SEPTEMBER 15, 1916 



851 



was a sUu»iieile. The imnips laii wilil. and 

 the huliaiis had to iiiii into a swamp. 

 Some of them got home ahead of the men, 

 which made the Indians at home think that 

 there had been war, and fifty started out 

 with ponies, armed, to avenge their people. 

 Tliey met the others next day in a sore 

 condition, both in body and mind. They 

 thouglit the white man called Dan was 

 linked with the spirits of rattlesnakes and 

 wildcats, which had posses.<ed the ponies. 

 They were going to kill him, but he had 

 wisely taken to the woods. They then 

 started setting fire to wig-Avams, and among 

 the others fired the wig-wam containing the 

 GOOO lbs. of beeswax. The w-ax got to 

 burning, and produced such a hot flame, 

 and burned such a length of time, that they 

 were sure they had finally got rid of the 

 spirit of the white man. and went off con- 

 tented. This was McFadyen's ingenious 

 story to prevent investigation of his won- 

 derful yarn of '' beekeeping in the North." 

 In the Canadian Bee Journal for 1888, 

 Vol. IV., page 632, J. 11. Martin, who was 



afterward so well known to readers of 

 Gleanings as *' Rambler,'' tells a vstory to 

 match Mr. IVIcFadyen's story. 



He says, "We find that the Dog Rib 

 Indians living near the Great Bear Lake 

 annually consign a greater portion of their 

 tribe to the bottom of the lake in hermeti- 

 cally sealed cases, where they remain with 

 animation suspended for several months, 

 and upon the approach of warm w^eather 

 they are fished out and restored by the ani- 

 mate portion of their tribe. In corrobora- 

 tion of the above there are Hindoo jugglers 

 who will allow themselves to be buried 

 several days with seemingly no injury. 



" It would certainly be an economical 

 method for both bees and beekeepers to get 

 thru the winter with suspended animation. 

 In fact, they will be obliged to if we have 

 many more seasons like the past." 



In a postscript Mr. Martin avers that 

 there is as much truth in this story as in 

 Daniel McFadyen's, and wants it accepted 

 in the same sense. 



Guelph, Ont. 



Mr. C 

 investigate 



Hanson Bocock, the expert on bee diseases sent to this country by the British Government to 

 the new disappearing disease found in this country. See editorial, page 839. 



