16 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



in the highest possible excellence, that 

 quality in which all bee-keepers delight 

 — the ability to gather nectar. In that 

 school the lazy, the delicate, the dis- 

 eased, died of starvation or exposure, 

 leaving no progeny to perpetuate their 

 weaknesses. 



The longest tongued industrious ones, 

 having abundance of honey in the 

 spring, were out of all proportion the 

 most prolific in swarms, and so rapidly 

 crowded those of shorter tongues and 

 less careful, to the wall. How futile it 

 would seem to be to attempt, by any 

 even ordinarily careful methods, to im- 

 prove bees thus effectually cleared of 

 culls, when one great object of modern 

 bee-culture seems to be to cuddle and 

 strengthen the weak, and so enable 

 them to propagate their failings. 



Or, again, the apiculturist wants bees 

 that have no desire to swarm, not re- 

 flecting that he might as well attempt 

 to rear a race of doves with no inclina- 

 tion to mate. 



Or, he looks longingly for the advent 

 of the coming self-hiver, when he should 

 know that no one would want them at 

 the price it would be absolutely neces- 

 sary for him to pay. 



Or, having lost faith in every hoped- 

 for discovery that seemed to promise 

 easy wealth and relief from labor, and 

 utterly discouraged, he turns as a last 

 resource to sugar for comb honey, not 

 perceiving the twin mountains his train 

 is about to plunge into head on. 



What a strange and impracticable 

 class the fraternity of bee-keepers is, 

 but it is much like other classes of 

 humanity. Give one of them an inch, 

 and he will take an ell, if he can get it. 



You have a cow, we will say. You 

 must be at expense for food for her for 

 every day of the year, and a good deal 

 of it if she is to yield any profit. You 

 must feed and water her two or three 

 times a day, or take her to pasture in 

 the morning and fetch her again at 

 night. You must milk her twice a day, 

 and every year you must fuss with a 

 calf for a tiresome period ; yet, notwith- 

 standing the almost constant care and 

 labor, you are not calling very loudly for 

 a self-milker, nor for a " non-swarmer," 

 that is, for one that is calf-proof, how- 

 ever desirable such a cow might be ; nor 

 for a " self-hiver," that is, for a con- 

 trivance that would enable the calf to 

 take care of itself. 



But your colony of bees, which you 

 need "milk " but once a year, and feed 

 seldom if ever ; whoso progeny you can 

 care for for good and all in five minutes, 

 which comes so near working for noth- I 



ing and. boarding itself; it, forsooth, is 

 felt to be a burden on account of the 

 little supplementary labor necessary for 

 its care, and because you are relieved of 

 so much you are scarcely willing to be 

 thankful for that relief, unless you can 

 also be relieved of the little necessary 

 care and labor remaining. 



The moral is, that it is not wise to 

 want the earth. By trusting too much 

 to what the future may seem to promise, 

 we are apt to neglect what the present 

 actually offers. R. L. Taylor. 



Prof. Cook — For once I must take is- 

 sue with my good friend, the President. 

 It seems to me that bee-keepers have a 

 good deal to complain of during the last 

 few years. They have not had very 

 much of the earth of late, and ought to 

 complain. When things go wrong, I 

 think we have a right to be dissatisfied. 

 We ought to at least be so dissatisfied 

 that we are willing to try to find a 

 remedy for our troubles. I believe in 

 encouraging this kind of dissatisfaction. 

 Then, again, I think the figure of the 

 mating of the doves is too strong. 

 Swarming is not mating. The mating 

 principle is stronger than that of swarm- 

 ing. Some colonies do not swarm. 

 There is a reason for this. If we could 

 find out this reason, we could prevent 

 swarming. 



James Heddon — I agree with the Pro- 

 fessor. I think it possible to breed a 

 non-swarming strain of bees. I think 

 that bees swarm less than in days past. 

 To be able to have bees stop swarming 

 would be one of the greatest advances 

 that bee-keeping has ever made. I 

 think that both the President and the 

 Professor are right. I agree with the 

 President, that bee-keepers ought not to 

 become discontented. They should keep 

 steadily on, and not be carried away 

 by side issues. The dish must be ever- 

 lastingly kept right side up ; but there 

 must be enough discontent so that bee- 

 keepers will ever be striving to better 

 their condition. , 



The Adulteration of Honey. 



Mr. H. D. Cutting was down on tie 

 progran\me for an essay on the abci*^e 

 subject, but he plead guilty to not hiv- 

 ing finished his essay. Several asJed 

 him to read what he had written. T>ey 

 wanted to see right where he " bi it 

 off." He didn't have the few pages *ith 

 him, but said he had been through the 

 Detroit markets looking for adultoS'ted 

 honey, and found only two sanples. 

 Continuing, he said that "Two-hirds 



