AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



269 



On Important Subjects. 



Bee-Culture in Agricultural Colleges. 



C. L. BUCKMASTER. 



Why should it require argument to 

 prove that bee-culture ought to be es- 

 tablished in our colleges of agriculture ? 

 Yet, after good reasons have been pre- 

 sented, many of the Boards of Curators 

 turn a deaf ear to the petitions of the 

 bee-keepers. 



There seems to be two prominent rea- 

 sons why experiment apiaries are not at 

 once established when the college is 

 founded, viz. : 



1. There are so many branches to be 

 provided for that the curators are very 

 liable to overlook some. The Boards of 

 Curators are generally composed of law- 

 yers, doctors, preachers, bankers, and 

 other professional men, while few farm- 

 ers, and especially bee-keepers, receive 

 the appointment. 



2. Bee-keepers and bee-keeping asso- 

 ciations do not do their duties along this 

 line. They should put themselves in 

 communication with the Dean of their 

 College of Agriculture. They ought to 

 besiege him with petitions that he may 

 present them to the Board. He, by all 

 means, should be invited to the meet- 

 ings of the bee-associations, and be re- 

 quested to read essays on the subject of 

 bee-culture in connection with the farm 

 economy. 



The bee-associations of the State 

 should often meet in the Agricultural 

 College buildings, and visit the farms ; 

 thereby getting personally acquainted 

 with the teachers of the institution. 

 Fellow bee-keepers, turn your meetings 

 from meetings of pleasure at some popu- 

 lar watering-place (where you will be 

 robbed by some second-class hotel- 

 keeper), into a meeting of business 

 where you can enjoy the hospitality of 

 the college town, and do something for 

 the cause of practical education. 



This is a day of practical education — 

 the period of manual training schools. 

 The hand is being taught to accompany 

 the eye. Boys and girls are being taught 

 to do as well as to know. This is the 

 new education. 



Now, I want to say there is nothing 

 that is superior to hive-building to train 

 the hand ; and nothing surpasses the 

 exhibition of the constructions and the 



economy of the busy bee that will so de- 

 velop the growth of the human intellect. 

 The day of the old college curriculum 

 has passed. The boy will no longer be 

 required to read seven years of Latin 

 and Greek before he is permitted to 

 study science ; but science will be taught 

 in such a practical way, in the future, 

 that it will train the mind, and at the 

 same time store it with useful facts, 

 which will enable the college graduate 

 to at once battle with the difficulties of 

 life. The time has now arrived when 

 the scientifically educated mechanic, 

 agriculturist, horticulturist, stock-raiser, 

 manufacturer and miner are far ahead 

 of the old-fashioned lawyer, preacher 

 and doctor. 



I want to say that we are now making 

 a determined effort to have an experi- 

 ment apiary established in connection 

 with the Missouri College of Agricul- 

 ture, with a practical bee-keeper as 

 teacher; and if we can have the co- 

 operation of the leading bee-keepers of 

 our State, there will be no doubt of ou 

 success. 



Last spring, by the invitation of Dr 

 Ed. D. Porter, Dean of our College of 

 Agriculture, I gave six lectures on prac- 

 tical bee-culture to his class in agricul- 

 ture. I found the subject very accept- 

 able to the young ladies and young gen- 

 tlemen ; and they seemed anxious to 

 prove the facts set forth in the lectures 

 by experiments. Many expressed a de- 

 sire to take a thorough course, and 

 asked the Doctor that an experiment 

 apiary might be established. 



Columbia, Mo. 



The Mismatim of Queen-Bees, 



JOHN D. A. FISHER. 



Mr. Geo. W. Wheeler, some time ago 

 in the American Bee Journal, wrote 

 that if I would wait until this summer, 

 I would have all sorts of mixtures and 

 colors among the bees produced by my 

 queen of this year's rearing. No pre- 

 diction could have been truer, for all of 

 my young queens, so far, have mismated 

 except one, and I do not know that she 

 is purely mated, although her bees are 

 all finely marked. 



Last year my young queens were 

 purely mated except two, or at least I 

 thought so, as they produced all finely- 

 marked worker-bees. I was highly de- 

 lighted at my success in getting so nearly 

 all my young queens purely mated ; but 



