1888 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



569 



query, and, in fact, several subsequent ones, elicted 

 the same answer, " Keep right along until you come 

 to the end of the road." The reason for so many 



END OF THE ROAD. OBEYING INSTRUCTIONS LIT- 

 ERALLY. 



ends to the road is obvious when we look at a map 

 of Saratoga County. The roads in this locality are 

 laid out in regular parallelograms; but instead of ly- 

 ing in regular order, every adjoining parallelogram 

 is jogged down several rods, making a road quite 

 difficult to follow to any given distant destination. 

 Near sundown we drove up to the fine residence of 

 Mr. Parent, and found a hospitable welcome. 



We had become acquainted with Mr. Parent at 

 the Saratoga County Fair, where we found him en- 

 terprising enough to have on exhibition a fine lot 

 of honey, also supplies, and black, Italian, and 

 Holy-Land bees, in observatory hives. Mr. J. I. P. 

 is the senior member of a family of five brothers 

 and one sister. Thefutherand mother areon the oth- 

 er shore, and the teachings of the parents have left 

 here a Christian household which, we are sure, will 

 be reunited in that better land, with not one loft 

 out. We think the entire neighborhood must par- 

 take largely of this nature, for the locality is 

 known as " Peaceable Street." One of the brothers 

 is a physician, and is building up a good practice 

 right here in his ccuntry home. Another is prepar- 

 ing for the ministry. The rest, I believe, are agri- 

 culturists; and, while attending much to farm du- 

 ties, J. I. makes a specialty of bees, having, if I re- 

 member aright, 100 colonies in the home yard, and 

 50 in an out-apiary. Mr. P. runs his apiaries for 

 extracted honey, believing that less work is re- 

 quii-ed than when run for comb honey. If his bees 

 seem to be getting ahead of him while he is busy at 

 some farmwork, he adds another story and tiers up 

 until a lowery or leisure day comes, then all hands 

 attend to extracting. Swarming, in a great mea- 

 sure, is kept down, and a large yield is obtained. 

 Mr. P. also finds time to manufacture several thou- 

 sand pounds of foundatitm, fully equal to the cele- 

 brated make of the Dadants. Mr. P. is the man 

 who, a few years ago, got out material for 100 hives 

 on a Barnes foot-power saw, and, though it took a 

 great amount of kicking, he is enthusiasti(! over 

 the machine. Bee and medical literature were 

 sandwiched on the table, and no one need tire for 

 material to interest. At the time of our visit, all of 

 these young men and the sister were living in sin- 

 gle blessedness. At a late hour we retired, and our 

 slumbers were only occasionally disturbed by Pres. 

 P. shouting, in his troubled dreams, about the smell 

 of hops and Hop City. The Rambler. 



DOBS HONEY EVER COME PROM THE 

 BODY OP TREES ? 



SOME INTERESTING EXTRACTS FROM JOSEPHUS. 



fRlEND ROOT:— In Gleanings for M ay 15th, 

 1S88, page 387, you print a letter purporting to 

 come from some newspaper reporter, relat- 

 ing to a tree which yielded great quantities 

 of honey through a faucet inserted in its 

 trunk. Of course, every sensible reader ought to 

 know the whole thing as related by that reporter is 

 a canard, and that such reporter certainly depend- 

 ed on imagination for facts. But from your foot- 

 note to that article one might get the impression 

 the big bee-man, A. I. Root, thinks it impossible to 

 obtain honey from trees, or that no tree will pro- 

 duce honey unless it is first dejiosited there by 

 bees. Such an idea might be misleading, for it is 

 well known that nearly all kinds of vegetation con- 

 tain sweet in greater or lesser quantities. Go to 

 a newly cleared piece of ground on a warm day in 

 early spring, and you will find bees working about 

 the stumps of newly cut trees, which would not be 

 the case if there were no sweet to be obtained from 

 the flowing sap. You have doubtless noticed how 

 eager children are to lick the ends of hickory logs 

 soon after cutting, and how even older people rel- 

 ish "sugar-water," and how poplar and other bloom 

 yields or secretes honey so bountifully. This only 

 proves that it is there— that the sweet (honey) exists 

 in the different kinds of vegetation; and since it is 

 so much more abundant in some kinds than others, 

 may we not leasonably infer there may be such a 

 tree that will i)roduce honey directly from its 

 trunk V 



This, however, is only inference. But we are not 

 left alone with inference for proof that such a tree 

 exists. In " Wars of the Jews," Book IV., Chap. 

 Vnr., Sec. 3, Josephus tells us, in a certain plain 

 "There are many sorts of palm-trees, different 

 from each other in taste and name; the better sort 

 of them, when they are pressed, yield an excellent 

 kind of honey, not much inferior in sweetness to 

 other honey. This country, withal, produces honey 

 from bees," etc. 



When I read the article referred to in Gleanings 

 I wondered whether or not this i-eporter h<id seen 

 one of the species of palm-trees referred to by Jo- 

 sephus, and endeavored to create a sensation by 

 drafts upon his imagination. Josephus does not 

 say honey came directly from the trunk of this 

 tree, but that certainly is the import of the pass- 

 age. I never saw this tree, but have wondered as 

 to its nature. If it is porous, and the pores filled 

 with honey, the tough or woody part must be of a 

 soft nature to yield to pressure sulHciently to cause 

 honey to exude. If it is no more porous than our 

 oak or ash, I am unable to see how pressure could 

 be applied to bring forth the honey. If only an 

 orifice is necessary to let the sap (honey) flow, as 

 with the maple, I see no necessity for the " press- 

 ure "of which this author speaks. But of its ex- 

 istence I have no doubt, and I should be glad to 

 see a minute description of it. 



George Wiseheart. 

 lola. Clay Co.. III., June 24, 1888. 



Friend W., most of us know very well 

 that the sweet substance exuding from cer- 

 tain kinds of hickory-trees will compare 

 well with the tinest honey known ; but as 

 you would have to sacrilice a valuable tree 



