THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



103 



man hauliu^ it less than a half mile. All 

 grocers and honey dealers have light 

 spring, delivery wagons, and in shipping 

 I always request them to haul my crates 

 with such wagons, and seldom have any ^ 

 broken honey. A. G. Hill. 



Kendallville, Ind. 



For ttoe American Bee Journal. 

 Another Danger. 



Milk and Honey — Apiary, } 



Beeswax Creek.— :\Iarch 13, 1876. J" 



From the various conventions, and the 

 correspondents of your valuable paper 

 it seems the much advertised extractor has 

 for the present, like other things, had its 

 run. 



From the same source it also appears 

 that the only real panacea for low prices 

 is the royal seal of the worker bees. This 

 it is said with small gilt-cornered boxes will 

 to all time secure the lonely producer 

 against an overstocked market, and secure 

 the very remunerative price of twenty 

 cents per pound. 



Now, Mr. Editor, allow me to state that 

 "there is no royal road to fortune." 



It is also repcn'ted that extracted honey 

 will not sell at a greater price than 9 cents 

 per lb. — which may be true — yet even this 

 like other prophetic visions — for instance, 

 20 cents per lb. for fancy glass and wood 

 and tnelted beeswax foundations may never 

 again meet that modest price. 



Bfee-Keepers like spiritual medium** 

 have ever been a prophetic class; nor is 

 their end yet come — Jasper Hazen counts 

 the heads of clover on a ten-acre lot and 

 lifts up his reverend head and prophetic 

 are his words. And right here let me ob- 

 serve a few small straws which aid the 

 Bee-Keeper Prophet in "making up his 

 slate." 



A once noted "Beecharm" vender and 

 keeper of bees, is now a Dr. 



A twice noted Bee-Keeper, once for 

 catching a honey shower — once for a 

 Knew I Dear Hh^e, has turned to Doctor 

 also, and water ! oh, water is his Pill. 



A once noted writer for the "Old and 

 reliable" Bee Journal^— who secured also 

 one honey shower in cisterns and such 

 other small bottles as his P. G. could 

 furnish, is now engaged on "our homes" 

 with a prophetic view of editing a relig- 

 ious journal devoted to B-agriculture and 

 dyspeptic stomachs. 



While I have named only three distin- 

 guished straws, they are enough I trust 

 to show the direction of the wind, and to 

 justify even the casual observer in believ- 

 ing that it pays better to advise others than 

 to raise honey even at the rate of 500 

 pounds to the hive. Various occupations 

 have developed remarkable genius in 

 men, and most of these trades have been 

 the source of large fortunes and high 



social position. And, Mr. Editor, just 

 now Bee-keeping, sweet in her splendor 

 and rich in the perfume of Buckwheat 

 and Bass-wood, holds out her magic hands 

 to the charmed Novice — the would be Bee- 

 . Keeper — and in tones so sweet — enquires, 

 " Would you not like to invest in a rural 

 paper devoted to honey culture, won't cost 

 only 25 cts. and will put you on the right 

 track, keep you posted as to the price of 

 honey and just how much to take without 

 bursting your cisterns. It also will show 

 how many feet longer is the honey sucker 

 of the imported than the native or vulgar 

 black bee — and really don't you love the 

 smell of red clover ? Well these long honey 

 sucker bees just take honey out of red- 

 clover as humming-birds ravish the sweets 

 of Bouncing-Bess. They are a cultivated 

 race — not unlikely, the same beautiful 

 bees taken into the ark." You see their 

 gentle ways would have won the admi-ra.- 

 tion of the gi'eat and distinguished patri- 

 arch and his beautiful family. His eldest 

 daughter had blue eyes and was a great 

 Pet with her papa and was a match for 

 Capt. Cook- in entomology. What she 

 didn't know about beetles wouldn't make 

 —nolle! it wouldn't — make a primer. 



This charming blue-eyed daughter 

 wanted to have her honored sire sell ele- 

 phant's eggs, from imported mothers, at 

 two cents apiece, or a dollar per square 

 inch, postage paid ; but the old gentleman 

 had not heard of the tiny shoe worn by 

 Ex-Secretary Mrs. Belknap, and q'uietly 

 arranged his vineyard and set out a large 

 number of those distinguished hexagonal 

 Concord grape vines, which soon after en- 

 hanced the price of smoky paper to such 

 an extent that it could not be afforded at 

 so low a price — 25 cts., after paying the 

 revenue on the wine. This fact made an- 

 other change of base necessary to meet 

 current expenses. Recourse was then had 

 to those primeval shrubs, in common 

 phrase called basswood, and on went the 

 improvement, excuse me, ("evolution,") — 

 and up went smoky paper to 75-100 of a 

 square inch of elephant eggs from im- 

 ported mothers. It now seemed that 

 Blue Eyes was luypy •, P. G. as sweet as 

 the nectar of wuSfiByffed golden rod- 

 But, alas — in modffi^s in ancient days, 

 " things grow by what they are fed on." 

 Those magic corners which had swayed 

 Bee gums — and forests and grape vines — 

 and numbered only six, must be in- 

 creased, the evolution must go on; Hexa- 

 gony must evolve Octagony, and smoky 

 paper, once only 25-100 of an inch of ele- 

 phant eggs from imported mothers, must 

 evolve 100-100 of an inch, or " our homes " 

 would be desolate — even the exceeding 

 low price for evolution of bean soup would 

 not mitigate the disaster. 



I commenced to write about — well — I 

 have forgotten my text. I think it was 

 those delicate beeswax comb foundations 



