92 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



May, 



and for that reason, were much more 

 liable to foul broo-d infection. The 

 albumenoids of the honey, vitally nec- 

 essary to bee life, are not found in su- 

 gar. Besides sugar is not directly food 

 tor bees anyway. Only after its chem- 

 ical inversion does it become so, but 

 that act requires the expenditure of 

 vital energy on the part of the work- 

 ers^ and hence reduces rather than 

 adds to their store of it. Nor is sugar 

 cneaper. At five cents a pound its 

 price, less freight, is just level with 

 that of honey, the only true bee feed 

 in existence. 



It may be stated witnout the addi- 

 tion of anr extr;i s;i.r("isiii that :Mr. 

 Mercer is a bee man and an officer of 

 an organization worlcing for "ihe sole 

 piiriKisc of extending tiie honey mar- 

 ket and of maintaining a good price 

 for it! 



Mr. Fletcher, of Pasadena, the man 

 wl'o li;is \:v"-\ bnyinti' U)) ;M)i:iries 

 wholesale in Southern California for 

 the last six months, now owns twelve 

 thousand colonies, scattered over ,six 

 counties. He will probably not bor- 

 row any trouble from anybody for 

 some time to come. 



Riverside, Cal., April 8, 19u4. 



HIVE CONSTRUCTION, ETC. 



A Very Inte'-esting Letter Addressed to the "Irish 

 Bee Journal." by a Venerable Expert. Thoroughly 

 Familiar with Apiculture on Both Sides of the 

 Sea. 



By Dr. W. A. Smyth. 



THE large number of bee-keepers 

 at home and abroad, who have 

 1 — ^„ in+,-v,.cwefQf1 in Ttr Smvtb's 



been interested in Dr. Smyth's 

 scientific articles will be pleased to 

 have a picture of the doctor in his api- 

 ary. Our desire was to publish an "in- 

 terview" but circumstances having ren- 

 dered it impossible at present to ac- 

 cept a very cordial invitation to Done- 

 niana. Dr. Smyth has been good enough 

 to supply the following letter to ac- 

 company the illustration. We hope on 

 a future occasion to supply our read- 

 ers with notes of a visit to Donemana, 

 and of an inspection of tne wonderful 

 microscope and scientific curiosities* 

 there. Dr. Smyth has been a fast 

 friend of the Irish Bee .Tournal. and a 

 most valued contributor to our col- 

 umns. His articles have been re-pub- 



lished in the foreign bee papers, and 

 have attracted the attention of some 

 of the foremost bee-keepers of the day. 

 We are deeply indebted to him for 

 much of the remarkable success which 

 has attended the effort to produce 

 here a bee joui-nal worthy of the sub- 

 ject to which it is devoted, and of the 

 eounti-y of its birth. Dr. Smyth writes: 

 "A photogi-apher from Derry, nine 

 miles distant by cycling road, and five 

 in a bee-line, happened to call one 

 evening seeking a chance to practice 

 his art, and hence this picture. 



"From boyhood 1 have been inter- 

 ested in bees, but I never kept any un- 

 til after reading Langstroth's work — 

 it might be called a poem— on the 

 honey bee. I spent a day with Lang- 

 stroth at Oxford, Ohio, in 1867, and 

 the same year he sent me to New Or- 

 leans, a dozen of his hives, and half 

 a dozen Italian qupens. The Italian 

 bees, as a rule, were very gentle, but 

 all colonies were not alike in disposU 

 tion or color. Lanstroth told me that he 

 thought the Italian bees were a hy- 

 brid race, as their shape, markings, 

 and disposition were not at all fixed 

 or uniform. 



"1 lost most of the queens from dis- 

 e:ise which I attributed at the time to 

 excessive manipulation. I frequently 

 took out the comb with the 

 queen on it. without using any 

 smoke, and the queen would 

 continue laying eggs in the cells with- 

 out being in the least disconcerted 

 by exposure to the light or by num- 

 bei-s of persons around her. Foul- 

 brood is common in Louisiana, prob- 

 ably owing to the dampness of the 

 climate, but for some i-cnsons it is not 

 so infectious or disposed to spread as 

 it is in Ireland. 



"I never attended ciosely to super- 

 ing hives so as to get much honey. My 

 fi'iends could always make use of all 

 the honey I could get from the bees. 

 I have liot kept bees for profit, but 

 from an interest in their marvellous 

 work and ceaseless toil, and to study 

 their wonderful instincts of labor and 

 or.ganization, and their surprising in- 

 telligence, which Maeterlinck has so 

 dwelt upon Avlthout in the least ex- 

 aggerating it. The briefness of their 

 life, as contrasted with the object and 

 results of their labor, led Maeterlinck, 

 however, to ask the question: 'Why 

 do bees want to live"* 



