1884 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUllE. 



479 



A LETTEK FROM CHINA. 



A UEFORM IN TOBACCO-USIXG AMONG THE CHINESE. 



EAR FRIEND ROOT:— Last year, about the 

 1st of December, we left this place for 

 Shaowu, a city about 250 miles further in- 

 land, where we have a station. We g(ft 

 through in 13^ days of actual travel, and 

 thought that doing well. The first 8 days' tra\el 

 brought us to an out-station called Yaugkeu. AVe 

 found the helper in charge looking: better than we 

 had ever seen him before, and discovei-ed the cause 

 to be that he had quit using tobacco. After 9 days 

 spent at this place we went on to another out-station 

 in charge of a Dr. Ting, a native physician, who 

 started the woi-k there without help from any for- 

 eigner. He is a most earnest and devoted Christian. 

 We soon found that he, too, had quit usingthe weed. 

 Over two months before, he had come to Foochow 

 to attend our annual meeting, and had traveled in 

 company with another helper who had not used 

 tobacco for several years. During the two days in 

 which they were going from Dr. Ting's village to 

 Yangkeu he had tried going without tobacco; and 

 on reaching Yangkeu he found he had lost all taste 

 for it. Upon this he decided to quit for good, and 

 he and the other helper soon persuaded the Yang- 

 keu helper to quit too. It was pleasant to us to 

 hear Dr. Ting testifying that he had been benefited 

 by leaving oft' tobacco, for the Chinese generally 

 contend that a moderate use of it is healthful. A 

 distant relative of his, who, on a former visit of ours 

 to his village, had annoyed us by his Incessant 

 smoking, also informed us that, since the return of 

 Dr. Ting from Foochow, he himself had ceased to 

 use tobacco. We found, on this second visit, a g-reat 

 improvement as to the amount of tobacco smoke in 

 the air when the chvft-ch-members gathered for 

 worship. At Shaowu also, we found that a majority 

 of the Church-members had quit using tobacco. 

 After a time we went to another out-station seventy 

 miles away, where were two helpers who had both 

 been hard smokers. We found that one of them had 

 broken square oft', and the other took a pipe only 

 occasionally, lor manners sake. Now, the best of this 

 is, that the whole change has come about without 

 any ett'ort on our part, except a little prayer and a 

 few words spoken by Mrs. Walker. 



We received 19 persons to the church. We were 

 gone over four months, and, after the first 10 days, 

 did not taste fresh beef. Still we managed to live 

 fairly well; but when we got back to this place, 

 some things did taste wonderfully nice. Here at 

 Foochow there is a European community, and 

 hence there has grown up a market in which abun- 

 dance of good food can be bought. 



Great changes are coming- over the world, and 

 now and then wc meet with things which remind 

 us.of it. Thus, Australia used to be known merely 

 as the site of an English penal colony ; now we have 

 here in Foochow a merchant from Sidney, Australia, 

 who pays his Chinese employes seven days' wages 

 for six days' work, in order to have them rest on the 

 Sabbatli. A few years ago I was conversing with a 

 man who had just been traveling in Australia, and 

 he told me of a railroad there, where at the stations 

 not a droj) of liquor could be bought openly. 



In Foochow, the morals of the foreigners averag-e 

 better than they used to. Years ago, few had 

 wives. Household affairs were in the hands of 

 Chinese butlers, who had rare opportunities tor 



! making- money out of their employers. Last year 

 ' one of these butlers was overheard complaining 

 that so many of the foreigners were getting married 

 there was no more chance of making money. 



During our inland tour I saw a number of bee- 

 hives, entirely different from those in use here. 

 They were in the form of inverted buckets, but 

 somewhat larger and taller than common water- 

 j pails. A round cover constituted the top; and if 

 the hive should be exposed to rain, the top is further 

 protected by oiled paper. A number of notches in 

 the bottom of the hive, each just large enough to ad- 

 mit a single bee, constituted the entrance. 



On oneoccasion we (i. e., wife, daughter of lOyears, 

 and self) visited the home of two poor church-mem- 

 bers, and there we saw a stand of bees domiciled in 

 the drawer of a table. They had just swarmed, and 

 the new swarm was clustered on a small tree near 

 by. The bees were of a medium brown coloi-, with 

 light bands. There was one light band at each 

 ring of the abdomen; and as the bees were full of 

 honey I could count not three, but five bands. As 

 our friends had nothing in which to hive the new 

 swarm, they were going to let it go. I noticed a 

 number of hlatk bees around the old stand, and said 

 I to one of the Chinamen, " What are these':' another 

 kind of bee coming to rob?" 

 " No," said he, " the black ones are the males, and 

 ! the yellow ones are the females." 



When one of the black ones came buzzing around 

 [ me he said, " Don't fear, it can't sting." 

 i I must confess I did not know that the diones dif- 

 I fered in color from the workers, but in this case 

 ' they were almost jet black. 



I SPEED AT WHICH BEES FLY. 



I have been trying to estimate the speed of 



i bees, by the sound they make in flying. Sound is 



I caused by impulses, or shocks, communicated to the 



I air by the sounding body; in the case of the bee, by 



the rapid vibrations of its wings. Now, the pitch of 



a sound depends upon the rapidity with which 



these vibrations, or impulses, succeed each other. 



j The pitch of the bee's hum is generally just a little 



j below that of middle C; i.e., the middle note be- 



] twcen the base and treble clefs, which is produced 



by about 530 vibrations to the second. The tip of a 



bee's wing seems to move vertically about 'j of an 



inch; so, then, .500-3 = 165 inches per second, or O'j 



miles an hour. Now, it does not seem probable that 



the forward motion of a bee can be much more 



rapid than the vertical motion of his wings. 



Again, Avhen a sounding body is moving toward a 

 person, the effect is to crowd the impulses, or 

 vibrations, together, and so apparently raise the 

 pitch; while on the other hand, when it is moving- 

 away from one, the effect is to lower the pitch. The 

 amount of change in the pitch depends on the 

 speed at which the body is moving. With a speed 

 of 40 miles an hour, the change would amount to 

 one whole tone. The next time you happen to beat 

 a depot when an express train is going by at full 

 speed, with the bell ringing, listen, find you will 

 plainly hear the change of tone as the engine passes 

 by. Now, there is the same chanpe of piteh In a 

 bee's hum when lie flies past one; but so far as I 

 have observed, it is not sulficient to indicate, at the 

 very most, more than 30 miles an hour, and probably 

 not over 15 miles. In one case, however, where 

 one boo was furiously chasing another, the change 

 was more marked, and seemed to indicate a speed 

 of perhaps W miles an hour. If a bee were to fly 



