1888 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



181 



one can tell what new things you might 

 have unearthed in a few years more. ]3ut I 

 suppose it is all over. It seems to me sad 

 that this intellect that has been l)uilt up 

 step by step by laborious study and hard 

 work should tumble to ashes just now, and 

 be no more. I don't really know wliy (xod 

 has brought you into the woi'ld, and given 

 you these glimpses, and this longing to know 

 the secrets of the great beyond. But noth- 

 ing indicates, that I know of, that God has 

 any plan or purpose of continuing this work 

 beyond what we call death. It does seem 

 as if he made a blunder somewhere ; but I 

 guess that, when you die, that is the end of 

 you. You are rubbed out like the marks on 

 a slate '" V 



Now, friends, if anybody ever did speak 

 In that way, T should expect a dying man to 

 turn over in bed and ask his friends to take 

 him away. lie. like the other man, ought 

 to go to an asylum; and it seems to me that 

 you would be apt to tind a Columbus stand- 

 ing somewhere at about this jiujctiu-e, say- 

 ing, "Not so. The intelligence that created 

 this universe never sent such a volume of 

 intelligence as we see pouring forth before 

 us unless it came from somewliere, and we 

 were tending to some great end. We who 

 love the great supreme Architect, and trust 

 in him, shall know of the doctrine, and shall 

 have glimpses and a full understanding of 

 the whys and wherefores of creation. We 

 shall know' more of the countless worlds that 

 float before our telescopes. We shall luiovf 

 more of the mysteries of animal and vege- 

 table life. The great and good minds that 

 have gone before us are somewhere still, and 

 we shall be with tJiern, and shall know fully 

 of all that we have had glimpses of here on 

 this earth. The idea is incredible and pre- 

 posterous that this brief introductory life 

 ends all. The thought can not for one mo- 

 ment be tolerated, that (lOd gives these hea- 

 ven-born glimpses of himself and his great- 

 ness and glory, only to extinguish it all by 

 striking us out of existence. The universe 

 was planned and arranged for ws." 



A short time ago one of the friends de- 

 clared that we had several times tried to 

 cheat him out of his journal. He said we 

 had got the money, and wanted to, keep 

 Gleanin(js back. I suppose he thought it 

 would be of some value to us, tucked away 

 in a pigeon-hole. I explained to him that 

 all each number of Gleanings was good 

 for was to send to our subscribers ; and un- 

 less it was received promptly, and read and 

 appropriated, it was of no use to anybody. 

 Extra copies that do not happen to be want- 

 ed are piled off in an old barn, until we have 

 a ton of them, and then they are sold for 

 half a cent a pound. Now, then, suppose 

 we should go to work and print otf a whole 

 edition, and, instead of sending them to our 

 subscribers, we shonld pile them away in the 

 barn, to be covered with dust and cobwebs. 

 Shouldn't we be worse than crazy? Well, is 

 the idea any more rational, that God created 

 this universe— planned and arranged it for 

 human beings— ids cliildren whom he loves, 

 and yet uom; proposes to let it lie tutuscd and 

 uninhabited? Surely not. Well, suppose I 

 were to watch you with your journal tmtil 



you read it about half through, and then 

 take it and run off with it — stop you in your 

 most interesting part, what should I do with 

 the part I carried offV* Well, my friends, 

 what is God going to do with the great un- 

 told wonders lying beyond our comprehen- 

 sion or ability to comprehend, that we get 

 glimpses of at every turn? What is behind 

 this great wall of deathVf Nothing at all, 

 do any of you say? If there be one such 

 among our' readers, thousands will join me 

 in the declaration, "Not so. The thought 

 can not lie tolerated for a single moment." 

 I do not know^ just how many of us shall be 

 permitted to gaze upon the splendors of that 

 New Jerusalem ; but this I do know : That 

 he that doeth the will of the Father shall 

 know of the doctrine. 



[[R Own ^nnw. 



CONDUCTED BY ERNEST R. ROOT. 



THE CONDITION OF OUR BEES WHEN EXAMINED ON 

 THE 2'M AND 3-l:TH INST. 



E have had quite a run of cold severe 

 weather during which there was no 

 opportunity of examining every one 

 of the colonies in our two apiaries 

 since we put them into winter quar- 

 ters last fall. Along in the winter we did 

 manage to look at a few colonies which w'e 

 feared might not be wintering well, or might 

 be possibly running short of stores. Aside 

 from this, no other examination was made 

 until the date mentioned in the heading. 

 Along in the winter w'e found tw^o or three 

 colonies that showed some signs of dysen- 

 tery ; but on our last examination they 

 seemed to be all right, the two days of beau- 

 tiful spring weather affording them a cleans- 

 ing tlight. 



It was my ambition to report that the 

 first examination showed that all the chaff- 

 packed colonies were alive up to date, just 

 as we did last year. But, one single colony 

 which succumbed before w^e could make an 

 examination, makes this impossible. We 

 found that it died of starvation — not be- 

 cause the stores were entirely exhausted in 

 the brood-nest, but because, as has some- 

 times happened before, the bees had used 

 up all their stores near them, leaving only a 

 little candied honey on the opposite side of 

 the hive. The bees, though dead, apptarecZ 

 to be alive and healthy ; and had 1 more 

 faith in the McFadden theory, I should cer- 

 tainly have tried to revive them. Just how 

 long "they had been without stores I am un- 

 able to say. I think it is quite likely, how- 

 ever, they would have lived to the time of 

 our examination, had the natural stores not 

 candied. There was suflTicient to have carried 

 them through a couple of weeks more. 

 When this colony was put into winter quar- 

 ters last fall it had only natural stores, not 

 having even an ounce of granulated-sugar 



* 1 admit that this is a very poor and feeble illus- 

 tration. 



t The people told Columbus there was nothing at 

 all behind the vast waters that stretched themselves 

 over toward the setting' sun. 



