220 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



August 



of course, this was only once a year, 

 and generally the supply was exhaust- 

 ed ere the winter was half gone. But 

 I remember once ray mother strained 

 a six-gallon jar full, and secreted it 

 for company. It was some months 

 ere she thaught it necessary to resort 

 to her sweet treasure, and when she 

 did she found it " evaporated" to with- 

 in an inch of the bottom, and the evap- 

 oration was a small wooden paddle. 



The bees were left on the summer 

 stands, and straw packed around them, 

 and there would usually be from one to 

 six to survive the winter, until finally 

 the survivor perished with the rest ; 

 then, of course my feasts were at an 

 end, and it is a fact that I grew stead- 

 ily worse until the spring of 1882, 

 when I Avas compelled to leave the 

 farm, and when I settled in this vil- 

 lage at that time I weighed 132 lbs., 

 and hadn't closed my eyes for ten 

 months without laudanum or mor- 

 phine. I could eat nothing that did 

 not hurt me. As for beans, onions, 

 or pork, I might as well have eaten 

 strychnine, and even food as light as 

 corn starch, hulled barley, oat meal, or, 

 in fact, anything, seemed only to ag- 

 gravate the disease. Well, I traded 

 an old harness for two colonies of black 

 bees in box hives. I put some boxes 

 on top, and the season was good. I got 

 quite a little honey, and in the middle 

 of the summer I commenced to gain 

 in strength and flesh, and soon could 

 sleep without narcotics. The next 

 spring I transferred my bees and their 

 increase to frame hives, and Italanized 

 them, and since that time I have never 

 been without honey on my table, (al- 

 though I eat much less that three lbs. 

 at a meal). I have never taken a drop 

 of laudanum or morphine since, and 



can eat beans, pork, onions, or honey,, 

 with impunity. My average weight 

 is now 175 pounds. 



We have a young man here in this 

 village who was troubled with dyspep- 

 sia, and the more medicine he took 

 the worse he became. I advised him 

 to try honey and graham gems for 

 breakfast, telling him of my experi- 

 ence. He said, " Bring me up some 

 and I will try it." I did so and he 

 commenced to gain, and now enjoys 

 as good health as the average man, and 

 he does not take medicine either. 



I attended the bee-keepers' conven- 

 tion at Madison, Wisconsin, several 

 years ago, and Dr. Vance, of that 

 city, read an essay on honey as food 

 and medicine, and in his remai'ks he 

 said that honey is the only food taken 

 into the stomach that leaves no residue. 

 He claimed that it requires no action 

 of the stomach whatever to digest it, 

 as it is merely absorbed and taken up 

 into the system by the action of the 

 blood. I sincerely believe that honey 

 is the natural foe to dyspepsia and in- 

 digestion, as well as a food for the 

 human system. ^ 



Hillsborough, Wis. 



(From Bee-Keepers' Record. — British). 



ABOUf BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 

 THE HONEY OKOP— AND THEN? 



BY HENRY W. BRICE. 



With a season of such excellence 

 as the present promises to be, it is a 

 weakness inherent in our genus to be 

 making approximate calculations of 

 what our "take" is likely to be. Now, 

 on this point 1 would say, don't be in 

 to great a hurry about it. Here, in 

 the South, another week or ten days 

 will give us our sum total ; but in the 

 North there is the heather honey still 



