees at a 

 nominal price recently as his nephew 

 had nearly died last year within an 

 hour after eating of the honey, and 

 he had become afraid to eat it himself. 



These facts lead me tu believe that 

 here at least bees do gather poisonous 

 honey from the Andromida Mariana 

 (staggar bush). 



Queens, Long Island, N. Y. 



Modern, vs. Antideluvian.— 

 Progression or Retro- 

 gression, Which? 



BY H. E. HILL. 



To the interrogative preliminary to 

 the Bee Keeper's April " leader," by 

 Jno. F. Gates, I reply : Rows of 

 painted hives out from under an old 

 shed, on the green grass, in God's 



sunshine, neatly and conveniently ar- 

 ranged, with movable combs which 

 reverses the order of the " tall breed- 

 ers," and enables the beekeeper to 

 become boss of the situation ; rows of 

 hives that admit of the application of 

 apicultural skill, if such a thing ex- 

 ists, from which queen cells may be 

 saved, stores equalized, treatment ad- 

 minstered in case of disease and its 

 detection made possible, loss of ab- 

 secondiug swarms prevented by clip- 

 ping, such conditions as a failing or 

 drone-laying queen, queeulessness or 

 fertile worker, rectified. Hives that 

 will take a super at the beginning of 

 the season before their numbers are 

 divided by swarming ; when their 

 united forces will expend their ener- 

 gies in filling the sections with honey 

 instead of a part (the swarm) dividing 

 their work between the supers and an 

 empty brood chamber. The ''beauty" 

 of breeders loses its charm when the 

 bees persist in covering the exterior 

 of their primitave box for ten days, 

 like a bearskin robe, before swarming, 

 while other colonies, w'intered in mod- 

 ern hives, are filling a second super. 

 To Mr. Gates those " tall breeders " 

 are evidently " a thing of beauty and 

 a joy for ever," and his way of put- 

 ting his hobby may make interesting 

 reading for admirers of "Blessed 

 Bees," but it is hardly probable that 

 the highest degree of knowdedge and 

 incidental success shall come to us 

 through retorgressive measures. 



My esteemed preceptor, Mr. J. B. 

 Hall, of Woodstock, Ont., once remark- 

 ed to me that bee-keeping would pay 

 him even if he lost all of his bees 

 every winter, but I have never known 

 of him meeting with a winter loss 

 worth mentioning. He is less fortun- 



