1881. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



267 



For the American Bee Journal. 



My Prize Poem on the Honey Bee. 



1VJI. F. CLARKE. 



The bee'-* a model citizen— ease, food, 



l.ifi'. alt is fielded to the public good ; 



No individual Interests « otgli u grain 



Where there are public interests to maintain ; 



As in old Itome. when nit were for the State, 



Ktcb helped tlici'oor.arid poor men loved the great. 



The bee, in ages past, wi 

 In characters of worker, 

 At.surdest theories nnd > 

 Usurped tile place "t rat 



nut 



known 

 and drone 

 rstitions 



litlons, 



In the brief sketch of my apicnl- 

 tural career which appears in the Bee 

 Journal of July 13, accompanying 

 the portrait, no mention is made of 

 what I have ever regarded as one of 

 the highest honors gained by me as a 

 bee-keeper. Ten years ago this sum- 

 mer I succeeded in winning the $40 

 prize, offered by H. A. King & Co., of 

 the Bee-Keepers' Magazine, New l r ork, 

 for the best poem on " The Bee." I 

 was very proud of the achievement, 

 and am yet. Up to that period of my 

 life I had not considered myself, nor 

 been considered by others, a poet. I 

 had, like most people who handle the 

 pen much, now and then jingled a few 

 rhymes together— that was all. When 

 I saw the advertisement offering the 

 prize, I said to myself, " Now, this 

 thing won't go altogether by poetic 

 merit. There must be knowledge of 

 apiculture displayed, as well as poetic 

 genius. 1 think I know ther bee pretty 

 thoroughly, and I am going to try for 

 this prize." On announcing this de- 

 termination to my better-half, she 

 threw several pails of cold water on 

 it. " The Yankees will never let that 

 prize go to a Canuck: " You're not a 

 poet, you know ;" " Time and trouble 

 thrown away," etc. The true use of 

 advice is to make us more firm in our 

 own way, so I went ahead with my 

 poem, resolved to do my very best. 



When the letter came from New 

 York, announcing my success over 40 

 odd competitors, I felt greatly up- 

 lifted, but tried, of course, to seem 

 very meek. I handed the letter to 

 my wife, and retired quietly from the 

 room, so as not to be betrayed into any 

 self-glorifying behavior. That night, 

 without any mention of the New York 

 letter, the subject of the curtain lec- 

 ture was the duty of not being exalted 

 above measure in view of any honor 

 or distinction that might befall us. 

 Next morning, at the breakfast table 

 (all our children were at home then— 

 now 6 out of 8 have gone from us) the 

 lady of the house made a little speech 

 on this wise : " Children, it is now 

 definitely settled that your papa is a 

 poet. This explains a great many 

 things I never could understand, but 

 I shall henceforth ascribe to the eccen- 

 tricities of genius." That plea has come 

 in very opportunely many times since; 

 in fact, between "the license of poe- 

 try" and the "eccentricities of genius,'' 

 I get the liberty of doing pretty much 

 as I like. 



The poem in question has never ap- 



E eared in the Bee Journal, I believe. 

 everal of my friends have inquired 

 for copies of it of late, and as it may 

 be said to be "out of print," it might 

 gratify others, as well as myself, to 

 see it in our favorite old apicultural 

 Journal. 



prize poem on " the bee." 



Where in the realm of nature do we see 

 A worthier study than the honey bee 1 

 What curious instinct dictates every art 

 Whereby this little creature acts its part ! 

 How do the marvels of the hive combine 

 All other insect wonders to outshine ! 



A swift-winged forager, the bee sets forth, 

 Scouting from east to west, from south to north. 

 Intent on Gathering, with industrious haste. 

 Sweetness that else upon the earth would waBte ; 

 And, whereso'er the wanderer may roam. 

 Laden she flies unerring to her home. 



A skilful manufacturer, she makes. 

 By some internal process, pearly wax, 

 A substance plastic, soft and delicate. 

 Beyond the power of man to imitate— 

 Suited to houBe the growing insect brood. 

 Or to encase the store of luscious food. 



The bee is mathematical, and well 



illustrates Euclid in her form of cell ; 



Sir Isaac Newton, Simpson, or Legendre, 



To none of these great masters need we send her: 



For she has found what they could never see, 



A " royal highway " to geometry. 



The bee's a warrior bold, and never saw 



Foe who could make her from the field withdraw ; 



In single combat, or in army fight. 



No bee has ever shown the feather white — 



" Ready, aye ready," any time to rally. 



And at a moment s notice forth to sally. 



Aod, while a dozen bees remained alive. 



No man durst search the mysteries of the hive. 



Each autumn, when the tempting store of bone? 

 Kxeitod appetite or love of money. 

 Thefalth'lll workers forfeited their lives. 

 Thai man might get the cedents of the hive ; 

 A tragic finish to the busv season, 

 For which necess ty was made the reason. 



Now, thanks to science and Ita hand-maid, art. 

 The aplculturist acts a wiser part ; 

 The comb is built upon the movable frame. 

 With smoke or sweet the tlery bees we tame. 

 Control the busv inmates of the hive, 

 Obtain their stores, yet save them all alive. 



The brisk Italian now assumes the place 

 Of the familiar, black, old-fashioned race- 

 Nimbler, more energetic, more prolific, 

 And, happily, in temper more pacific ; 

 A more untiring and adventurous rover. 

 And able to suck honey from red clover.* 



Of old a super-glass, or honey-box. 



Was placed above each of the thriftier stocks, 



In hope they might be tempted there to store 



A surpiusage of twenty pounds or more 



Of first-class honey ; but a lazy fit 



Would oftentimes prevent their doing it. 



Now in these palmy days of honey-slinging. 

 The bees are kept without cessation bringing 

 New stores of sweet, which quickly we transfer 

 Into the mel-extracting cylinder. 

 And thence by use of force centrifugal, 

 (Jet boney by the pail or barrel full. 



The march of progress is not over yet. 



Nor will be till our apiarists get 



A plan for making artificial combt. 



And thus provide the bee a finished home. 



To which all hands shall busily fetch honey. 



And smiling bee-men turn it into money. 



Next we will find a bee like the Egyptian 

 For storing honey, but of a description 

 Quite opposite in temper, and without 

 That ugly inclination to dart out 

 The venomed sting, on slightest provocation,— 

 Nature's worst form or counter-irritation. 



With all facilities for honey getting 

 A race of bees that will admit of petting ; 

 Each household of an apiary possessed. 

 Bee-keeping followed with unflagging zeat, 

 Honey and milk shall flow all countries through, 

 And " home, sweet home," obtain a meaning new. 



•License of poetry claimed here. The writer 

 has never been able to satisfy himself that the 

 Italian bee gathers from red clover to any extent, 

 but it is often asserted as a fact, and clover was 

 wanted here as a rhyme to " rover." 



tComb foundation has come into use since the 

 poem was written. 



come down to the ground all around. 

 This, of course, pre-supposes that the 

 hives are set near the ground, as all 

 hives should be. Four or five inches 

 above the surface is plenty. 



As soon as the honey ceases coming 

 into the hive the queen relaxes heref- 

 forts in laying. Instead of depositing 

 2,000 or 3,000 eggs a day, she will, per- 

 haps, lay only a few hundred. This, 

 of course, makes the growing brood 

 so much less, and hence there will be 

 fewer bees to gather the fall harvest 

 than there would be if the queens 

 would lay every day all the eggs pos- 

 sible for them to lay. In order to pro- 

 mote laying some bee-keepers are ac- 

 customed to feed each hive about a 

 quarter of a pound of thin sugar syrup 

 every day from the time honey-gath- 

 ering ceases until it begins again. 

 This feeding needs to be done with 

 great caution, in order not to incite 

 robbing. 



As soon as the fall flowers begin to 

 yield honey, see to it that the surplus 

 honey receptacles are all in place. 

 Prevent swarming if possible. The 

 parent hive is weakened, and the new 

 one does not gather enough to last it 

 over winter. 



Iowa City, Iowa. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Italian Bees in Australia. 



Western Stock Journal. 



Seasonable Hints— Summer. 



o. CLUTE. 



S. MCDONNELL. 



The first part of the month of Au- 

 gust is, in many places, a season of 

 enforced idleness among bees. The 

 summer flowers are past, and the fall 

 flowers are not in bloom, hence there 

 is little honey to be gathered. Wher- 

 ever corn is largely cultivated the lit- 

 tle fellows will carry a great abun- 

 dance of pollen into the hives to help 

 the brood-rearing of late fall and early 

 spring when no pollen is to be had. 



As soon as the surplus honey-boxes, 

 or sections, or frames, are full and 

 sealed, they should be removed from 

 the hives. Indeed it is usually best 

 to remove the surplus receptacles as 

 honey-gathering ceases, even if they 

 are not full. Bees are apt to carry 

 some of it below, and they soil it by 

 traveling over it. 



At this time great care must be ex- 

 ercised, when working among bees, 

 not to incite them to robbing. If 

 honey is left exposed they will at once 

 begin upon it, and soon the whole 

 apiary will be in a hign state of excite- 

 ment. As soon as the supply which 

 has roused them is exhausted they 

 will begin on the weak colonies, mas- 

 ter them, and clean them out com- 

 pletely. A little carelessness in ex- 

 posing honey will thus often be the 

 cause of losing several colonies. 



If bees once get to robbing they can 

 be dispersed for the moment by sprink- 

 ling the hives that are being robbed 

 with water from a common watering- 

 pot. The bees seem to think it is rain- 

 ing, and so the robbers rush off home. 

 A good means of stopping robbing is 

 to pull several handfulls of weeds and 

 grass and leaves and throw them 

 loosely over the entrance of the hive 

 that is being robbed. Bees belonging 

 to the hive will make their way out 

 and in through this obstruction. But 

 robbers seem to be chary about going 

 through it. Probably the best means 

 of stopping robbing is to spread a sheet 

 over the hive that is being robbed, let- 

 ting it completely cover the hive, and 



As it may be interesting to the read- 

 ers of the Bee Journal to learn in 

 how far my experiment to introduce 

 Italian bee's into this Colony has pro- 

 gressed, I send you a few notes on 

 the subject. 



The mail steamer" City of Sydney" 

 left San Francisco on June 4, and ar- 

 rived in Sydney harbor on the evening 

 of the 1st hist. The mails by her 

 were delivered here on the morning 

 of the 2d inst.and by a letter from 

 Mr. A. H. Newman I learned that, ac- 

 cording to my instructions, two colo- 

 nies of Italian bees had been shipped 

 by the steamer. I next visited the 

 ship's agents, who handed to me a let- 

 ter from Mr. Williams, of Messrs. 

 Williams, Dimond & Co., San Fran- 

 cisco. Mr. Williams, although a stran- 

 ger to me, was kind enough to attend 

 to the shipping of the bees at San 

 Francisco, on their arrival from Chi- 

 cago, and I am much indebted to him. 

 The shipping documents contained in 

 Mr. William's letter enabled me to get 

 immediate possession of the 2 hives, 

 and bv means of a cab (traveling 

 gently) and the suburban railway, by 

 noon the bees were on their stands on 

 my ground at "Homebush," about 8 

 miles from Sydney. The portico of 

 each hive (Langstroth) contained 

 about a quart of dead bees, which I 

 had removed and preserved, in order 

 to see if the queens were among the 

 dead. I have looked them over (the 

 dead bees) without finding her. The 

 day was bright and warm and the bees 

 were soon flying briskly. I now had 

 an opportunity, for the first time, of 

 seeing Italian' bees, and I was much 

 pleased to see that the difference be- 

 tween them and the black bees is suf- 

 ficient to be noticed by such a 

 fresh acquaintance to their appear- 

 ance as myself. We have, so far, had 

 a very mild winter, the days having 

 been warm and clear and the nights 

 cool, the thermometer on one or two 

 occasions showing the mercury at 

 freezing point. 



You will observe that the bees left 

 Chicago at the end of May, or about 

 the middle of your spring, and arrived 

 here on the 1st of July, or at the be- 

 ginning of our winter. They, there- 

 fore, after having passed through an 

 unusually severe winter with you, 

 have been subjected to the long jour- 

 ney from Chicago to San Francisco, by 

 rail, and a 4 weeks' sea voyage to 

 Sydney. It is true that our winters 

 seldom are so inclement as to prevent 

 bees from flying all the time, but. nev- 

 ertheless, I cannot but think that the 

 best time for bees to arrive at Sydney 

 from San Francisco would be October, 

 in order to avoid the double winter. I 

 was much exercised to decide whether 



or no my new friends, the Italians, 

 paid our climate the compliment of 

 taking the mild winter to which they 

 landed, as the summer which should, 

 in ordinary course according to their 

 calendar, nave been allotted to them. 

 I am afraid, though, that if they en- 

 tertained such a notion, their minds 

 have been disabused by Hie absence of 

 flowers. 



Having landed the bees safely, my 

 next trouble was their proper careana 

 maintenance, and I turned to the 

 hand-books— including Langstroth, 

 Cook, King,Quinby and Hoot, which 

 I have on my shelves, for informa- 

 tion. For the first time in applying 

 to those books for assistance in a dif- 

 ficulty, and you will understand in how 

 far I am indebted to them when you 

 learn that I have none other than the 

 advice to be gained from books and 

 periodicals to guide me — no practical 

 friend to give me a wrinkle at the 

 proper moment, or show me how to 

 avoid doing things as they ought not 

 to be done — I sought without finding. 

 The points on which I more particu- 

 larly sought for information were, 1st, 

 The general treatment of bees after a 

 4 weeks' sea voyage ; 2d, Their treat- 

 ment in having to face a second win- 

 ter, without the intermediate seasons. 

 If you think it worth while to give a 

 few hints on these points, they would 

 probably be perused by others, as well 

 as myself, with interest. Although 

 they would come too late to be of ser- 

 vice to me in my present emergency, 

 they would be in good time should I 

 try a second experiment. Under the 

 circumstances I hold that a little food 

 would not come amiss, and that an 

 inspection of the hives, during fine 

 weather, would do no harm, and 

 would relieve my curiosity as to the 

 bees rearing brood, as they would in 

 the ordinary course of summer fol- 

 lowing winter and spring. Not hav- 

 ing a tool handy to remove the frames 

 without jarring, from the position in 

 which they were fixed for traveling, I 

 deferred the operation, and have since 

 been prevented from inspecting on ac- 

 count of wet weather, during which I 

 deemed it inadvisable to open the 

 hives. I have, however, given them 

 food in the shape of honey and syrup, 

 to guard against their food combs be- 

 ing empty, although I had misgivings 

 that by so doing I might be encourag- 

 ing breeding at an unreasonable time 

 of year. 



You will thus see that the experi- 

 ment of introducing Italian bees is 

 fraught with difficulties, the more es- 

 pecially when undertaken by one 

 whose only experience lies in having 

 put the most excellent rules contained 

 in your American hand-books and pe- 

 riodicals into practice. I feel like one 

 wandering in the dark in unKiiown 

 parts, to whom a little practical ad- 

 vice exactly to the point would be as 

 welcome as the light of day. Should 

 the experiment not succeed, I should 

 not determine that it cannot be suc- 

 cessfully performed, but should attri- 

 bute the failure to my want of expe- 

 rience, and should try it again. 



Your Journal continues to be read 

 with great interest. I must compli- 

 ment your artist on the excellent re- 

 production of your photograph, which 

 appeared as a wood cut in your Jour- 

 nal. The possession of the photo- 

 graph kindly sent by Mr. A. H. New- 

 man enables me to form an opinion of 

 the reproduction. It is an additional 

 proof that the matter in the Journal 

 is true to nature, and that its readers 

 may rely on its counsel. 

 Sydney, Australia, July 12, 1881. 



[When you placed the hives upon the 

 stands you should have taken out the 

 frames and examined them critically— 

 1st, for the queen ; 2d, to mend bro- 

 ken comb ; 3d, to regulate feeding ; 

 4th, to see the amount and condition of 

 brood. If it is possible for "frequent 

 flights, we would advise stimulating 

 for immediate breeding, as many of 

 the bees are old, and the colony will 

 soon dwindle if new bees are notreared 

 to take the place of the old ones.— Ed.] 



