206 THE AMERICAN BEE JOUENAL AND GAZETTE. 



For the American Bee Jonrnal and Gazette. 



" Blessed is the Man that First Invented 

 Sleep." —Sanclio. 



Mr. Editor: In these inventive days, when 

 eveiy New England chicken-croop bears the 

 broad seal of the Patent Office impressed upon 

 it, and every dealer in soft soap pretends to sell 

 his meritorious wares under the protective cares 

 of legislation; when humbugs from every State 

 and county perambulate the nation, 



"To drnin the people's pockets of their hard-earned cash, 

 And fill their greedy ears it it h senseless trash.'' 



When itinerant patent-venders make it unsafe 

 to use the side-walk, for fear of tumbling over 

 some altered butter-churn at every street-corner 

 and before every public house; when the char- 

 latanism of every ciuacksalver stares you in the 

 face from every drugstore window and show- 

 case, through the gewgaw label of its every bottle 

 of bitters and hair-oil, and many an old maiden 

 lady and look-at-me charming damsel is addicted 

 to the use of patent dentifrices, of elixirs, of 

 hashish candy, cosmetics, and other beautifying 

 and sleekening agencies unnumbered and in- 

 numerable; when prizes of one hundred dollars 

 are awarded by committees of judges to writers 

 on Domestic Economy, who are so far in ad- 

 vance of the age that their readers cannot un- 

 derstand why it is that their bread-recipes con- 

 tain no flour; and when everybody squats down 

 in fawning liumiliation before everybody else, 

 in manifestation of unfeigned appreciation of 

 everybody else's superior learning and public 

 services, I would like to ask — Is it a wonder 

 that the proverbial impecuniosity of learned 

 professors even should be stimulated into the 

 love of public benefaction, and that the ampli- 

 tude of their charming rhetoric be displayed in 

 expounding to the short-sighted vision of their 

 inferiors the astounding merits o? Xheir improved 

 bee-hives, their inimitable bee-charms, and the 

 lilliputic outpouring of their humanizing, mole- 

 cular api-pedagogy ? Avalanche-like in its ag- 

 gregated snow-flakes, the mellifluous literature 

 of the hive overwhelms you with the conscious- 

 ness of your own, and every bee-keeping neigh- 

 bor's unimaginable and unutterable ignorance, 

 and the sepulchral voice of Sancho Panza, re- 

 sounds tit supra. 



In the Agricultural Report of 1860, page 296, 

 we are told that "in poor localities the capacity 

 of a hive should not exceed two thousand, or 

 two thousand five hundred cubic feet, while in 

 richer ones it may reach to from three thousand 

 to four tJiousand cubic feet.'''' 



Here the irrelevant thought forces itself into 

 our pen, whether good father Noah sheltered a 

 whole swarm of bees from the impending flood, 

 or whether he took on board the queen and a 

 few workers only. The latter hypothesis ap- 

 pears to be the most logical, and at once satis- 

 fies all straight-forward thinking bee-keepers 

 that the queen is the mother of the whole col- 

 ony, and that the holy practise of dealers in 

 golden bees, in shipping one queen and nine 

 bees for $10, or' three cjueens, twenty-seven 

 workers, and a bottle of Bee Charm for $15, is 



founded upon the scriptural practise of a pious 

 antedeluvian apiarian. 



In the Agricultural Report of 1865, page 461, 

 we are informed with a suavity truly suasory, 

 that "about two thousand square inches inside 

 is, by excellent comi)utation, as much as can 

 be filled by a queen with brood, and allow room 

 for bee-bread and honey for present use," * * 

 and that " this size also admits of room for su- 

 fficient winter stores in any season." The 

 writer, indeed, "once thought that much less 

 than this would winter a colony." Here^ then, 

 patent-inventors of deep bee-hives, your pro- 

 fundity of erudition and handiwork availeth not, 

 and you must needs yield tii-e point of shape and 

 size to him, to Avhom you owe what little know- 

 ledge you possess, and who, in a tangent man- 

 ner, has taught you the real merits of his mov- 

 able comb-frames. 



The dimensions of the hive last referred to, 

 lead us to the supposition, however, that the 

 writer furnishes his bees with woolen strait- 

 jackets, and the queen with a set of furs to 

 winter in, but then the more serious objection 

 would be that his hive were a leetle too shallow 

 to admit the bees and tlieir wardrobes both. 

 We nevertheless bow in submission to the 

 statement of the Agricultural Bureau, withdraw 

 with a polite courtesy and a benignant smile, 

 and say nothing more about it. 



From 1860 to 1865, a period of five years, the 

 American mellifics seem to have so rapidiy de- 

 creased in size, if we may judge from the sizes 

 of the respective hives under review, that not 

 till within a comparatively late period only. I 

 could lay claim to having reached perfection in 

 shape, size, and material for bee-hives, and 

 here I would refer the reader to statement of 

 invention in previous number of the American 

 Bee Jonrnal and Gazet'e, page — . 



With this cylindric sprinkling hive and honey- 

 box combined, and Professor Flander's "Sweet 

 Home" and invaluable "Bee Charm," the time 

 is not far off when any timid farmer's wife can 

 produce honey with as much certainty of suc- 

 cess as the professor and I can raise queen 

 bees for the wholesale manufacture of our pre- 

 cious fluidities, or a market gardener raise cab- 

 bage-plants for the wholesale manufacture of 

 "Sour-krout;" and therefore, Mr. Bee Journal, 

 I beg your leave for once more expatiating upon 

 the persuasive ingredients that enter into the 

 charming originator's compound. 



As already hinted, ' Taint of queen bees con- 

 stitutes, in itself, an unsurpassed eye-salve. In 

 combination with Anise, we recommend the 

 result as a valuable expeller of flatulent colics, 

 and as a most efficacious secretor of milk; but 

 only when both of the above are combined 

 with funny-greek do we speak of the compcamd 

 as a production at once truly astonishing and 

 magic in its assuaging effects upon the irascible 

 temper of bees. This last vegetable production 

 was favorable known to the Greeks, and is the 

 literal hay with which Philip of Macedonia 

 lulled the voracious propensities of Buccephalos 

 into quiescency; hence its perverted name 

 funny-greek. The Romans, likewise, were 

 acquainted with its unearthly strength and per- 

 suasive qualities. 



