1904 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. • 



971 



for any article on any subject they wish 

 written, in order to economize they sent 

 their reporters to write it up from what in- 

 formation they could get in an off-hand way. 

 They took notes from Mr. Selser's replies, 

 and from this wrote their papers, with the 

 result that some of the most ridiculous arti- 

 cles were written regarding the subject, 

 some of them without the least foundation 

 of fact. 



Mr. Selser has been experimenting with a 

 rubber mat, as he terms it. This is a gela- 

 tin substance like rubber, in which the bee 

 could insert its sting and not extract any of 

 the fluid, in order to get the price of the 

 sale of these stings to such a figure that large 

 orders might be taken. A number of the 

 papers conceived the idea, for the sake of 

 notoriety, that the supply was not equal to 

 the demand, and many bee-keepers have 

 written Mr. Selser to get him to share some 

 of these orders with them, etc. He has 

 written us that the demand is very limited, 

 and it is a question of development in the 

 future whether the sale of the same will be 

 increased very much or not. 



We have sold from our New York office 

 two pounds of bees that are to be put in a 

 preparation for restoring the growth of hair 

 on bald heads, the party claiming he will use 

 several hundred hives for this purpose if this 

 preparation sells, as he fully expects it to 

 sell, claiming it is no experiment any longer, 

 as the same substance by which he places 

 the live bees so preserves the medicine, and 

 aids it to do its work. 



As this party has paid money for the bees, 

 we presume he thinks, at least, there is 

 something in this discovery; but we have 

 our doubts. 



A number of people have written Mr. Sel- 

 ser, and some have already come to the Jen- 

 kintown apiary to be stung for rheumatism, 

 so that Mr. Selser has made a price of $2.00 

 for the first application and $1.00 for every 

 subsequent application. 



For the cure of rheumatism there have 

 been some quite remarkable reports of a 

 very favorable character. Mr. Selser, in a 

 recent letter, in referring to this writes: 



When I had lumbago, seven or eight years ago, I paid 

 Dr. H. C. Wood, our specialist in that line. $50 for the 

 advice of telling me, when he knew what business I was 

 in, to go home and sting myself twenty-five times in the 

 lumbar muscles of the back. There is no question that 

 bee-stings, as well as bees in alcohol, are now being 

 used, and have been used for many years, of which I 

 have sufficient proof, in many different ways, in medi- 

 cines and medical preparations. 



THE ST. LOUIS CONVENTION ; A FEW SIDE- 

 LIGHTS. 



While this was not by any means the 

 most largely attended meeting of the Na- 

 tional Bee-keepers' Association, it was, per- 

 haps, the most representative. The place 

 of meeting, in the very heart of the United 

 States, and the big fair, drew bee-keepers 

 from every portion of the country, with the 

 result that there were 28 States represented, 

 and two foreign countries— Russia, which 

 had sent its accredited representative, Mr. 

 Abram Titoff, who for nearly two years has 



been studying American methods at Medina, 

 and Mr. Glen Moe, Candelaria, Cuba, a bee- 

 keeper of prominence and standing in the 

 new republic. 



Mr. J. U. Harris, the president, made a 

 model presiding officer— the best, I think, we 

 have ever had. He is a strict parliamen- 

 tarian, and gave the bee-keepers of the con- 

 vention an example of how strict parliamen- 

 tary methods could facilitate discussion, and 

 yet give every speaker the opportunity of 

 the floor. 



It will be remembered that at the Los 

 Angeles meeting a year ago we had an " ir- 

 repressible conflict" to deal with, with the 

 result that one of the sessions was marred 

 by the spirit of war. At the St. Louis meet- 

 ing there was an almost entire absence of 

 any thing of that kind, notwithstanding rep- 

 resentatives of both factions were present. 

 Those who had fought so bitterly on the 

 floor of the convention at the previous meet- 

 ing now joined hands and worked together 

 in perfect harmony. True it was, there 

 were slight outcroppings once in a while of 

 the old war spirit; but it no sooner came to 

 the surface than it disappeared. 



One of the wags of the convention, Mr. E. 

 W. Whitcomb, of Friend, Neb., in comment- 

 ing on the peace and harmony that prevailed 

 at this meeting, whispered to me during one 

 of the sessions, "Ernest, we had vinegar at 

 Los Angeles. We are having sugar here; 

 and now say— do you— do you suppose we 

 shall have flies at the next place of meet- 

 ing?" 



But there will be no flies, no matter where 

 we go. The old hatchet is buried, and hon- . 

 ied sweetness, without flies or vinegar, will 

 be in evidence. 



It was a little comical at times, but an- 

 other kind of "war" was going on during 

 the sessions of the meeting— the great Boer 

 war, within about half a mile of the conven- 

 tion pavilion. The roar of the heavy field- 

 pieces, the bursting of bombs, the rattle of 

 the high-powered rifles in the hands of a 

 thousand soldiers, and the drumming of sev- 

 eral Gatling guns, made such a din and up- 

 roar that the speakers were obliged to sus- 

 pend for a few minutes until the noise of 

 battle ceased. No sooner would they resume 

 than again the boom of cannon and the rat- 

 tle of a thousand pieces would stop proceed- 

 ings. (By the way, the Boer war is worth 

 going to see.) 



There was present at this meeting the 

 venerable Dr. G. Bohrer, of Lyons, Kansas. 

 He was present at the early meeting of the 

 old North American, at Cincinnati, when 

 Hetherington, Quinby, Langstroth, Gallup, 

 A. I. Root. H. A. King, Mrs. E. N. Tupper, 

 and other bee-keepers of olden times, were 

 flourishing at their best. He was active at 

 the early conventions, and served to link the 

 past with the present history of the Associ- 

 ation in that he took a lively interest in the 

 proceedings of this meeting. 



The convention took hold of the question 

 of the alleged manufacture of comb honey 

 in a way that will mean much to the bee- 



