GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



249 



and momentciry, thank God — in fact, I dare 

 not do it. I am afraid to do it, even if I 

 want to do it wlien vexed and angry. You 

 may ask what I am afraid of. I am afraid 

 of the awfid remorse that would follow. 

 There was a time when it did not. I am 

 afraid, too, of the loss of the peace of my 

 mind. I am afraid when I think of asking 

 God's blessing at every meal, or as I go to 

 bed for the night. If 1 should do such a 

 thing, I should not dare go to him in love 

 and confidence. I am afraid, above all, of 

 the dishonor it would cast on the name that 

 I profess to be following. I am afraid of 

 the pain and anguish that it would bring 

 into the heart of my poor wife. If I slwuld be 

 tempted to start off in that way, before I got 

 half a mile, I would whirl " around and 

 go back faster than if I saw my house on 

 tire, to try to undo the fearful thing I had 

 contemplated doing. Now, friends, let us 

 not make a mistake and put the depravity 

 of the human race all on the shoulders of 

 either man or woman. Let us remember 

 that either sex, without Christ, or, say, a 

 spark of Christianity, to restrain them, 

 might be worse than brutes. And let us 

 also remember that either one, even the 

 worst and most depraved, can be, by this 

 same redeeming love, transformed into 

 saints. Let us hate, loathe, and detest the 

 prince of darkness with all our might, 

 wherever his work be found, whether in man- 

 kind or womankind ; and then let us turn 

 to Christ Jesus who came into the world to 

 save just such sinners as Mrs. Chaddock 

 has told us about. 



OWNERSHIP OF STBAY S"WARMS. 



FASTENING FOUNDATION TO THE SIDES OF THE 

 SECTION BUT NOT TO THE TOP OR BOTTOM. 



T WAS very much surprised at the position taken 

 M by the editor of Gleanings, at the close of the 

 ^r replies to query No. 10, page 787 of hist year. 

 ■*■ There was nothing- said in that query to denote 

 that the employer was a bee-keeper, or that he 

 was in any way interested in bees; nor that he 

 would have accepted the bees had the finder of the 

 swarm presented them to him. I say " presented," 

 for I can not see why the employer should say he 

 had any claim upon them unless, as Mr. Robinson 

 puts it in last Gleanings, " it was among his duties 

 to discover and hive bees, or search for swarms." 

 Let us suppose a case: The editor of Gleanings 

 writes me he wishes me to go to friend Betsinger's 

 and make a draft of his honey-house, which I have 

 spoken of in Gleanings, otfering me 25 cents an 

 hour for the time I spend, from the time I leave my 

 home till I return again. On the road to Mr. B.'s I 

 tlnd a twenty-dollar gold piece, and stoop down and 

 pick it up. After duly advertising it in our local 

 papers, no owner is found; whom does it belong to 

 —Mr. Root or myself? I claim that it belongs to 

 myself and should consider Mr. Root very unjust if 

 he took the course toward me he proposes to take 

 on page 787; not only unjust to me, but unjust to 

 himself as well. If it had been a swarm of bees I 

 had found, which took any time of any amount to 

 care for them, then I should be dishonest were I to 



report full time for all of my absence from home; 

 but the bees would not be his any more than the 

 1*20.00 would have been. I think friend Root does 

 not take the right view of what is real worth in the 

 man or woman who works for him. What I consid- 

 er as real worth in hired help is the doing the rery 

 best they can at the work 1 set them at; for in- 

 stance, I hire a man to hoe a field of potatoes for 

 me, giving him so much an hour for so doing. If 

 that man studies into how 1 want my potatoes hoed, 

 and then works till he gets my mode perfect, after 

 which he strives to see how many he can hoe for 

 me in each hour as it passes, till he reaches per- 

 fection both as to speed and work done, then I 

 think I can well afford to increase his wages and 

 put confidence in him, rather than base his worth 

 on his chance findings or any thing else. What he 

 gets outside of the nature of the employment I set 

 him at is his, less the damage he does me by the 

 loss of his time; nnd it seems to me that, should he 

 not secui'e to his family the benefits of a f20.00 gold 

 piece picked up he would not be fulfilling the duty 

 he owed to that family. 



On page 929 of Gleanings for 1887, Dr. Miller, un- 

 der the head of " Sections Built to one Side," gives 

 us his views as to why bees cause such a state of 

 afi'airs to exist, and says, " The remedy is not easily 

 found." I think the cause of foundation being 

 curled, so as to be attached to the separators, is 

 just as the doctor says; i. e., the bees lengthen the 

 cells on one side of the foundation and put honey 

 in it before the other side is worked to so great an 

 extent; but with some of us the remedy is not hard 

 to find. Soon after foundation first came around, I 

 made some plaster-Paris casts, fitting them so they 

 would just come up to the middle of the sections, 

 when a section was slipped over them. On this cast 

 melted beeswax was put, painting the cast over 

 with the wax, and at the same time attaching the 

 wax to the sides of the box all around. This, of 

 course, gave only the cell impression on one side of 

 the wax sheet, leaving the other plain and smooth. 

 On this the bees worked well at all times when hon- 

 ey was coming In plentifully; but in times of a slow 

 yield they built out the side having the impression 

 on, and left the other untouched, as the doctor 

 speaks of, so that I often had sections all finished 

 on one side, with nothing but a plain sheet of wax 

 on the other. However, as these sheets of wax 

 were attached to the sections on all sides they al- 

 ways kept their place, never curling or twisting. 

 When I first began to use other foundation to any 

 extent I was often met with the same difficulty of 

 which the doctor speaks. One day I chanced to 

 think of these former experiences with the old 

 casts, and at once fastened the foundation to all 

 sides of the sections. This worked well, only on 

 foundation which was inclined to sag, except that 

 it took too much time. Later on I fastened the 

 foundation only to the sides of the sections, leaving 

 it short at the top and bottom 14 inch, when I found 

 I hart the thing perfect, as in this way the sag was 

 provided for, and no curling could be done, on ac- 

 count of one side being filled before the other. 



G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Borodino, N. Y., March 13, 1888. 



Now look here, old friend; suppose that I 

 " suppose a case,'' as you put it. Whoever 

 owns fifty hives or more will soon learn that 

 these fifty colonies of bees are a sort of at- 



