894 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 15. 



able that my name would not be again recon- 

 sidered, yet if there are any of my friends 

 ■who had thought of voting for me again I 

 would consider it a personal favor if they 

 w^ould turn those votes over to Mr. Ehvood — a 

 solid man in many ways — one who is engaged 

 in bee keeping on' a most extended scale, and 

 one who appreciates most thoroughly some of 

 the difficulties and problems that confront bee- 

 keepers. I do not like to do electioneering or 

 wnre-pulling ; but I do hope Mr. El wood will 

 be chairman of the Board of Directors for 

 1898. 



Perhaps some of my friends will think I 

 ought to go on again ; but occupying the po- 

 sition 1 do on Glkanings, I can offer my great 

 chunks of wisdom ( ? ) just as well as if I 

 were a member of the Board itself, and I can 

 assure m\ friends that my interest in the 

 Union will be just as great as though 1 were 

 an active officc-r of the same. I feel that, 

 with all my other duties, I have not the time 

 to give the' Union such intelligent attention as 

 an officer should. Hip— hip— hurrah for P. 

 H. Elwood! 



A FUNNY MISHAP. 



Many of our English cousins are enthusi- 

 astic bee-keepers, and they set as great value 

 on their choice queen-bees (or even greater) 

 as do our friends here in America. During 

 the past season, so we are told, one bee-keep- 

 er over in England arranged to send to a 

 brother bee-keeper a choice and valuable 

 queen; and the agreement was, when it was 

 readv to mail, a telegram was to give notice to 

 the recipient that she was coming. Imagine 

 the surprise of the telegraph operator when 

 he received the following: 



" The queen will he at your place on the 5 o'clock 

 train. Have every thing ready for her on her arri- 

 val." 



The operator, it seems, knew nothing about 

 queen-bees, and at once jumped to the con- 

 clusion that the Oueen of England, by some 

 sudden arrangement he could not understand, 

 was to grace their little town with her royal 

 presence. Imagine the surprise and disgust 

 of the good people ( who gathered from every 

 direction) when the express agent held up a 

 wire-cloth cage containing a qiicen-bee ! The 

 account does not stale where the telegraph 

 operator was wnth his telegram about that 

 time. A. I. R. 



APICUI.TURAL JOURNALISM. 



Friend Hutchinson, of the Dec-keepers' 

 Revie7i>, says he is proud of Gleanings, even 

 if it is not his journal. Here is the generous 

 compliment he pays us : 



Gleanings for Nov. \'A\\ is an unn.sually fine is.sue 

 for even that fine journal. I have counted the en- 

 gravings, and there are fifteen, while the reading is 

 bright and sparkling, and " up lo date." I am proud 

 of Gleanings, even if it isn't my journal. 



On another page of the same numSer Mr. 

 Hutchinson givts the Ainer. Bee Journal, an- 

 other competitor of his, this well-desei-ved com- 

 pliment : 



An editor will notice editorial work on a journal 

 similar to his own quicker than will any one else ; and 

 in this connection 1 wish to say that I believe no bee- 



journal .shows more careful, conscientious editorial 

 work than does the American Bee Journal. By this I 

 do not mean that it contains a large amount of edito- 

 rial matter, because it does not but there is an unde- 

 finable something about a paper that tells to the prac- 

 ticed eye when things have been " licked into shape," 

 or whether they have been thrown together after the 

 " slap-dab " style. Bro. York does not claim to have 

 had much experience as a bee-keeper: but he is bright 

 enough to bring to his aid those who have ; and I 

 doubt whether the Bee Journal was ever of much more 

 practical value than at present. Speaking of work, I 

 believe that Bro. York does not have a large forec, yet 

 he gets out a weekly, and I know that he must have 

 to put in hours of work with which we monthly fel- 

 lows have no acquaintance. 



How different the spirit of these utterances 

 from those displayed by the editors of some 

 other rival journals in other pursuits ! Only 

 the other day, in reading my bicycle journals 

 I could not help noting the way the respective 

 edi ors of those periodicals slung mud at each 

 other, and especially how they praised their 

 own journals, and ridiculed those of their com- 

 petitors. Will Bro. Hutchinson lose subscribers 

 from his own list who will go to the Bee Jour- 

 nal or to Gleanings ? Not at all. I am of 

 the opinion that the average subscriber ad- 

 mires that kind of spirit, and he will staj- by 

 the editor every time who shows that spirit of 

 brotherly love — " in honor preferring one an- 

 other. ' ' 



MISTAKEN IDENTITY AT BUFFALO ; THE 

 BORES AT CONVENTIONS. 



The following item appears in the weekly 

 Budget, which, by the way, is always interest- 

 ing, in the Anie)ican Bee Journal : 



Mr. D. W. Heise, one of the most respected and gen- 

 tlemanly Canadians at the Buffalo convention, reports 

 in the Crt«(7rf/«« Bee Journal W\sX at that meeting he 

 was .several times taken for Mr. Ernest R. Root, editor 

 of Gleanings. He jocosely says that it sort o' inflat- 

 ed him, and that he may soon start a paper, to be call- 

 ed Gleanings in Canadian Bee Cullure. But we think 

 that, with proper care and suflBcient time, he will re- 

 It is a good thing for one to see himself as 

 others may see him, and I am only sorry that 

 I do not remember to have met that "twin " 

 brother. If I did meet him, I was not aware 

 that he had been taken for me or I for him. 

 The next time I meet the gentleman I hope he 

 will introduce himself as my twin brother. 

 I am sure friend Heise doesn't need to feel 

 flattered because of his likeness to my poor 

 self. Mail}- another in my shoes would do 

 far better than I. 



By the way, this is not the only instance of 

 mistaken identity at the Buffalo convention. 

 Two men, of about the same size and height, 

 who attended, looked decidedly alike ; and 

 when the two sat near each other it was almost 

 impossible to tell which from t'other. One was 

 a quiet, genial, pleasant man ; the other was 

 always bobbing to his feet, and making him- 

 self notoriously disagreeable — always throw- 

 ing out objections, and never harmonizing 

 with the discussion. I said to the first-men- 

 tioned person, after I had learned to distin- 

 guish one from the other, " Why, you look 



almost t-xactly like ." 



" I am not flattered," said he. " I have no 

 sympathy with his ways of doing. vSuch men 

 are always a bore to a convention, and a drag 

 to good discussion." 



