no 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[Dec, 



before Christmas? Swarming time begins here 

 soon after ISIew Year, when the drones have got 

 over tlieir lioliday frolics. How mucli will they 

 cost, though? If they are very dear I could not 

 afford the expense till after the next cotton crop 

 is made. They say a queen sells for live and six 

 dollars ! Just think of that ! A little insect 

 about an inch long selling at the price of a year- 

 ling colt ! If the workers sell in proportion, 

 won't they come high, as cousin Zeke reckons it 

 out? Or if you put them down at even a pica- 

 yune a piece, and there are thirty thousand in a 

 hive, only think what a decent hive would come 

 to, by the rule of three ! Then there's the 

 freight too, if they come by telegraph, for the 

 ticking clerk in the office always figures that out 

 high ; and so I am afraid that, if sent by that 

 line, they might in the end cost more than they 

 would come to. Aunt Dinah says she has read 

 somewhere in the Penny Whistle Weekly, (which 

 she gets every now and then at the grocer's 

 around some articles she buys,) that they now 

 send these bees, or some kind of bees, by mail. 

 That, I think, must be a good joke ! Why, 

 you might as well send a basketful of hornets by 

 express, fhew, I'd like to stand at a safe dis- 

 tance away and see our soberfaced, steady old 

 postmaster open the bag when they arrived ! 

 Wouldn't he make tracks in a hurry, and feel 

 worser nor if he had a dozen big fleas in his ear ? 

 No, no, that's a little too tough a yarn to be 

 .swallowed by any but a greenhorn, though it is 

 in print. But have those bees I will, sooner or 

 later ; and if they don't come quite as dear as 

 cousin Zeke reckons it out, I'll get you, Mr. 

 Printer, to have 'em sent by rail and steam even 

 if they don't come till after Christmas. I'd have 

 them sent by express, but that moves as slow in 

 these parts as our old ox team used to do in old 

 Middlesex, on Saturday nights, when we had 

 hitched up to go sparking. Don't forget to tell 

 the man who sells and sends them, to be sure to 

 give them food enough for such a long jaunt, as 

 the poor things mustn't be let starve on the way. 

 Tell him, too, to pack them well and hurry them 

 forward — ^^with speed and care, right side up .'" 



Before I close, Mr. Printer, I want to say fur- 

 ther, that when cousin Upson was here he told 

 us there was great fuss just now away up in the 

 old States, about some wonderful improvements 

 in bee-keeping, which he said they call "scien- 

 tific beeculture." Now what is that? How is 

 it made ? How big is it ? Is it patented ? Does 

 it go by machinery? Is it hard to learn how to 

 work it ? Or must you go to a sort of school or 

 college to study how to manage it, till you get 

 the hang of it gradually? Couldn't an old man 

 learn to fix it up, without leaving home? "How 

 is one to get science into a bee gum, I'd like to 

 know? That's a little above my huckleberry, 

 as we used to say at Haddam school, when a 

 hard question came up, and puzzled the head 

 scholar of the class, though we had to work it 

 out, for all that. Well, well, there was no 

 lightening telegraph in them days, and nobody 

 then dreamt of gold in California ; so there may 

 be something new in managing bees, though the 

 wi.se man said, long years before I was born. 

 There's nothing new under the sun. You'll 



print all about it, I suppo.se, and we'll see what it 

 is when the paper comes. Send it on at once 

 anyhow, or somehow. 



Miles Hadaway, 3d. 

 Palo Pinto, Texas, Nov. 3, 1870. 



N. B. — Wife says, be sure to ask whether it's 

 certain that the new bees can make honey. Our 

 old ones are rather poor hands at it, and some 

 years don't let us have any. Now, even if the 

 striped fellows .should produce six times as much, 

 it wouldn't amount to anything, after all ; for in 

 Deacon Downer's school we were always told 

 that times 0=0 ; and we had to believe it, for 

 not even the smartest boy in the class could 

 p/'oye that it wasn't so, and the Deacon ever in- 

 sisted on proof. 



[For the Americau Bee .Ti>uriial.] 



Where are good Honey Districts ? 



Mr. Editor :—Ihavebeenattentively watching 

 the correspondence of the Bee Journal, to find out 

 if there is not abetter country for keeping bees 

 with profit, than this section of Ohio. Here we 

 have to depend on white clover exclusively, for 

 our surplus honey ; and when the season is good, 

 the yield is abundant. But if from drouth, &c., 

 the white clover fails, most of our bees are lost. 



I have been keeping bees, "according toLang- 

 stroth," for twelve years. In the drouth of 

 1863, out of sixty hives I lost fortv-seven, after 

 feediiig a barrel of Cuba honey. In the winter 

 of 1868, I saved only one hive of bees out of 

 forty — lost from the "cholera," caused by 

 drouth and the failure of white clover the sum- 

 mer previous. 



Notwithstanding these losses, I have been 

 amply paid for my trouble and expenses. The 

 future of bee-keeping looks so encouraging that 

 I would like to devote all my time to it, if I 

 could find a locality where there is plenty of 

 summer and fall pasturage, or where I should 

 not have to rely solely on the white clover crop. 



Bee-keepers, as a rule, are not selfish ; and I 

 would like to see the question of the best section 

 of our country for bee-keeping fully discussed 

 through the "Journal." Are there more ad- 

 vantages in the South than in the North ? 



A. L. Brown. 



London, Ohio, Nov. 14, 1870. 



Like the thorough bred scold, who by the ele- 

 vated pitch of her voice, often gives timely 

 warning to those who would escape from the 

 sharp sword of her tongue, a bee bent upon mis- 

 chief raises its note almost an octave above the 

 peaceable pitch, and usually gives us timely 

 warning that it means to sting, if it can. 



The first important occupation of the worker 

 bee is the secretion of wax for the structure of 

 the cells, and, to eft'ect this, honey must be col- 

 lected, for it is solely from the digestion of honey 

 that wax is produced. — Shuckard. 



