Jan. 31, 1907 



Amc»ricai "^ee Journal 



bee-keeping-, the writerr of the article 

 assuring us that " actually S or 6 papers 

 were published in America whose in- 

 terests were devoted to this peculiar 

 calling." 



It is not to be wondered at that bee- 

 keeping should be regarded with such 

 an air of mystery by the masses, when 

 such stuflf as the foregoing is scattered 

 broadcast over the land ; and not with- 

 standing all the admitted advances 

 made in the last 20 years in the matter 

 ■of dissemination of apicultural litera- 

 ture, to my mind there is no doubt 

 but the general public are more igno- 

 rant of bee-keeping than of any other 

 calling. 



I was forcibly reminded of this fact 

 one day last June, when coming- 

 through one of my neighboring vil- 

 lages with a few colonies of bees in a 

 wagon. Having occasion to stop at a 

 grocery store for a few minutes, I 

 found, on coming out, quite a crowd of 

 curious people surrounding the wagon 

 and viewing the bees which were clus- 

 tered to the screens, covering the space 

 provided over the hives. And of all 

 the funny questions " fired " at me rel- 

 ative to what those bees were doing ! 

 And among the questioners were some 

 good farmers who knew all about rais- 

 ing well-bred cattle and horses. 



After satisfying the crowd's curi- 

 osity to the best of my ability, and as 

 far as time would permit, I drove ofl' 

 rather amused, and at the same time 

 wondering if the greenest of green bee- 

 keepers would ask such ridiculous 

 questions of those same farmers, if 

 they had their cattle and horses on ex- 

 hibition. 



Director Ferrier, Not "Fewer" 



In the list of Directors of the Ontario 

 Bee-Keepers' Association (page 1036 — 

 1906) for District No. 2, there occurs a 

 typographical error. It should read 

 A. A. Ferrier, of Renfrew, instead of A. 

 A. Fewer, as given. Mr. F. is one of 

 Ontario's live, aggressive apiarists, 

 and we would not wish him to be 

 "fewer." but rather the tnore like him 

 the better. 



Mixing Alsike With Red Clover 

 for Bees 



A writer in Gleaningsthinks that we 

 would not need to try to get long- 

 tongued bees that would work on red 

 clover if farmers would mix more 

 alsike with their clover seed, when 

 seeding their meadows. His theory, 

 of course, is, that the bees in working 

 on the alsike and red clover blossoms 

 back and forth, by the process of pol- 

 lination, causes the red clover to par- 

 take more of the nature of the alsike, 

 which is, as we all know, one of the 

 very best honey-plants. He says : 



"The bees will work strongly on the 

 alsike, and will carry the pollen from 

 the alsike to the red clover ; and if this 

 method is kept up for a few years the 

 red clover will make a good honey- 

 plant." This, in theory, sounds quite 

 plausible, but I am sorry to say that, 

 in common with many other of our pet 

 theories, it fails to work out in prac- 

 tise. For 25 years Markham and ad- 



joining townshijj, have grown thou- 

 sands of acres of alsike for seed, and 

 clover meadows are generally well 

 mixed with alsike, which comes as a 

 voluntary crop. "I'et, to-day, red clover 

 is no better honey-plant with us than 

 it was 25 years ago. 



Bee-Stings and Their Effects 



Wm. W. Green deserves a medal (see 

 page 28). Any man who could, in the 

 " interest of science," keep cool under 

 the conditions he describes, must be 

 possessed of considerable stoicism, to 

 say the least. Any one who is not 

 affected much by beestings, or who 

 has never seen an acute case of bee- 

 sting poisoning, can hardly realize 

 what a serious matter it is. 



Last season, while loading some bees 

 one evening, a small knot dropped out 

 of a bottom-board, allowing a few bees 



to escape and crawl around. A young- 

 man, who was assisting me, was stung 

 by one on the throat. Although he 

 had only a few days before been stung 

 at different times with no ill effects, 

 yet this time the effect was terrible. 

 Inside of 5 minutes he was rolling on 

 the ground in agony, his face and 

 hands livid, and complaining of an 

 intolerable ilching all over his body. 

 We gave him some brandy, which hap- 

 pened to be in the farmers house, and 

 hustled him off to the doctor — a dis- 

 tance of 3 miles, which was not long in 

 being covered. Two hours after the 

 stinging the patient had about fully 

 recovered. 



I have spoken to several M. D.'s, and 

 they all agree that aromatic spirits of 

 ammonia is the best stimulant to ad- 

 minister in case of bee-stings; and 

 from what I have seen of its use, I cer- 

 tainly think it should be in the home 

 of every beekeeper, to be on hand in 

 emergencies. 



WT 





Qur wji 

 'Bee - Keepind^J^ 



Conducted by Emma M. VVilsuN, Mareugu, iii. 



The Baroness Burdett-Coutts 



The death of the Baroness Burdett- 

 Coutts, Dec. 30, at the age of 92 years, 

 will be felt as a great loss by many, 

 among them British bee keepers. For 

 years she has been the honored head of 

 the British Bee-Keepers' Association, 

 and, notwithstanding her many activi- 

 ties, she has not failed to cheer this 

 Association on its onward course. To 

 her mortal remains has been given the 

 rare distinction of being deposited in 

 Westminster Abbey. 



The following items regarding her 

 are condensed from the Chicago Rec- 

 ord-Herald : 



With the death of Baroness Burdett-Coutts 

 there passes the greatest philanthropist 

 of England — a womaa whose charity was 

 world-wide, and whose life linlied a distant 

 past with the present day. for she was born 

 during the supremacy of Napoleon, and lived 

 under the reigns of live British sovereigns. 

 For three-score years she has been the most 

 remarkable feminine figure in the British 

 Isles. Coming into possession of a fortune 

 of $9,000,000 when she was 23 years of age, 

 she has, since then, expended $500,000 yearly 

 upon charities antl benevolences. In her 

 youth she refused the hand in marriage of 

 the son of Louis Philippe, of France, remain- 

 ing a spinster until iW, when she married her 

 poor American secretary, William Lehman 

 Ashmead Bartlett, then 30 years of age, and 

 by so doing forfeited the friendship of Queen 

 Victoria, who, in l^ri, had created her the 

 first baroness of her name. 



A close personal f: lend of Charles Dickens, 

 she went slumming with him when that was 

 not a fashionable pursuit, and financed many 

 of his great reforms- 



Kiog Edward, whic Prince of Wales, called 



the Baroness "the second lady of the land," 

 giving her the next position after his queen- 

 mother, Victoria. 



Prime ministers, ambassadors, the greatest 

 writers and reformers of the day sought her 

 acquaintance and favor, while the queen and 

 crown prince attended her levees. No court 

 function was complete without the Baroness 

 Burdett-Coutts, while the homes of the poor 

 and needy knew her presence, and loved her 

 for her generosity. 



In 1873 the Common Council of London 

 presented her with an address enclosed in a 

 golden casket bearing her name and arms, on 

 which were bas reliefs representing her acts 

 of mercy, " Feeding the Hungry," " Giving 

 Drink to the Thirsty," " Clothing the Naked," 

 " Visiting Prisoners," "Lodging the Home- 

 less," "Visiting the Sicif," "Burying the 

 Dead." 



She was honored in Scotland by being made 

 a " Free Woman" of Edinburgh. For her 

 deeds in Turkey, the Sultan gave her the star 

 of the order of the Medjidieh and the Grand 

 Cordon of the Shafakat, the Order of Mercy, 

 a distinction shared by few Christians, and 

 by no other woman. 



Ireland was benetitted greatly by the gener- 

 osity of the Baroness. Immense sums of 

 money have been distributed from her gifts 

 to relieve destitution and want among the 

 Irish peasantry, and one of the most success- 

 ful of all the philanthropic enterprises was 

 her assistance of the Skibbereen fishermen 

 when famine stalked through the land. 



The Baroness was the pioneer of reforma- 

 tories for women in Great Britain ; she pro- 

 vided funds for the topographical survey of 

 .Jerusalem, and she was a chief supporter of 

 the Destitute Children's Dinner Society, an 

 organization which provides 300,000 dinners 

 a year. A conservative estimate of the an- 

 nual donations which the Baroness made to 

 different charities during latter years would 

 place the figure at not less than S-j.OOO.OOO. 

 The distress of the Turks during the war 



