1900 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



515 



the bees "do nothing the livelong summer 

 but pack glucose into their hives from an 

 open barrel left standing close by." This 

 matter was fully reviewed in this department 

 on page 339. This nonsense was copied by 

 the editor of the Farm, Field, and Fireside, 

 who crawls out of it in this way: 



■• All this is sad if it is not funny. If there is a child 

 six years old who reads the Farm, Field, and Fireside, 

 anrt who does not know that the bee makes over what 

 it gets from the flower, or from the feeding-tray, and 

 prorluces real honej-; and if there is any one of our 

 readers that did not see the ' pleasantry' in the glu- 

 c se story, we certainly recommend to them a vaca- 

 tion, and a little free air and sunshine. They are 

 working too hard. And our good friends of the 

 Journal need to cheer up and expend a little of the 

 proceeds of their industry in making a good bee paper, 

 in a playtime in the country. We should be pleased 

 to join them in a good old-fashioned bee-hunt, such as 

 we used to have with our father, either in apple-blos- 

 som time or later, when the goldenrod is out, and the 

 bees are happiest." 



Mr. York shows up the whole fallacy of 

 this "pleasantry" business by showing how 

 much evil a similar statement cau.sed bee- 

 keepers some twenty years ago. He winds 

 up by saying: 



It is to the credit of the Farm, Field, and Fireside 

 that it has done its part toward discrediting the "' poor 

 joke," and it would be still more to its credit if it could 

 have made a manly retraction without the attempt to 

 bring ridicule upo ■ those who made a proper protest 

 against its unintended injustice 



It is to be hoped that good, and good only, will come 

 to the six-vear old readers of our e->teenied contempo- 

 rary from its wholesale recommendation of a vacation, 

 for it is certain that not one of them knows "that the 

 bee makes over what it get • from the flower or from 

 the feeding tray and produces real honey," seeing that 

 even a brilliant six-year-old can hardly knoiv what is 

 not true. 



Even in the time of Solomon such men 

 were living. He says of them: " As a mad 

 man who casteth firebrands, arrows, and 

 death, so is he that deceiveth his neighbor, 

 and saith. Am not I in sport?" They call it 

 "pleasantry" nowadays. Any newspaper 

 clipping that imputes to a large number of 

 respectable people, or all of a trade, a crim- 

 inal wav of doing business may be set down 

 as a malicious slander. 



EL COLMENERO ESPANOL. 

 It seems they are having trouble with bees 

 in Uruguay in the public scieniific schools. 

 The following item in El Siglo, dated April 

 3, from Palmira, Uruguay, is translated from 

 the Spanish, and it certainly constitutes good 

 reading: 



There is much comment anent the disposition of the 

 Auxiliary Commission, which has ordered the remov- 

 al of apiaries from agricultural stations, alleging that 

 the bees are prejudicial to agriculture, while the 

 scientific stations are of entirely the opposite opinion. 

 There is now in vogue in the Uruguay station the 

 North American system of apiculture, which is of 

 much importance. It is the first one installed in 

 Uruguay. 



This is followed by a most vigorous and able 

 defense of the bee as the best friend of the 

 farmer and orchardist. 



BRITISH BEE JOURNAL. 

 The great number of announcements of 

 *' Shows to Come" in P^ngland indicates that 

 the interest taken by bee-keepers in such ex- 



hibitions is not only maintained but extend- 

 ing. This helps greatly to bring British hon- 

 ey to the public notice. The confectioners of 

 London have a grand display of eatables there 

 in September, and this is to be followed by an 

 exposition by the grocers. At these exhibits 

 honey will be made a great feature. 



In speaking of honey, Mahomet says, in the 

 Koran, "This sweet, wholesome substance, 

 which sustains and strengthens the body, 

 which cures all maladies, is a thousand times 

 preferable to the poisons administered by the 

 doctors to the human race." Again, "Bees 

 spend their nights out of doors, except Thurs- 

 day evening, when all return home, because 

 "f Friday, the holy day." That sounds a 

 little superstitious; but when Mahomet had 

 been dead a thousand years, and books were 

 common in England, it was commonly be- 

 lieved there that bees built chapels and cele- 

 brated the Lord's supper in the hive ; and 

 even to day many superstitions regarding 

 them are alive in all countries. 



From recent issues of Gleanings I note 

 that not a few bee-keepers, and notably Dr. 

 Miller, page -125, have much trouble in finding 

 the queen. A good share of this trouble is 

 from lack of concentration of attention. The 

 greater portion of bee keepers, while hunting 

 for the queen, scatter their thoughts. For in- 

 stance, if an unusually nice yellow drone 

 crosses the vision, the bee keeper exclaims, 

 " My ! isn't he a beauty ? wish I could get a 

 queen mated to him." Then with drone in 

 the eye, more drones are seen. Then a bee 

 loaded with pollen will divert the eye, or a 

 sunken cell cup. " Wonder if that is foul 

 brood ; " and with this thought in mind the 

 queen might pass directly over the spot and 

 not be noticed. A person looking for the 

 queen should look for her and nothing else. 

 Every thing but the queen must be a blank. A 

 good aid to concentration upon this object is 

 to keep repeating in the mind, '"queen, queen," 

 and mentally hold her picture steadily in the 

 mind. With the other precautions of having 

 good eyes, and not too much disturbance, the 

 queen will be found with little trouble. But it 

 is not at all mysterious that Dr. Miller can not 

 find a queen, even where there are but few 

 bees. He is distracted by being too full of 

 straw. I have no doubt that, when hunting 

 for a queen, he keeps repeating to himself, 

 " Stray Straws, Stray Straws" The mystery 

 in the case, Mr. Editor, is that he can even 

 find a bee-hive. 



On page 334, American Bee Journal for 

 May 24, Mr. Reider expresses some doubts as 

 to the correctness of Prof. Cook's description 

 of the Beltjian hare, alleging that they are not 

 "bulky, fat, and lazy," as Prof. C. describes 



