o08 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 



not think they possess any special exoollence as 



lioney-plants. This sweet cicely is common, north. 



Agricultural Coileg-e, Mich. A. J. Cook. 



THE WOKST BEES I EVER SAW. 



AKE THEY CYPIUANS? 



fl^ 0-DAY I had business inside a certain hive of 

 §f bees that sits over there under that old mul- 

 / berry, you know; and as 1 was lilting- oft' the 

 cover, not another jn-ovocation, mind you, 

 said bees came in such "a rolling- out, tum- 

 bling- out, any way to get out," style from the en- 

 trance, that I was for a time dumbfounded. In a 

 very short time I considered it not only my bound- 

 en duty, but to my best interests, to remove hastily 

 from the situation; nor did I stand upon the order 

 of my going-. The.v covered me from head to foot, 

 stinging- my clothing- all the while, nor could I g-et 

 tiiem removed till I had passed through four rooms; 

 and through these i-ooms they sounded like bees 

 swarming-. On account of a good veil I received 

 only three stings, and those upon my arms. 1 verily 

 believe I should have been stung- to death had 1 not 

 worn a veil. I have as gentle bees as anybody else; 

 but I wear a veil in handling- queen-rearing colonics 

 and in some other work. 



Now, the above qnecn I know not where I g-ot 

 lier; but I never suspicted having- such vindicti\'e 

 bees ill my yard till this attack— a new queen whose 

 second batch of prog-eny has .iust begun to work. 

 In many ways they are the most remarkable bees I 

 ever saw. The queen keeps ten frainu': full of brood, 

 and I mean ten frames filled clear out— a most 

 beautiful bee, large, and they work in mid out with 

 a rush, when my best pure Italians and Carniolans 

 are idodding along-, waiting- for " something to turn 

 up." 



Now, I have " removed " this queen, and am in- 

 troducing another, as I want no such bees. Who 

 Avants her for ;J5 cents? Bees are tw» and three 

 banded. Don't say they are Inihriilx, for I have 

 them, and never saw any to half equal these. Oh, 

 yes ! my wife says, " Don't forget to tell Gleanings 

 about those bees stinging the chickens." Three or 

 four little chicks are wabbling around from being 

 stung by them. John C. Capehaht. 



St. Albans, W. Ya.. June 26, 1888. 



HOW FALSE REPORTS OF HONEY AND 

 OTHER THINGS GAIN (?REDENCE. 



THE SUPERSTITION OF THE CHINESE. 



{^ EAR FRIEND ROOT:— Reading in Gleanings 

 c^l recently the remark in regard to the alleged 

 ^ manufacture of spurious honey, that, "in 

 view of the wonderful achievements of sci- 

 ence it is no wonder that men believe that the 

 nicest comb honey can be imitated," awakens a 

 sj'mpathctic feeling in my mind. The Chinese, when 

 once they begin to get acquainted with our Western 

 inventions, soon get clear beyoijd their depth, and 

 don't know what to believe and what not to believe. 

 I once saw a blind woman who had come two days' 

 .iourney, where traveling was very expensive, to 

 have the foreign doctor insert a i)air of dog's eyes 

 in her head. She heard that he could; and why not 

 as well believe that as to believe that he could send 

 a message thi-ough a hundred miles of iron wire? 

 There is o.ne thing >yl}lch has given us a good deal 



of annoyance at Shauwu, our interior station. Not 

 being ready to credit us with the benevolence which 

 we profess, the Chinese must invent some theory 

 to account for our readiness to come so far and 

 spend HO much money. Now, this old nation of 

 China luis passed through many revolutions and 

 commotions, and so, from time to time, rich men 

 have buried their treasures in the earth, and many 

 of these have never been recovered. The theory 

 commonly held among the people at Shau-wu is, 

 that we have come to search for treasure. Some- 

 how the story has been started that we can see three 

 or four feet into the ground; and as we go about 

 preaching and bookselling they claim that we go 

 about peering into the ground lor treasure. Once 

 I was sitting on a ferry-boat watching the little 

 fishes sport in the water while 1 waited for the boat 

 to cross the river. A man eyed me curiously for a 

 while and then asked of my Chinese helper, " What, 

 can he see into the water? I have heard it said that 

 foreigners can not see into water, but can see into 

 the ground, just as we can not see into the ground 

 bat can see into the water." You see, they have 

 the idea that we are opposite to them in most things, 

 and they don't know how far to carry it. So far as 

 concci-ns any superior skill we raaj' possess, the un- 

 willingness of human nature to acknowledge inferi- 

 ority acts as a check on exaggerated notions of our 

 I powers; but when it comes to those things wherein 

 we differ from them, they rather like to exaggerate, 

 and make themselves believe that we depart in 

 strange and unnatural ways from the true type of 

 humanity, of which they, of course, are the grand 

 embodiment. 



One thing in regard to which they are strenuous, 

 and think themselves better than other races, is the 

 proper seclusion and subordination of women. The 

 Christian treatment of women is something which 

 they fail to comprehend. They seem to regard it as 

 a part of the curious tendency to invert every thing 

 which they think characterizes the " outside " na- 

 tions, and so men must be subordinate to women 

 with us. 



Today I sat chatting with a crowd in a shop op- 

 posite one of our chapels, where the gospel has 

 been preached regularly for many years. One of 

 them said to me, " With you the women control 

 every thing, do they not?" I replied, " No: with us, 

 husband and wife consult together on all their af- 

 fairs. The husband is the stronger, and if he choose 

 to impose on his wife she would have to bear it. 

 But we consider it disgraceful for the strong to 

 impose on the weak; and a man who ill treats his 

 wife would be ashamed to show his face." 



Another man inquired, " With you the women 

 'seek' the men and 'call' them to be their husbands, 

 do they not?" I answered, " No, indeed. With us it 

 would be thought disgraceful for a woman to seek 

 a man in marriage." 



Seldom do I converse with a crowd of Chinese but 

 that I have to answer these questions; and all this 

 in or near the city of Foochow, where missionaries 

 have lived and toiled for forty years. 



At our Shau-wu station we were troubled for a 

 time with a worse slander. In the beginning of our 

 work there it was reported that we bought children, 

 and even sometimes women, and liilled them, and 

 made them up into medicine. The Chinese think 

 that strength and vigor can be imparted by eating 

 the bones, vitals, etc., of strong animals. The car. 

 ci^sg of a f uU g-rown tiger will sell foj- a hundred 



