76 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Mar. 9, 



Evils Correcting Themselves. 



THOMAS C. NEWMAN, 



EDITOR AND PllOPKIETOH, 



CHICAGO, ILL., MAK. 9, 1881. 



^•"Correspondence "and "Letters" 

 having accumulated very much, and it 

 being highly important to give our 

 readers all the news about the present 

 condition of the bees throughout the 

 country, we have devoted much of the 

 present issue of the Bee Journal to 

 these departments, at the expense of 

 the space usually given to Conventions, 

 Exchanges and Editorial. Time has 

 fully demonstrated that the Weekly 

 Bee Journal was a necessity which 

 could not have been dispensed with 

 much longer. The perfect deluge of 

 correspondence which we now have, 

 could not have been accommodated in a 

 Monthly, and besides,progressive apiar- 

 ists need a medium of communication 

 much oftener than once a month. 



^- By an oversight in reading proof 

 of advertisement last week, the price 

 of Bingham & Hetherington's honey- 

 knife was placed at $2. It should have 

 been SI, as usual. 



^° Sec. Chamberlain, of the Ohio 

 State Board of Agriculture, gives the 

 following as his views on " Bees and 

 honey in Onio : " 



" Bees are well distributed through 

 the State. In nearly all the counties, 

 the range, as may be seen, is from 1000 

 to 3000 hives of bees, with a proportion- 

 ate product of honey. The total value 

 of the ■ crop ' is(at 20cts) §270,548, and 

 bears to the total value of the wheat 

 crop the ratio of $1 to $190." 



^"Several bee-keepers in this vicin- 

 ity are considering the feasability of 

 holding a convention in Detroit this 

 spring. The law in regard to foul 

 brood, which is about to be passed, 

 makes an organization necessary. It is 

 desirable to know how many would fa- 

 vor the enterprise. Will such please 

 send me their address. A. B. Weed. 



No. 75 Bagg street, Detroit, Mich. 



^ One of the handsomest publica- 

 tions is the Illustrated Scientific News, 

 published by Munn & Co., New York. 

 Every number contains .".2 pages, full of 

 engravings of novelties in science and 

 the useful arts. Ornamental wood 

 work, pottery, vases and objects of 

 modern and ancient art are finely 

 shown. 



l8g" The next meeting of the N. VV. 

 Illinois and S. W. Wisconsin Bee-Keep- 

 ers' Association, will be held at 11. W. 

 Lee's, 2 miles n.w. of Pecatonica, Win- 

 nebago county, Ills., on the 17th of May, 

 1881. J. Stewart, Sec. 



g^On account of unfavorable weath- 

 er the convention at Monroe Centre, 

 111., met on Feb. 8, and there being but 

 few present, adjourned to the same 

 place on March 29, 1881. 



A. Hick, Pres. 



I cannot do without the Journal, 

 and like the prospect of a Weekly very 

 much. Honey was a failure in this sec- 

 tion last season. Hattie B. Brown. 



Lotus. I ml. 



^We can supply but a few more of 

 the back numbers to new subscribers. 

 If any want them, they must be sent for 

 soon. 



We are often led to think that all 

 misdemeanors, whether trivial or crim- 

 inal, possess within themselves a latent 

 corrective principle as well as a retrib- 

 utive nature. Ancient history furnishes 

 many illustrations of governments be- 

 coming so corrupted and lawless that 

 reforms were forced upon the people 

 even before they anticipated them. In 

 Italy, Spain, Portugal and other coun- 

 tries, the enormities of the Inquisition 

 relieved the people from the oppressions 

 of the church ; in Russia the magnitude 

 of the system of serfdom became an 

 incubus upon the government itself, 

 and before the many millions of serfs 

 were even prepared for liberty they were 

 declared free ; in China and Japan, the 

 ignorance caused by a thousand years 

 of seclusion forced the government to 

 take the most active measures for the 

 encouragement of the sciences and arts ; 

 the aggressive oppressions of Turkey 

 upon her dependencies finally awakened 

 the resentment of the civilized world, 

 and provoked a salutary interference in 

 her governmental policy ; at least twice 

 in the history of France do we find the 

 excesses of her rulers forcing the groan- 

 ing masses into revolution ; and here, in 

 our own country, many of our readers 

 witnessed the presumption and arro- 

 gance of the leading traffickers in hu- 

 man flesh, who, not satisfied with a 

 quiet submission to their soul-revolting 

 slavery, insisted upon making all citi- 

 zens their confederates by the enact- 

 ment of the Fugitive Slave Law. and 

 thereby broke the chains that bound 

 five millions of humanity in a slavery 

 worse than death. 



And who can doubt that commercial 

 abuses will not to some extent correct 

 themselves ? It is but a repetition of 

 history, with a different application. 

 For years have we been complaining of 

 the rapidly increasing manufacture of 

 glucose, and arraying a hostility to its 

 imposition upon the public, when now 

 comes the good news that so much com- 

 petition exists in its manufacture and 

 sale that it is no longer remunerative 

 Prices of glucose syrup have rapidly 

 declined from 90 cents and SI per gallon 

 to 30 cents, and the marginal profit is so 

 small that there is a prospect of the lead- 

 ing manufacturers drifting into honest 

 trade, and making pure sorghum syr- 

 ups. They will thus become a valuable 

 auxiliary to farmers and producers, and 

 will themselves help to swell the rapidly 

 increasing ranks of those demanding 

 congressional prohibition of poisons un- 

 der innocent names. 



Still another encouraging illustration 

 is at hand in the wayward course of 

 oleomargarine— popularly called " bul- 

 terine," rightly called " hogine." So 

 rapidly has it been forced upon our mar- 

 ket, that the public health has been 

 seriously impaired by its use, and the 

 many cases of winter cholera have been 

 attributed directly to the uncooked lard 

 employed so largely in its preparation. 

 That which our Congress has been too 

 tardy in legislating upon, and Which the 

 dairymen (backed with the enactments 

 of the Illinois Legislature) have been 

 unable to reach, is being rapid! j accom- 

 plished by the cupidity of the counter- 

 feiters themselves. They have forced 

 the City Council, as a sanitary measure, 

 to prohibit the sale of bogus butter, and 

 scarcely a Hay now passes that arrests 

 are not made and heavy lines imposed ; 



it lias even forced manufacturers and 

 retailers to sell it for what it is. Mean- 

 time, continue to condemn adultera- 

 tions ; right will prevail at last, for 

 truly, " There is a God in Israel." 



Be Prepared for Freshets. 



At last, after many weary days, and 

 weeks and months of waiting, we have 

 encouragement of mild weather. Hope 

 long deferred, the present winter, has 

 often made the heart sick ; and now, 

 that we are about to realize the fruition 

 of our earnest and oft-repeated wishes 

 for warmer weather, it is with a shud- 

 der we contemplate the disasters and 

 destruction that will almost certainly 

 follow the return of nature to a normal 

 condition, and the continuance of sun- 

 shine for any protracted length of time. 

 The memory of but few, if any, runs 

 back to a winter similar to the present, 

 when the snow (no longer the " beauti- 

 ful snow") mantled the earth for so 

 many months continuously, and in such 

 lavish quantity. One correspondent 

 wrote us they had enjoyed one hundred 

 and four days of constant sleighing, and 

 since then more than another thirty days 

 have been added. The average and 

 general depth of the snow throughout 

 the entire Eastern, Northern and West- 

 ern States, has been measurable by 

 feet — not inches. In the Central States 

 the same is true, while in the mountains 

 and on the plains it is without any re- 

 corded precedent. 



Should a continuous season of genial 

 sunshine follow our unparalleled winter, 

 high waters will prevail for several 

 weeks, but the damage will not be so 

 great to the country at large as if the 

 snow should be carried off with spring 

 rains. Usually, we have had heavy or 

 protracted rains in midwinier which 

 have relieved the earth of its burden of 

 snow, and divided the floods between 

 January and April ; but this winter the 

 snow has accumulated, and yet awaits 

 its current to the sea. Therefore, while 

 we hope with our readers for the best, 

 we cannot too forcibly impress upon 

 them to be prepared for the worst. 

 Little rivulets, where usually the swel- 

 tering and parched cattle have found 

 scarcely enough water in summer to 

 assuage their thirst, may become rivers 

 in magnitude and pregnant with danger 

 to everything in their proximity; while 

 the usually placid rivers will become 

 mighty torrents, overflowing their banks 

 in many places of comparative safety, 

 flooding the lower country for miles 

 where broad-stretching cornfields have 

 been the rule and marking their course 

 with destruction and desolation. Our 

 friends in the Central and Southern 

 States along the water-courses, cannot 

 too soon provide for the safety of their 

 families, stock and perishable property. 

 Immediately remove all bees to high, 

 safe ground, then look to the safety of 

 your cattle, horses, bogs anil sheep, and 

 have a place of refuge provided for 



yourselves and the loved ones of home. 

 lie prepared in lime- even before 

 this Journal reaches you, the waters 

 may be on their way. We may be un- 

 necessarily alarmed— we hope so, i>ut 

 there is an immensity of snow in the 

 country, and we can see no way for its 

 disappearance except through floods. 



GLEANINGS. 



Cause of Dysentery. —Mr. James Hed- 

 don gives the following as his views on 

 this subject: 



" 1 have observed numbers of dead 

 colonies, and I am more than ever con- 

 vinced of my previous opinion, that the 

 COUSi of dysentery is an undue amount 

 of animal or vegetable particles, so to 

 speak, iii the honey the bees are win- 

 tering on— probably the former — a b«c- 

 leria that infests honey while in the 

 blossom, or otherwise; that the greatest 

 aggravations of the disease are cold and 

 confinement. Cold, because of the more 

 honey consumed, and confinement, 

 which prevents the voiding of the poi- 

 sonous accumulations. Cold and con- 

 finement, without this bacteria, will not 

 cause dysentery. These bacteria, with- 

 out cold and confinement, will not show 

 themselves. The above is the only 

 theory I can imagine, that will lit ail 

 the cases that have come under my ob- 

 servation. I believe it, because we so 

 plainly see this great law in the animal 

 and vegetable world, that one life exists 

 at the expense and death of another. 

 Man comes into the category as no ex- 

 ception. 





Bingham's Bees.— Our bees had a line 

 fly on Feb. 22, and are all in fair order; 

 IS colonies Were somewhat out of line, 

 but are sound now. I think they are in 

 better order and have wintered better 

 than in 1880. I hear of some who have 

 lost heavily, but have not their exact 

 loss. While it will be sad to hear of the 

 losses, it will be amusing to hear opin- 

 ions. Bee-keepers are brave, and can 

 face most anything, and not flinch. 

 This winter has shown too many that 

 " in an hour ye think not, the evil is at 

 the door." The past few years had 

 lulled many to repose, and the early 

 frosts overtook them before they were 

 prepared. Enough will survive the 

 winter to demonstrate the fact that bees 

 may lie safely wintered in any climate, 

 under favorable circumstances. 



T. F. Bingham. 



Otsego. Mich., March 4, 1881. 



(grMr. James Heddon reports a loss 

 of only 2 colonies out of 212, in this the 

 Beverest of all winters. 



Colonies Strong and Healthy. — As it 

 is thawing and pleasant to-day, my K> 



colonies of bees had a good cleansing 

 flight; all are strong but 1, which I am 

 nursing, [have thirty frames of capped 

 honey, what can I do with them 1 



F. II. Shakes. 

 Grirard, Pa., Feb. 26, 1881. 



| I'se them for feeding the bees in the 

 spring; hang them in the hive just as 

 they are, or place one flatwise over the 

 frames, and the bees will come up and 

 take the honey very readily. Be careful 

 not to open the hives on cold spring 

 days, or you may chill the brood. It is 

 unneccessary to uncap or extract the 

 honey, the bees will do that.— Ed.] 



No Surplus.— The Weekly Jorrnal 

 is a very welcome visitor. I put into 

 winter quarters 63 colonies of bees, in 



good condition. I put them into a deep, 

 dark cellar, well ventilated, with a tem- 

 pe ra tine of from 45 to 47 ; while it was, 

 on the outside, 10 below zero, in the 

 cellar it was l"i . I put them in before 

 the cold set in, and I think they are do- 

 ing splendidly. I obtained no surplus. 

 We had a very late harvest, or there 

 would have been no bees here by this 

 time. Bartlett Z. Smith. 



Tuscola, 111. 



What a charming paper is our new 

 Weekly Bee Journal! It is a credit to 

 the country. J. Matthew' Jones. 



