1904 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURF. 



481 



liable to be heavy winter losses, such as we 

 had last year; that there are liable to be 

 failures of honey yields, and, if not com- 

 plete failures, very small crops, he may 

 then borrow money to increase the working' 

 capital, because he knows what he may 

 have to run up against. Some years ago a 

 friend of a speculative turn of mind saw the 

 supers of fine honey I was taking off from 

 one of our hives. He was interested at once. 



"How many dollars will that hive net 

 you? " 



I figured up the comb honey at 10 cents, 

 or in round numbers $2.50 per super; and 

 four supers (for it was a fine colonv, and 

 the season good) would make an even $10.00. 

 My friend's eyes began to sparfcle. 



" How much is a colony of bees like that 

 worth?" 



" Five dollars," I answered. 



" What! Clear 100 per cent off from the 

 investment? " 



" We did it with this colony." 



"Say," he said, growing more interest- 

 ed, " what will you charge me for a hun- 

 dred colonies? " 



Then I had to go on and explain some of 

 the uncertainties of the business; and when 

 I had finished my story he thought he could 

 make more money, or as much, in his other 

 business. Over against this I could have 

 cited to my friend many a case where an 

 expert bee keeper went into debt and bought 

 up a yard that had not paid its owner a 

 cent, took that same yard in the old loca- 

 tion, and made it return a big per cent on 

 his investment. Yes, I have in mind several 

 bee-keepers, and I could give the names 

 right here, who have done this; but they 

 would not thank me for giving publicity to 

 their localities. — Ed.] 





55 



Mr. Danzenbaker's new theory in regard 

 to requeening is well set forth in the follow- 

 ing, which I clip from one of our Medina 

 papers: 



Francis Danzenbaker, inventor and apiarian, of Mi- 

 ami, Fla.. and Mrs Inez Roden were married at her 

 home in Medina, Thursday evening, Apr. 28. Mr. Dan- 

 zenbaker is now at the St. L,ouis exposition in charge 

 of The Root Co.'s exhibit there. Mr. and Mrs. Dan- 

 zenbaker will eventually make their home in Florida. 



In a private letter Mr. W. Z. Hutchinson 

 says to me, "I must write and thank you 

 personally for your very kind words in 

 Gleanings for April 1. I sometimes won- 

 der if I am deserving of all the kind things 

 that are said of me by my friends. I hope 

 I am, and I shall certainly strive to deserve 

 them." I don't see why Mr. H. should 



doubt what seems self-evident to the rest of 

 us. 



\tir 



I sometimes wonder why people with the 

 title of " Professor " before their names say 

 some things they do. Prof H. D. Gould is 

 contributing some very interesting articles 

 to the Cleveland Press on insect life and its 

 development. He starts the series with the 

 following paragraph, which by no means 

 gives me much zest to read what follows: 



Bugs and bees, flies and fleas, and countless other 

 denizens of the insect world, conspire to make life 

 miserable to long suffering humanity, and it is the 

 purpose of a short series of articles to point out the 

 cause and cure for these petty annoyances, and, inci- 

 dentally, to derive from these lowly sources the lead- 

 ing facts ill us rative of their habitsof life and the mar- 

 velous provisions of Providence for their existence. 



It is difficult to understand why a man 

 who knows a bee from a bedbug or flea 

 should speak of bees being obnoxious to the 

 human race for the same reason that flies, 

 etc., are. Bees have no natural liking for 

 the human race, and certainly never infest 

 the human form except in rare cases for 

 what thej' consider self-defense. I have yet 

 to find a man who ever considered a bee on 

 the clover on his lawn as any more of a 

 " petty annoyance " than he would a lot of 

 hummingbirds in his honeysuckles. Bees 

 have been cultivated from time immemori- 

 al, and always will be; and their addition 

 to the sum total of human food, and that 

 one of the best, is not only considerable but 

 enormous. But, great as is the value of the 

 bee on account of its honey, Prof. Gould 

 has so far overlooked its still greater impor- 

 tance in the fertilization of fruit-blossoms, 

 which, it is easy to believe, is the chief 

 mission of the bee in its relation to nature 

 at large. In reply to why these things 

 exist. Prof. Gould says: 



Right here rises the question, " Why do they exist?" 

 and then comes the answer, " To pre.serve the balance 

 between the constructive forces and the destructive 

 forces of nature " If there were no insects, plant life 

 would soon overrun the earth. Insects keep down the 

 plants. But, onaccountof the extreme productiveness 

 of insects, they would soon overrun the earth, and 

 neither plant nor man nor beast could exist were it not 

 for other insects that prey upon the plant eaters, and 

 for parasites that prey upon both. 



I give that theory for what it is worth; 

 but, so far as bees are concerned, it is not 

 likely that they destroy an ounce of other- 

 wise valuable vegetable matter in the Unit- 

 ed States in the course of a year, but add 

 untold quantities of peaches, apples, plums, 

 pears, etc., to the wealth of the nation and 

 of the world. Prof. Gould speaks a good 

 word for the common fly, calling it a " scav- 

 enger. " He says disease is far less ram- 

 pant in those 3'ears when flies are plenti- 

 ful. I doubt whether statistics will prove 

 that; but certain it is that they are now 

 justly considered as the greatest dissemi- 

 nators of disease we have, with the possible 

 exception of mosquitoes. They absorb 

 many poisonous substances, but only' to 

 scatter them to other places. And then to 

 have the dainty bee, a model of immaculate 

 neatness, classed with flies as a petty an- 

 noyance! I say this, remembering that in 



