November, 1917 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



897 



Around the Office — Continued 



the nose on your face tho, that she invites 

 some real ' ' language ' ' in mentioning it. 

 But she vpants M.-A.-O. to do it — like 

 letting George do it. But I won't. I won't 

 use good euss words for anybody but my- 

 self, so I won 't. I am not the public cusser. 

 So here is just what Stancy Puerden wrote 

 me: "Dear M. A. O.: — While I was peace- 

 fully sitting at my typewriter working at 

 my November copy I heard the managing 

 editor out in the street. You know his 

 voice carries some, so I had no difficultj-- 

 henring what he said. He was putting Mr. 

 Puerden wise to a new wrinkle in shaving. 

 What was my horror to hear him say he 

 dipped his shaving brush in honey to make 

 a Inthcr that won't dry so quickh' as a pure 

 soap lather does. Just think of wasting a 

 valuable food like honey on the outside of 

 his face, and at a time when it is so hard 

 to get enough honey to fill our orders, too. 

 It made me especially indignant because I 

 am. coming out with a honey story in this 

 issue. I thought of telling of it in my 

 page, hut am afraid I could not get it by 

 the editor, for he seems to read my page 

 before it is published, and I have imagined 

 he does not read yours — at least not very 

 thoroly. If you care to mention the matter 

 you may, and you have my permission to 

 say anything you like about my indignation 

 at the sinful waste of food material in war 

 time. The neighbors know my feelings so 

 well that they hide their frosted cakes when 

 they see me coming. If Hoover objects to 

 frosted cakes what would he say to frost- 

 ing men's faces with honey lather?" 

 « * * 



In reading an old volume of Gleanings 

 the other day I found one on ' ' Uncle Amos ' ' 

 that made me snicker, so I pass it along. 

 It was in the volume of 1888. "Uncle 

 Amos" was trying to give dear old "Eam- 

 bier" (you older readers all remember him) 

 some friendly suggestions as to quitting his 

 bachelor life, and the printers got it in this 

 way: "Now I wonder if it never occurred 

 to yoTir bachelor friends that even a weed 

 in the garden of Eden itself would not have 

 amounted to very much without the com- 

 panionship of womankind." In the next 

 issue, 50 pages later, "Uncle Amos" made 

 a plaintive apology, saying that what he 

 intended to state was, "Even the Garden 

 of E'len itself would not have amounted to 

 very much without the companionship of 



womankind." 



* * » 



Albert J. Wright, attorney and counselor- 

 at-law at Bradford, N. Y., in sending a 

 year's subscription for Gleanings, adds: "I 

 am in bed sick with sciatica, and must have 

 something to read, and Gleanings fills the 

 bill." What in Samhill does he mean? 

 Has Gleanings come to be a counter-irritant 

 for sciatica? I'll bet a man with sciatica 

 likes some of the real sort of language in 

 "Around the Office" that in the good old 



past has been found there, and which the 

 Boots and a lot of other misguided good 

 people are trying to choke me off from — 

 durn it all! 



* » # 



Thanks, ]\tr. Eeeder of Fisher's Ferry, 

 Pa. Your appeal to the Editors has 

 strenghcned a little my very slight hold on 

 "Around the Office" job. I have used 

 mighty few cuss words this month, too, you 

 notice. I calculate that will moderate 

 ' ' Uncle Amos 's ' ' disposition toward me 

 some. But it's strangling the liberty of the 

 press, all the same, and I am almost suffo- 

 cating for want of free and full expression 

 of my most important views. 



» * * 



An inquirer out at Bison, Kansas., asks 

 Gleanings if wild bees will accept tame 

 beeswax, or if tame bees will accept wild 

 beeswax. Now, who knows how to tame 

 wax? Dr. Miller? (By the way, Dr. Mil- 

 ler, I haven't told you that I like you along 

 witli J. E. Crane^ — but I do.) 



BOOKS AND BULLETINS 



"FORTY-TWO YEARS BEEKEEPING 

 IN NEW ZEALAND" — 1874-1916 — 

 Reminiscences by I. Hopkins. 

 The title above well suggests the scope of 

 the little monograph from far-away New Zea- 

 land. It is not a manual for the apiary, nor 

 a handbook for the beeman of that island 

 nor any other island. Mr. Hopkins, the 

 author, an Englishman of nearly half a 

 century's experience in apiculture in New 

 Zealand, recorded the growth and develop- 

 ment of beekeeping in a series of articles 

 that were published in "The New Zealand 

 Farmer" for 1915. For the sake of his 

 oldest friends in apiculture, Mr. Hopkins 

 has had a few copies reprinted, and bound 

 in neat blue cloth binding. The little vol- 

 ume has only the modest number of thirty- 

 eight pages. But within the brief compass 

 of his work Mr. Hopkins has painted a vivid 

 picture. 



Even Australia seems out of the world to 

 the average American; but one must sail 

 1500 miles further east by south from Mel- 

 bourne, Australia, to reach New Zealand, a 

 dual island, rudely boot-shaped, a British 

 colony situated in the southern hemisphere, 

 40 degrees south of the equator, between 170 

 and 180 degrees east of Greenwich; in short, 

 it is on almost the exactly opposite side of 

 our old earth from Greenwich (180 degrees 

 would be just opposite), and is as far south 

 of the equator as Korea and Japan are north. 

 It has, roundly speaking, 103,000 square 

 miles — almost identical in size with Colo- 

 rado. It is situated in an almost isleless sea, 

 without neighbors for 1500 miles in every 

 direction. It is nearer to our California 

 than to any other part of the United States. 



The subjects in the book are treated in 



