448 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15. 



'• The good feeling that exists between the 

 bee-keepers of Canada and the United States 

 can not be broken by a half-dozen -Incorpora- 

 tions.' Next fall, when we all meet at Wash- 

 ington, and get to shaking hands and talking 

 over bee-matters, we shall never imagine there 

 was such a thing as "Incorporation' or any 

 thing else that would tend to sever our friend- 

 ship." So says D. A. Jones. His head is level, 

 and his heart as big as ever. 



Prof. Cook laughs at Prof. Wiley for doubt- 

 ing the purity of honey which contains more 

 than 30 per cent water. Now, I feel like siding 

 just the least bit with Prof. Wiley. Have we 

 any right to send out raw nectar as honey? 

 Ought it to be called honey? Ought it to be 

 called honey if it contains 30 per cent water? 

 Of course, there was no ground for Prof. Wiley's 

 suspicion that man had mixed water in it; but 

 ought it not to be evaporated down to a certain 

 consistency before it can be called honey ? 



' THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN." 



SOMETHING NEW UNDER THE SUN. 



Friend Root;— I send you an extract from an 

 old and very rare book in my library. I copV it 

 just as it is— spelling, capitals, etc. 



"Samuel Hartlib, 



HIS 



LEGACY 



OF 



Husbandry. 



London, 165.5. 



" Some Physical uses of Milk, and of Curing 

 the Black Jaundies, &c." Page 361. 



" I thought to have imparted unto you the 

 Secret how to preserve Milk from souring, but I 

 must refer it to a person of singular Honour, 

 Piety, and Experimental learning who has 

 made some trial of it, but has not fully satisfied 

 his mind about it. . . . 



" As for Doctor Ziegler's Germane Book, writr 

 ten purposely on the subject of Milk, when I 

 visited him at Zurich he shewed it me, not 

 far written for the Press. It will not be great, 

 unless he resolved to add much of his own 

 experience. For he tells mee. that, being mis 

 erably infected with the BlacJi Jaundies in 

 PrjissUi. and having been purged by the Phy- 

 sicians of that Country, with above 30 several 

 sorts of purgations, even the most violent they 

 could think of. he found himself never the bet- 

 ter. Whereupon he resolved to take no more of 

 their Counsel, but to try some conclusions of his 

 own. And with the sole use of Milk he was 

 perfectly cured. Besides he tells me that he 

 hath several times, finding himself in some in- 

 disposition, prevented the returning of some 

 hereditary diseases in himself, by abstaining 

 from all manner of meat and drink, and living 

 upon raeer Milk. somelinu'S for fourteen days 

 together. And I remember heretofore I have 

 heard him say, that Milk is hurtful with other 

 meats, but alone it is of unknown vertue." 



I have requested that the above be given with 

 the quaint spelling and capital letters used by 

 Hartlib. 



Now, if any are disposed to try this milk diet, 

 they may, especially if bee-keepers, find much 

 benefit from it. We know that milk is good 

 for babes; and I can testify from my own ex- 

 perience that it is very good for the aged who 

 may not be very far off from second childhood. 

 Infants need to be fed frequently. Let me sug- 

 gest that old people require the same, and many 



of them are great sufferers by adhering to the 

 old rule of three meals a day, and nothing be- 

 tween these meals. If upon the milk diet. I 

 would by no means recommend that it should 

 all be taken in the hours of the regular meals, 

 but at much more frequent intervals — in short, 

 as often as the appetite craves it. 



Let me give a leaf from my own experi- 

 ence, when I was so constantly handling bees. 

 My dear wife once said to me, "How strangely 

 your appetite for milk seems to varyl Some- 

 times you care nothing for it, while at other 

 times you seem almost to live upon it; and 

 often you drink a quart or more at a single 

 meal." Having my attention thus called to the 

 matter, a new and interesting train of thought 

 occurred to me. I often remembei'ed hear- 

 ing persons say, "Mother would never allow us 

 to eat new honey unless we drank milk with it, 

 because otherwise it gave us the colic." 



Extending my inquiries I became satisfied 

 that milk is an antidote for bee-poison; for 

 when I was not working with bees I cai'ed little 

 or nothing for it; and it was only when my 

 system was fairly saturated with bee-poison, 

 that I had an almost insatiable craving for 

 milk. I then began to study what eminent 

 writers had to say about any connection be- 

 tween milk and honey, and found that, from the 

 time of Hippocrates, who was born 460 years 

 before the birth of Christ, down to modern 

 times, successive testinlony could be found as 

 to the value of milk to prevent any injurious 

 effects from eating honey. 



Notice, now, how frequently the sacred Scrip- 

 tures commend the Holy Land as aland flowing 

 with milli and honey. 



Notice, also, the curious association of milk 

 with honey in " the Song of Songs, which is Sol- 

 omon's," — Chap. 4:11: Thy lips, O my spouse, 

 drop as the honey-comb; honey and milk a,re 

 under thy tongue. 



PERHAPS THERE IS SOMETHING NEW UNDER 



THE SUN. 



The bridegroom, meaning to compliment his 

 spouse, says, •' Honey and milk are under thy 

 tongue;" which is the same as saying, " Thou 

 art a very sweet woman!" 



In conferring with Mrs. Kerr, my friend and 

 next-door neighbor, she said to me, " My moth- 

 er, who was German, often made us eat butter 

 with honey, because it [)revented honey from 

 giving us the colic." This immediately suggest- 

 ed to my mind a new train of thought. In 

 Isaiah 7:1.5, it is written of the Holy Immanuel, 

 " Butter and honey shall he eat," etc. Verse 33, 

 " And it shall come to pass, that, for the abun- 

 dance of milk that they shall give, he shall eat 

 butter; for butter (ind honey shall every one eat 

 that is left in the land." Seealso Job 30:19: "He 

 shall not see the brooks of honey and, butter.'" 

 Unquestionably, milk and honey and butter 

 and honey are, in the Bible, closely associated 

 together. 



In an article I wrote in 1870 for the Aynerican 

 Bee Journal I announced my discovery of the 

 reason why honey so frequently disagrees with 

 those who eat it. I showed that it was scarcely 

 possible to take it from the bees, either in the 

 comb or in a liquid state, without more or less 

 of the bee-poison being in it; that if any one 

 said to me that he could not eat honey with im- 

 punity I could assure him that, by bringing it 

 nearly to the boiling - point, the bee-poison, 

 which is very volatile, would escape, so that he 

 could use it freely, while if a very little of this 

 poison was put into any syrup which he had 

 before used with impunity, it would affect him 

 just as honey did. Unquestionably, the sacred 

 writers, who so often refer to milk and honey 

 and butter and honey, knew that milk or butter 

 added to the honey prevented the pain caused 



