July 12. 1906 



599 



American Dee Journal 



strain hard enough to believe a queen lays 2000 eggs a day ; 

 and this calls for 5304. Four eggs a minute, very nearly, 

 with no allowance for any resting spells night or day — or 

 meals — for 3 weeks. Did you ever watch the minute hand 

 of a watch and count off the quarters ? Come down a cat 

 or two, Mr. Ferris. Page 445. 



Holy Land Bees 



Mr. Scholl's characterization of a colony of Holy Lands, 

 all on the wing at once in their fury, is not attractive to 

 -quiet folks. If we had 'em we should hardly be developing 

 into the happy Joes he seems trying to make us in his clew- 

 ing paragraph. Page 448. 



Color of Honey Varied in Different Years 



"g Prnf. Cook doubts seriously if honey purely from the 

 same plant is ever of different color different years. I think 

 he would yield to this small extent on that point. A honey 

 which is very light in color when the yield is profuse may 

 be considerably darker when the yield is small. Take bass- 

 wood for example : About as white as the whitest in a 

 great yield, but quite perceptibly ye'.lowish in a year when 

 basswood only yields just a little That is, I suppose, the 

 amount of yellow coloring-matter secreted is about the same 

 one year as another — -enough to show plainly when there is 

 but a trifle of nectar to mix it with, but scarcely enough to 

 be noticed in the gush of a 10-pound-a-day flow. Page 463. 



r Convention 

 ' Proceedings 



NATIONAL AT CHICAGO 



Report of the 36th Annual Convention of the 



National Bee-Keepers' Association, held in 



Chicago, 111 , Dec. 19, 20 and 21, 1905 



[Coatitiued from page 581.] 



PRESENTATION OF LANGSTROTH GAVELS. 



Dr. Miller — Mr. President, I am commissioned to present, 

 through you, Mr. Dadant, to the National Bee-Keepers' As- 

 sociation, a gavel whose source can not fail to make it an 

 object of interest to every bee-keeper present. It is also 

 my pleasant task to perform a like service, in presenting its 

 mate to the Chicago Northwestern Bee-Keepers' Association, 

 through its President, Mr. George W. York. 



The loving heart of a good friend of both Associations 

 conceived the idea of obtaining two gavels which should 

 be constant reminders of the man to whom apiculture is so 

 greatly indebted — Rev. Lorenzo Loraine Langstroth. So an 

 appeal was made to Dr. Dan Millikin, of Hamilton, Ohio. 

 to see whether he could not secure a piece of wood from 

 a tree in some way associated with Father Langstroth. Dr. 

 Millikin in turn applied to Prof. R. W. McFarland, residing 

 in the same county, at Oxford, where Langstroth lived for so 

 many years. 



In reply came a package and a letter in which Prof. Mc 

 Farland wrote, in part, as follows : 



LETTER FROM PROF. MCFARLAND. 



The weather was so disagreeable to me, and my physical 

 self so much under the weather, that I did not get the Lang- 

 stroth limb until sunset, Thursday. * * * I saw Mr. 

 Langstroth while he assisted in planting the tree, nearly 40 

 years ago. I held the end of the limb yesterday, while my 

 neighbor sawed it off. So your friend may be assured that 

 this is the genuine article. 



While I was young, and was on my father's farm, 65 or 

 70 years ago, I was accustomed to attend the bees on our 

 place. After seeing Mr. Langstroth's way, I saw that the 

 old farm way was crude in the extreme. I assisted Mr. 



Langstroth 2, 3 or 4 weeks every summer for 10 or 12 years 

 in the busy season. * * * It was a "joy forever" to be 

 with Mr. L. and hear day after day, the simple, lucid words 

 of wisdom which set forth the hidden things of nature and 

 made you see them — and all unconsciously, so to say — things 

 which among the bees he had seen and found out for him- 

 self. 



Mr. L. was one of the finest men I ever saw — the very 

 highest style of man. Having personally known him for more 

 than 30 years, I may be able to give a point or two. 



He was native of Baltimore ; graduated at Yale Col- 

 lege; became a Congregational minister; had charge of a 

 college for women in Philadelphia for some years ; lost his 

 health and had to give up teaching; stayed a year or two 

 in Mexico, hoping to regain sound health, but never did; 

 studied bees and mastered the subject. For 6 months of every 

 year — the winter months — he was unable to work at any- 

 thing, usually kept himself closely in his room, but in the 

 summer he was sunshine itself. His death well closed out a 

 beautiful life. In the city of Dayton, Ohio, he was staying 

 with a married daughter after the death of Mrs. Langstroth, 

 and in church, one Sunday morning, he had just concluded 

 the opening part of his services, preparatory to administering 

 the sacrament, when taking his seat, in a moment his head 

 fell on his shoulder. Men rushed to him and gently laid 

 him down— but he was dead. R. W. McFarland. 



You will likely want to know more about this man who 

 for 10 years or more helped Mr. Langstroth for 2 to 4 

 weeks each year. A letter from Dr. Millikin tells something 

 about him. This is a private letter, but is so thoroughly in- 

 teresting and enjoyable throughout that I cannot forbear 

 reading almost the entire letter. Injunctions have been laid 

 upon me to say as little as possible about the donor of these 

 gifts, but a full appreciation of this letter demands that you 

 should know it is written to Mrs. J. J. Glessner, of Chicago, 

 the one to whose kind thoughtfulness we are indebted for 

 these precious mementoes. I shall read the letter just as it is, 

 and trust to making my peace with Mr. Glessner as best I 

 may afterward, for any betrayal of confidence: 



LETTER FROM DK MILLIKIN. 



Dear. Mrs. Glessner — I am about to send you some wood 

 from the Langstroth place— it shall go by express to-mor- 

 row. 



When my wife made known your needs to me I thought 

 at once of my father's friend, and my brother Joe's teacher 

 and colleague, Prof. R. W. McFarland, of Oxford. He was 

 an authority in classic learning ever so long ago, and an 

 editor of one or two good editions in Latin. He was a 

 mathematician so high in the second class that it always ap- 

 peared that he ought to break into the class of thoroughly 

 great imaginative mathematicians. He was no mean astrono- 

 mer. He was a practical civil engineer. He lived long enough 

 to become a very useful and successful mining engineer. He 

 was a college president in spite of his many protests. He was, 

 and is, a very enthusiatic naturalist. They don't make any 

 such men now. Rockefeller and Carnegie together couldn't 

 turn out more than two in a long year. 



I think that Prof. McFarland is nearer 80 than 70 years. I 

 hear that his locomotion is seriously impaired, and that his 

 sight is also failing. Yet the letter which I enclose for you 

 shows that he has at least one good eye. He is quite in re- 

 tirement (the delightful retirement of an old scholar), but his 

 influence upon the young disciples who love him and culti- 

 vate him, by far outweighs the impression of all mission- 

 aries to Africa, past, present, and to come. 



I have written my politest letter of thanks to him. It 

 is pure impudence in me to ask you to do the same and de- 

 light the soul of the gallant old gentleman. 



Do you know that this is a caseof"»i<?, too?" I knew 

 Langstroth very well, and I knew him at a very impressible 

 time of my life. When I was about 16 he came down to 

 Maplewood, where my father had about 20 hives of bees. 

 At that time the enemies of the bee were apparently less 

 destructive than now, for those neglected bees had persisted 

 and they throve through many years of comparative neglect. 

 Occasionally it was found that a colony had died out in the 

 winter, whereupon the hive was cleaned, sulphured, painted 

 and set away for the swarms that were sure to appear when 

 the clover and hot June days came. My father did not go 

 near the hives ; my mother worshipped the little bees because 

 thev were the pets of her father who "died in '57." An old 



