242 



Mar 21, 1907 



American Vae Journal 



stream of water trickles over it— after a heavy 

 storm, or, in spring, quantities of it. 



I linew the bees were always quiet— practi- 

 cally no bees ever crawling around the en- 

 trances, still when without exception every 

 ^' authority ^^ said "not below 43 degrees,'" I 

 had a sort of uncomfortableleelingthat some- 

 thing should be done. 



(Miss) May G. Dbvinb. 



Sandy Hill, N. Y., Feb. 13. 



This is exceedingly interesting. It 

 is perhaps the lowest temperature ever 

 reported in the cellar with such good re- 

 sults. The question arises as to 

 whether the authorities are to be ig- 

 nored as of no account. By no means. 

 It is useful to have something to go 

 upon in trying to settle the right tem- 

 perature for each cellar ; and it helps 

 to know that for the average ther- 

 mometer in the average cellar 45 de- 

 grees is about the right figure, jur.t as 

 it is useful to know that so many yards 

 make a dress-pattern for the average 

 woman ; but that does not hinder any 

 one from getting more or less than an 

 average dress-pattern if occasion de- 

 mands. 



In the present case, there is a possi- 

 bility that even with varying thermom- 

 eters no thermometer was used that 

 registered sufficiently high. Most 

 likely, however, the peculiar conditions 

 of the cellar have something to do in 

 the case ; and Miss Devine is to be 

 congratulated that her bees behave to 

 her heart's fondest wish, even if she 

 did not succeed in getting her ther- 

 mometer to "speak the piece" she 

 thought it ought to speak. 



"Freyhoff" Honey-Cakes 



In Praktischer Wegweiser, Mrs. 

 Emma Freyhoff (is she perhaps the 

 wife of Editor Freyhoff 7) gives the fol- 

 lowing recipe for a kind of honey-cakes 

 that she esteems highly : 



One and ji pounds of honey of good 

 quality and 1 pound of good butter are 

 melted together, then into the blood- 

 warm mass gradually add, stirring 

 vigorously : 1 pound sugar, ^i pound 

 beaten almonds, some grated lemon- 

 rind, 3 heaping teaspoons soda — in 10 

 cents worth rosewater — and 4 pounds 

 of wheat flour. Knead thoroughly with 

 the hands, and roll out the dough an 

 inch or more thick. Bake in cakes 

 with moderate heat. 



Horseradish and Honey for Hoarse- 

 ness 



This is one of the quickest-acting remedies 

 known for hoarseness. Let the patient chew 

 a small piece of the root, a piece about the 

 size of the little finger. For a severer case, 

 make a syrup of grated horseradish and 

 honey, or horseradish and sugar and water, 

 and give one teaspoonful every 1 or 2 hours 

 as a dose. — Selected. 



It is said that the celebrated Dr. 

 Asada, attending physician to the im- 

 perial family of Japan, uses the above. 



Amerikanii^clie Uienenzucht, 



by Hans Buschbauer, is a bee-keeper's hand- 

 book of 138 pages, which is just what our 

 German friends will want. It is fully illus- 

 trated, and neatly bound in cloth. Price, 

 postpaid, $1.00; or with the American Bee 

 Journal one year— both for $1 75. Address 

 all orders to this office. 



^^^ 



Rcflcctioniy 



Caiifornia Bce-Keeper 



Br W. A. Prtal, Alden Station, Oakland, Calif. 



The " Harvest" of the Bee-Fathers 



The great bee-keepers who placed 

 the occupation of tending bees for 

 profit in the high position it now oc- 

 cupies, have almost all passed away. 

 Verily, when we cast our mind's eye 

 over the field of bee-culture, it first 

 appears to us that all the eminent 

 workers of a few decades ago have 

 been translated to the great " Bee-Pas- 

 ture " beyond this life. Still, we have 

 a few of these workers with us, but we 

 hear but little of them. They have 

 nearly gathered their last crop of honey 

 and have gone into " winter quarters," 

 as it were. 



These reflections came to me as I 

 was reading, a few minutes ago, "The 

 Bee-Keeper's Directory," a pretentious 

 volume issued from the press of San 

 Francisco, in 1861, by J. S. Harbison. 



Father Harbison Still With Us. 



J. S. Harbison ! This was a name to 

 conjure with 30 years ago ; how seldom 



J. S. Harbison. 



do we hear of it to-day ! Harbison, 

 the great 1 Harbison, the man who 

 owned more bees than any other one 

 man, and whose apiaries were scattered 

 upon a hundred hills in Southern Cali- 

 fornia 1 Yes, Harbison, the man who 

 sent the first car-load of honey to the 

 London market, and who previously 

 had the honor of sending the first 

 train-load of California sage-honey 

 East. This was the man who did 

 great things in California. And, 

 strange to say, he never published any- 

 thing to speak of about bees since the 



appearance of liis " Directory," 46 

 years ago — a long time, indeed ! 



Harbison was the father of Califor- 

 nia bee-culture, though he was not the 

 first to import bees to this State ; but 

 in this he was only antedated by a few 

 years by other persons. He, however, 

 was the first to make big money out of 

 bees in the Golden West. 



The First Honey-Section. 



J. S. Harbison is given the credit as 

 the inventor of the surplus honey-sec- 

 tion. It was a good, fat section — not 

 small and skimpy, like the section now 

 so common in the honey markets. If 

 the pioneer inventor had made all in- 

 one-piece sections in the early days, 

 and used separators as now in use, 

 there is no doubt, in my mind, that the 

 interests of bee-keeping would have 

 been better off. A larger section should 

 always have been on the market. The 

 fault has been with the factories that 

 turn them out, as the fault of queer 

 styles in men's clothes lay with a tailor 

 somewhere or another in one of the 

 big cities of the world. Such is fash- 

 ion ; fashion, however, often does 

 ridiculous things ! Harbison says he 

 invented the section on Christmas day, 

 1857 — a splendid gift to bestow upon 

 the bee-world and mankind ; it was a 

 great gift given on a great day. Just 

 think, it will be a half century next 

 Christmas day since the honey-section 

 was invented. 



High Prices for Honey 



I have noticed, as I have passed many 

 stores in our cities lately, that comb- 

 honey is marked higher than I ever 

 knew it to be before in Central Cali- 

 fornia. I saw it quoted at 20 cents per 

 pound section. It has been usually a 

 dime, though more often 15 cents, or 2 

 sections for 25 cents. But that price 

 is nothing to brag about, though many 

 a bee-keeper would like to get it for his 

 entire crop. Twenty cents per pound 

 is nothing to get for honey, compared 

 with the price G. D. Heyford, of Ne- 

 vada county (this State), received for 

 honey in 1857, as reported in the Pacific 

 Rural Press of November, 1889. Fifty 

 years ago Mr. Heyford says that he 

 and another person were bringing 10 

 colonies of bees from Maine to Califor- 

 fornia. The bees were lost in a car- 

 wreck on the isthmus, but the honey 

 carried along to feed the bees arrived 

 at Marysville all right, where it sold at 

 $5 per pound ; and was not considered 

 much of a luxury even at that price. 

 The price obtained was sufficient to 



