186 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[Feb., 



Could not the Department of Agricnltvire at 

 Wasliiiigton, which of late years has done so 

 mucii to procure and disseminate useful and 

 rare seeds, vines, and plants, be induced to im- 

 ])ort some of those East ludia bees spoken of by 

 the R( V. Mr. Stellar in a communication to Mr. 

 H. Boinitz, and translated for the Journal by 

 the editor? 



From a notice in the December number, I ap- 

 plied to and received from Commissioner Capron, 

 a small package of the Partridge Pea, and will 

 give it a trial in the spring. One year ago (hav- 

 ing previously failed to find any) I wrote to the 

 Agricultural Department, inquiring if there was 

 such an article as white buckwheat, of which I 

 would be pleased to receive a small quantity. A 

 prompt reply informed nie that the Department 

 had not then any to distribute, but that I could 

 procure it from almost any seed dealer. I sub- 

 sequently saw adveitised in the New York 

 Bee Journal, white or silver-skin buckwheat for 

 sale, at so much per pound. I sent the price for 

 one or two pounds, and when I received it you 

 may guess my surprise and chagrin, when, as 

 old Billy Keele says, sending oft" to " ferin parts " 

 and paying as much for a pound as would pur- 

 chase a bushel equally gO'd at home. I had 

 raised plenty of the same sort. It bore about as 

 much resemblance to white or silvei'-skin as a 

 Choctaw or Creek Indian does to the fairest 

 Caucasian. 



The stranger who attended the North Western 

 Bee-keeper's Association, must have a different 

 kind of Spanish Needles where he lives, than 

 those growing in Tennessee, when he says one 

 acre will give more honey than five of buck- 

 wheat. I think, Mr. Stranger, you are mistaken. 



I have yet to discover any dilference or excel- 

 lence in a qvieen raised by the bees when they 

 took a notion to swarm, or one raised by them 

 when I took a notion they should, by removal of 

 the old queen. 



I see the December number concludes that 

 ever-lasting looking-glass poiB-icoic ; but the con- 

 troversy on the hive question goes bravely on, 

 and if every new-comer gets a say there is no 

 guessing the end, for in nearly every number of 

 the Scientific American, which publishes weekly 

 the patents issued at Washington, I notice from 

 one to five new patent hives. 



Whenever Mr. Swett gets that "picter tuck" 

 of Gallup at the Fair, I speak for a copy. 



I have seen two queens in a hive on the same 

 comb, and perfectly harmonious— both laying. 

 One was an old one, becoming feeble, and on ac- 

 count of being shifted during the breeding sea- 

 son to several di fife rent hives, becoming unfertile. 

 The other, a few weeks old. A neighbor of 

 mine had a cast, or second swarm, which came 

 off the past summer, and had with it some ten 

 or twelve queens. 



Mr. Chapman, of West Virgina, has hit upon 

 the right receipt for keeping bees from decamp- 

 ing for the woods, and his article reminds me of 

 many superstitions which are entertained by ig- 

 norant bee-keepers of our country, and were 

 handed down from father to son for generations. 

 Many of them have been published. Supersti- 

 tions about bees having existed, I suppose in all 



ages. In the great battle between Hannibal and 

 Seipio, in the valley of the Po and Tesino, iii 

 Italy, a swarm of bees pitched upon a tree near 

 the Koinan general's tent, which filled his army 

 with consternation and dread, being considered 

 by tliem an ill omen, and the battle was lost by 

 t'le Romans The American Indians regard the 

 honey bee (white man's tlyi, when coming into 

 their wild retreat.s, as boding them no good, and 

 believe them the forerunners of an intention, on 

 the part of the whites, to dispossess them of their 

 home and grounds. 



If Alonzo Barnard, of Bangor, Me., will in- 

 dicate how I shall send him some plants of the 

 Bee Balm, I will do so with pleasure. I have 

 the kind he is inquiring for, and have often, 

 when a swarm was issuing, bruised the leaves 

 and placed them where I wished the swarm to 

 settle, and nearly always with success. 



W. P. Henderson. 



Murfreesboro\ Tenn., Jan. 8th, 1871, 



[For the American Bee Journal. 



Poulbrood. 



I am not quite sure that I understand Mr. 

 Alley, in the May number of the Bee Journal, 

 when he says : "Let them test Mr. Quinby's 

 remedy, and then mine." I cannot see any rem- 

 edy about it. Neither do I .see anything to test, 

 on his side, any way. We are not discussing 

 the question whether burning the hive and con- 

 tents will not be entirely eftectual. It admits of 

 no discussion ; it is no question ; all will ac- 

 knowledge it. But when I recommend economy, 

 and a more profitable disposition of the bees, he 

 may express doubts, or deny the possibility ; and 

 this can be contested, Mr. Alley discourages all 

 eftbrt in this direction. He is confident that he 

 is right, and that I am wrong. It might be in- 

 fen-ed that he considered my statement false. 

 He says : " Of what use to experiment with the 

 disease, wdien all who have been troubled with 

 it meet with the same success, and know that 

 the whole thing must be destroyed, sooner or 

 later." Does this amount to saying, that I 

 " know that the whole thing must be destroyed," 

 and have met with the same success while mak- 

 ing a contrary statement ? 



His belief ^^fl\\ prove but little : mine will prove 

 no more. Yet I might believe that "nine out of 

 every ten beekeepers," who icii? try killing his 

 bees, " will wish they had done as I did," and 

 saved them, when they have tested it. Mr. A. 

 must oppose any attempt at a cure as stated by 

 Dr. Abbe in the November number. For the 

 last three years I have had an assistant who will 

 qualify that, during that time, I have not de- 

 stroyed a colony, except as described ; and that 

 this fall not half a dozen colonies, among hun- 

 dreds, coidd be found even slightly diseased. 

 For the last ten yeai-s it has gradually decreased, 

 and not a bad case in five years. I shall rely 

 on my own experience, and continue the old 

 course a little longer. I think Mr. Alley owes 

 me, as well as to himself, an investigation and 

 a statement of how he finds the facts 



St. Johasville, N. T. M. Qoinbt. 



