356 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1. 



in the regular ten-frame Langstrotli hives ; 

 and such great cards of brood as one can get 

 from these big frames ! 



It is but fair to state that these " Jumbos," 

 probably, would not be adapted for some local- 

 ties, and for some bee-keepers. Every one 

 should experiment for himself on a small scale, 

 and then, as results seem to justify, adopt that 

 ■which will give him the most •Dioney (not 

 necessarily honey) for the amount of labor 

 and capital employed. 



SALOONS DRIVEN OUT OF MARENGO, ILL., 

 THE HOME OF DR. MILLER. 



When I called on Dr. Miller two weeks 

 ago I happened to make my visit at just the 

 time when they were in the midst of a cam- 

 paign to oust the saloons from Marengo. It 

 seems that that beautiful town, with its fine 

 and modern churches and its large numbers 

 of church-going people, wss caught napping 

 about two years ago, for the town went wet 

 by the bare margin of just two votes. Some 

 temperance people voted with the wets, think- 

 ing that a tax of SIOOO on the saloons would 

 be practically prohibitory, and bring to the 

 town some revenue. What was the result ? 

 In a year's time there were five saloons, all 

 paying the tax, some of them having elegant 

 bars, and all doiug a big business. Young 

 boys from respectable families were learning 

 to drink ; men once sober were becoming 

 drunkards ; bad debts were being made at the 

 stores simply because the money had been ex- 

 pended for liquor at the saloons ; brawls and 

 fights were not infrequent on the streets, one 

 man being killed recently; wines and hquors 

 were being drank in private homes. 



The Sunday that I was in Marengo I had 

 the pleasure of being present at a meeting of 

 some 50 or 75 business men who had assem- 

 bled after a general temperance meeting to 

 discuss ways and means to drive saloons out 

 of the town that had been dry for thirty years 

 previously. They seemed to feel that an awful 

 calamity had visited the place, and that there 

 should be an organization formed to vote the 

 town dry at the election to be held April 17. 



Being desirous of knowing the result of the 

 vote I asked Dr. Miller to wire me if it went 

 dry. This morning, the 18th, I received a 

 message, dated yesterday, which reads as fol- 

 lows: 



All three wards, no license. Hallelujah ! Rejoice 

 with me. C. C. Miller. 



While this is somewhat aside from the sub- 

 ject of bees, yet as it relates so intimately to 

 one of the most prominent bee-keepers of the 

 world, I know our readers will be glad to hear 

 of the result, and rejoice with him. 



Sometimes good temperance people think 

 it is better to have an open saloon or two, 

 with a high tax, so the money can go to the 

 building of roads, waterworks, or other im- 

 provements, rather than have speak easies 

 running on the sly, and get no revenue. In 

 the days of no license, Marengo, I understand, 

 had two speak-easies, but no boys could get 

 any thing, and very few men, and these had 

 to belong to the "mystic circle" in order to 

 know how to " pull the ropes ; " and yet the 



cry was raised two years ago at Marengo that 

 there was as much liquor drank as there would 

 be if there were saloons in the town paying 

 license ; but the results have shown the utter 

 fallacy of such a statement. It has proven 

 tiue in every town where the experiment has 

 been tried, and no one knows it any better 

 than the saloon-men and the brewers and 

 liquor men in general, 



BEES AND HORTICULTURE ; THEIR RELA- 

 TIONS MUTUAL. 



The above is the title of a pamphlet issued 

 by the National Bee keepers' Association, and 

 edited by General Manager Eugene Secor, of 

 Forest City, Iowa. The purpose of this pam- 

 phlet is set forth in the title summary as fol- 

 lows: "To put into condensed form, for the 

 use of bee-keepers and fruit-growers, such in- 

 formation as is at hand, derived from experi- 

 ence and recent investigations, relating to the 

 economy of nature in plant and insect life, 

 and to show their mutual- interdependence." 

 It contains a digest of all the best articles that 

 have been published, including the reports 

 from government bulletins and experiment 

 stations, all going to show the value of bees 

 as distributors of pollen, thus making it pos- 

 sible to secure more and better fruit. It also 

 takes up the question of spraying fruit-trees, 

 when to do it, how to do it, and how to pre- 

 pare the mixtures. It counsels fruit-men 7iot 

 to spray the fruit-trees that are in bloom ; 

 proves by plenty of evidence that doing it at 

 such times is not only unnecessary but a dan- 

 gerous practice, an injury to the blossoms, 

 and often a misdemeanor. 



On the last page or so there are given cop- 

 ies of the laws in several States, regulating 

 spraying fruit-trees, especially those laws that 

 make it a misdemeanor to spray trees while in 

 bloom. 



This, as I understand, is only one of the se- 

 ries of pamphlets that will be issued as time 

 and money will permit and conditions de- 

 mand, and will te used for the benefit of 

 members. 



The National Bee-keepers' Association, as 

 Mr. Secor well says, was organized "for the 

 protection of bee-keepers' rights and interests, 

 and for the diffusion of knowledge pertaining 

 to the honey-bee and its importance to agri- 

 culture and horticulture. It stands for the 

 pure-food idea, and is ready to prosecute the 

 adulterators of honey." The annual member- 

 ship fee is only .$1.00, and yet as I look at it 

 the Association, or what has been the Union, 

 National and United States both, has been 

 worth thousands of dollars to bee-keepers 

 over the country. The old Union secured 

 many valuable precedents in law to prove that 

 bees are not a nuisance per se. The new 

 Union began the work of fighting adultera- 

 tion, one of the greatest evils that bee-keepers 

 have to contend with at the present day and 

 age ; and I have already seen the salutary ef- 

 fects of the work of the Union, or Association, 

 as we now call it. Its delegate to the Pure- 

 Food Congress was appointed on important 

 committees, and bee keeping is now recog- 

 nized as it never was before. I have already 



