1884 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Some of you will say, "Suppose he did see Mr. 

 Langstroth, aod we dida't, what of that? And what 

 makes bee-keepers talk so much about him?" Well, 

 children, when my grandfather, and your grand- 

 father, and their grandfathers before them, kept 

 bees, they kept them in hollow logs, and they didn't 

 get nice white honey as we do. In the fall they 

 would lift their "gums," as they called their hives, 

 and see if they had honey enough to winter upon; 

 and if they thought they had not, they " tuk them 

 up," as they called it. They first dug a hole in the 

 ground, and dipped somedry sticks iu melted brim- 

 stone, and put the sticks into the hole; set it on Are, 

 and placed the gum over it. In a few minutes the 

 bees were dead, and then they cut the honey out. 

 Sometimes they got a little nice white honey; but 

 most of it was dark comb and bee-bread. What a 

 time the grandmothers had straining the honey! 

 They kept a bag of it before the fire far days, so it 

 would drain out. 



When Mr. Langstroth was a boy he watched in- 

 sects and ants, to see what they were doing, and 

 thought a great deal about them. And when he 

 grew to be a man, he taught my father, and your 

 father, and everybody's father, how to keep bees in 

 movable-frame hives, like those we all use now. 

 Don't you think it makes Mr. Langstroth happy 

 now, when he is an old man, and a grandpa, to know 

 that people all over the world are made happy by 

 him? And will you not all try to do something use- 

 ful, even if you aix little children? 



Peoria, 111., Feb., 1884. Mrs. L. Harrison. 



A TALK ABOUT ALASKA. 



BV ONE OF OUR FORMER OFFICE GIRLS. 



^njp^EAR MR. ROOT:— Taking such a deep ioterest 

 fjjjyj as I do in every thing juvenile, I cin't resist 

 — telling your little ones some very interesting 

 facts that I learned from a missionary sermon yes- 

 terday, on Alaska. The speaker. Dr. Sheldon Jack- 

 son, an eminent missionary, illustrated by mapsthat 

 almost God-forsaken place. I say "God-forsaken," 

 because our government has never taken the trouble 

 to establish schools there, so the majority of inhab- 

 itants know nothing about the Bible, and have no 

 one to tell them about their Savior. 



In the extreme south-eastern section, some few 

 missions have been established; and here, too, the 

 Russians have built a f 3W Greek churches. Where 

 the few missions have been founded by our church 

 they are crowded, and the glad tidings of salvation 

 they disseminate flies from village to village, until 

 chiefs with their entire tribes foi-snke their com- 

 fortable homes and come flocking to these missions 

 to hear about the " man who came down from the 

 Bkies to take the bad out of men." 



But first I must tell our little friends about the 

 people of this desolate region. The entire coast line 

 of Alaska is inhabited by a peculiar people called 

 the Esquimaux, about whom you have doubtless 

 heard so much - a hardy race of people, strong, and 

 many of them over six feet in height. If only civ- 

 ilized and educated, they would be of great use to 

 us in our marine service. Further inland we find 

 tribes of Indians with awful names, which, if I even 

 made out to spell, I am afraid you could not pro- 

 nounce, so 1 will not try it. And here it is where 

 schools and missionaries are needed so badly. What 

 do you think, my little friends, of a man when he 



comes to die, having a female slave killed first, so 

 her soul shall penetrate the " dark region " and pre- 

 pare a place for him? Yet such is the case; and 

 here, in direct defiance of our own laws, in this land 

 of the//ce, slavery still exists, and men and women 

 are yet in bondage — in Alaska. What do you think 

 of old women, in this enlightened age, under the 

 stars and stripes, being burned for witchcraft? 

 When a man gets tired of his own mother, he leads 

 her out of her own home, kills her, and leaves her 

 remains for the dogs. Mothers take their offspring 

 into the woods and leave them to the mercy of the 

 wolves, in preference to their living and suffering 

 the degradation then endure; and to this day, when 

 these poor people wish to avert some threatening 

 disaster, such as glaciers, etc., they offer up liumnn 

 sacrifice. Generally, female slaves are used for this 

 purpose. The government has forbidden the im- 

 portation of liquors here, so it is smuggled up from 

 San Francisco in bottles labeled "Jamaica Ginger," 

 " Florida Water," etc. Why! but a short time since, 

 the inhabitants of one of those small Islands off the 

 coast of Alaska traded all their furs for liquor, and 

 spent the entire summer in drunkenness; and so, 

 when the winter season came on, having no sup- 

 plies laid in, hundreds of men, women, and children 

 literally starved to death. Isn't this terrible? And 

 yet for sixteen years the great men of our nation 

 have permitted these things; and even now, while 

 they talk of so much money in our Treasury that 

 even they know not how to expend it, no thought of 

 establishing schools for the enlightenment of these 

 poor people, who are still away back in the Dark 

 Ages, ever seems to occur to them. An effort is now 

 making to brighten their intellects a little, and a 

 bill will soon be brought before the House for the 

 establishment of schools in Alaska. 



Dr. Jackson closed his able discourse with the 

 prayer that every effort we all could make, either in 

 work or prayer, would be to the effect that speedy 

 relief might soon be given these poor people who 

 are living and dying so, la sin and ignorance. 



Washington, D. C, Feb. 4, 1884. Bess. 



RECOLLECTIONS. 



NOT ALL ABOUT BEES. 



f DON'T think, like some old men, that children 

 and grown-up people don't enjoy themselves as 

 — ' they used to in olden times. I think human 

 nature is the same now that it was when old men 

 were boys. Years upon years have made individual 

 changes. Boys now delight in the same sports boys 

 did fifty years ago. Empty a boy's pocket then, and 

 what would you find? A perfect Noah's ark of arti- 

 cles—broken knives, marbles, leather strings, rusty 

 nails, pin hooks, and fishing-lines, old buckles, pieces 

 of flint, and all sorts of other articles, of no value 

 whatever. 



They would then go out to mud-puddlcs, and make 

 mud pies and images, and set them on bark in the 

 sun to dry; gather hickory-nuts and walnuts in their 

 hats; yes, and pack rocks, too, in their old wool hats 

 to throw at squirrels. 



I am pretty sure the hats in those days were better 

 made than they are now. A hat then went through 

 a whole season. I have left mine out overnight 

 when a rain would come up, and in the morning I 

 would find it full of water to the brim, and holding 

 almost equal to a tin pail. By such usage they 



