160 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 1 



tie. I handed my paper to the ticket agent 

 at one of the big depots. He looked at it, 

 then said something Uke this: 



"Well, now, I do not quite catch on to 

 this. It is not exactly according to my un- 

 derstanding; but that man Holmes never 

 makes a mistake. Whatever he does is 

 done right." 



He finally found out that it was just so in 

 this case. Holmes knew some things about 

 the ticket agent's business that he did not 

 know himself. 



A short time ago one of the newspaper re- 

 porters made a cartoon sketch of my friend 

 Herman. It was comical, without doubt, 

 but at the same time it was remakably truth- 

 ful. Shortly after it appeared in print, the 

 following letter came to Mr. Holmes: 



The Delaware. Lackawanna & 



Western Railroad Company. 

 Office of Division Passenger Agent, 

 Buffalo, N. Y., Oct. 14, 1905. 

 My Dear Friend Herman:— 



I tbought it would come. I expected to see your pic- 

 ture in the rogues' gallery, but not so soon. The article 

 is a good one and very interesting. Of course, no one 

 can ttll how much of it belongs to you and how much 

 to the writers. It is a splendid advertisement of your 

 road and a tribute to you personally. I want to con- 

 gratulate you, not on the article, but on the fact that a 

 sober, industrious, honest member of our craft has 

 been kept in harness by one company so long. It has 

 been thought and preached since I can remember, that, 

 to be a successful passenger agent, one must drink, 

 smoke, and carouse - sink to a lower level than a gen- 

 tleman should. You have taught us by your example 

 that this is not true; that the better gentleman a man 

 is, the better passenger agent he will make. I don't 

 mean a man must be a preacher, but he must be clean, 

 honest, and aggressive, depending upon making f lit nds 

 upon his own personality rather than by spending his 

 compaiy's money in carousing. You are the oldest 

 apostle of the new and better school, therefore I salute 

 you . , T 



With kindest regards and best wishes, I remain 



Yours sincerely, Fred P. Fox, 



Division Passenger Agent. 



Now, friends, I am ready to tell you why 

 I have written up the freckled-faced boy. 

 It is this grand declaratior by one of the 

 prominent railroad men of c ur great country. 

 Let me repeat the last sentence: "You are 

 the oldest apoftle of the new and better 

 school, therefore I salute you." 



I have not told you before, but I will tell 

 you now. that Mr. Holmes through all his 

 career of almost half a century has neither 

 used beer nor tobacco — has never even 

 smoked a cigar for the sake of getting busi- 

 ness; and yet a good many people would say 

 he would have to do it in order to succeed. 



I hope this letter will have some influence 

 over some other freckle- faced boy who is 

 thinking that perhaps he ought to learn to 

 smoke cigars. It is indeed true, as Mr. Fox 

 says in the letter of congratulation, it is the 

 newer and better school. 



By the way, it just occurs to me to men- 

 tion that a Medina girl took a shine to 

 that freckle-faced stage-driver away back 

 in the time when he used to drive a coach 

 through the muddy roads around Medina, be- 

 fore we had steam and electric railroads. 

 We submit two pictures, one of the freckle- 

 faced boy when he first started out, and the 

 other one taken some forty years later. 



BEES ON THE ISLAND. 



As soon as I landed we hastily chose a lo- 

 cation, and with some anxiety opened the 

 entrance of the two-frame nucleus contain- 

 ing the Caucasian queen. Although I wait- 

 ed and waited, not a bee came out; and, in 

 fact, not a sound of any kind i-sued from 

 the little hive. It took considerable time to 

 draw the wire nails and get the cover off; 

 but when it was removed, there were the 

 gentle bees looking as unconcerned as could 

 be. Instead of beirg all dead, as I feared, 

 there was hardly a dead bee in the colony. 

 After they had rubbed their eyes and dis- 

 covered it was really summer in December, 

 they ventured out and took a fly ; but there 

 was no uproar at all, and they seemed to 

 have borne the bumps of their long trip in 

 the cars in a most remarkable way. As the 

 queen had been laying almost ever since we 

 started, there were eggs and brood ready to 

 start queen-cells. 



While they were taking a flight I looked 

 over the five colonies already on the island. 

 Three were in rude Langstroth hives, and 

 the frames were exactly our size, luckily. 

 Two were in what I call "gate-post" box 

 hives— boxes about a yard tall, and perhaps 

 eight inches square inside. The top is nailed 

 on loosely; and when the owner wants honey 

 he takes it off and digs out a panful, more 

 or less, say down until he finds brood. As 

 one of our Langstroth hives was two- story 

 we put a few empty combs in some extra 

 hives, moved the box hives back, putting 

 these empty hives in their places. As there 

 was scarcely a cell of brood in the whole five 

 hives, and hirdly a cell of honey in one of 

 the box hives, we had easy work transfer- 

 ring. Some heavy roots of a live-oak tree 

 were just in front of where the box hives 

 stood, and Mr. Shumard bumped nearly eve- 

 ry last bee out of the old boxes by striking 

 a corner of the hive repeatedly on those oak 

 roots. I invented the plan, and friend Shu- 

 mard did the work; so when we get it pat- 

 ented we are going to "go halves " in sell- 

 ing " rights." 



After the bees were all out friend S. got 

 his carpenter saw and sawed the combs 

 neatly out of the old tall boxes, sawing in 

 from both top and bottom. Mrs. Root cut 

 the flat sheets of comb so neatly as to fit 

 the empty frames. No clasps, wires, or 

 sticks were needed. Of course, / " bossed" 

 the whole job (bosses are very important 

 personages nowdays you know). One hive 

 contained some thick combs of sealed honey; 

 and as it had to be " splinted " the job was 

 turned over to me. About this time robbers 



