154 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



enness, th?se intelligent insects show 

 the most absolute deference and devo- 

 tion to special property. Their primi- 

 tive selfishness has broadened out into 

 a collective or patriotic egotism. But 

 these very social species, with their 

 more than Christian charity, have not 

 reached this higli degree of civilization 

 at one bound. In the ant and bee 

 worlds, as in our own, there are savag- 

 es. 'I'here are still at the present time 

 certain species of ants ignorant of the 

 divisions of labor, carried so far among 

 their civilized congeners. — "Property; 

 Its Origin and Development." 



DOES BEE CULTUHE PAY? 



It depends in the first place on what 

 kind of pay you want. A lady asked a 

 white washer why he would not work 

 for an acquaintance of hers and he said : 

 "The pay is so quare, he wanted me to 

 take pictures." This man who wanted 

 to pay for laundry and house cleaning 

 with pictures was a landscape and por- 

 trait painter, and honey producers would 

 do well to "catch on" to his idea and 

 pay for his blacksmithing and other bills 

 with their product. But the queer thing 

 about paying bills with honey is that of 

 ate there has been very little of this legal 

 tender in circulation. Why, I don't 

 know. 



If you could know an old German who 

 calls here occasionally you would soon 

 learn how bees pay him. He is now too 

 old to work in the fields, so in company 

 with his little granddaughter he watches 

 and cares for a few colonies of bees. 

 Does any one for a moment suppose 

 that the old man's sturdy sons who 

 raise thousands of bushels of corn 

 would be satisfied with the pay that 

 their father gets from cultivating bees? 

 Yet the old gentleman is well satisfied 

 with his wages. During the honey sea- 

 son he secures this valuable sweet for the 

 family and his friends, but the big pay 

 comes in making life tolerable for him, 

 in providing food for his mind. On a 

 rustic seat near the hives he watches 



them go and return, and notices the 

 difference in the color of the pollen on 

 their legs, and the flowers from which 

 it is gathered, and he passes no weary 

 fretful hours, for when "pleasure and 

 profit are combined, time flies swiftly 

 and the heart is glad." 



BEES AS EDUCATORS. 



A minister once procured a swarm 

 of bees from me saying that he wanted 

 them to teach his children. It was not 

 bee culture as a business that he wanted 

 to teach them, but the lessons of the 

 hive — to be close observers, industrious, 

 working together for the good of all the 

 family, neatness and order. 



'•So work the honey bees ; creatures 

 that by a law of nature teach the art of 

 order to a peopled kingdom." 



Since I have been keeping bees all 

 nature is imbued with a fresh, new in- 

 terest. Whenever I travel, drive or walk, 

 my eye scans the field in search of 

 honey plants. The fields appear no 

 longer to be inanimate, but inhabited 

 with individuals with which I am ac- 

 quainted and in which I take a lively 

 interest. 



CAN WOMEN CULTIVATE BEES? 



Yes ! Their culture does not require 

 any great outlay of strength at one time 

 but the faithful performance of many 

 litde items which alone leads to success. 

 Any woman who can manufacture a 

 good loaf of bread can make bee cul- 

 ture a success, for the road to either is 

 reached only through the performance 

 of many little things at the right time in 

 the best possible manner. Women pos- 

 sess the requirements necessary for the 

 careful manipulation of bees in flar great- 

 er proportion than the other sex. After 

 years of careful handling the sleeping 

 baby so as not to awaken it, she has re- 

 ceived training that will enable her to 

 uncover a hive -of bees and not arouse 

 their anger, or remove a case of sections 

 neatly and deftly. She is well fitted by 

 nature and education to handle honey 

 in such a way that the cappings will not 



