L91>5. 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



iiy younger days. I could lift my 

 eet lively then, but they always left 

 lie behind, trying to "get the line." 

 \Ve linow it is not the queen that leads, 

 "or I have had swarms issue from 

 lives that I had removed the queen 

 rom several hours before. How 

 omes it, that the veterans of the field 

 ;an so quickly forget their old home 

 n the act of swarming? I know some 

 )f the old writers attribute to the bee 

 he faculty of reason, and Dr. Bevan 

 ; luotes some poet as saying: 



.■ 



Think not vain mortal that reserved 

 for thee 



lang all the ripening fruits on rea- 

 son's tree, 

 'en these, the tiniest tenants of thy 

 care 



jlaim of that reason their apportioneil 

 share." 



And to fortify his position, cites 

 act of one of the apiarists of long 

 Lgo, when a huge snail without his 

 hell had gained admission to a hive 

 nd the bees not liking his bulky, 

 limy body, slew him on the spat. 



Then all in vain concurrent numbers 

 strive 



;'o heave the slime girt giant from the 

 hive." 

 The task being beyond their united 



tre^gth they resort to the process of 



mbalming their victim with propolis, 



nd they haste to pour 



Thick hardening as it falls the flaky 

 iShower 



embalmed in shroud of glue the mum- 

 my lies, 



b worm-s invade, no foul miasmas 

 rise." 



Another reports that a huge snail 

 rith his hou.se of horn upon his back 

 ad noiselessly worked his way into 



house of warmth and sweet odors 

 uring the stillness and darkness of 

 ight and fastened itself on a pane of 

 lass used for observation and when 

 iscovered a council of war was soon 



nvened and the warriors threw their 

 pears but they could not pierce the 



alls of the enemy. They finally de- 

 ided that if they could not slay the 

 nemy they could blockade the ports 

 nd they stuck propoli^s around the 

 age of the shell and they had a pris- 

 Der for life, with no expense for 

 oard. and the poet says a snail so 



eated will live for years. 



135 



"Nor aught avails, but in his torpid 



veins 

 Year after year life's torturing spark 



remains 

 P'orever closed the impenetrable door 

 He sinks on death's cold arm to rise 



no more." 



I see that Arthur C. Miller does not 

 take any stock in Dr. Bevan's story of 

 the snail and propolis and I am free 

 to confess that I have never abserved 

 .lust such occurrences either. But tEat 

 is no evidence but what somebody has 

 seen it. How wonld Bro. Miller like 

 to have some one a hundred years 

 hence say what A. C. M. said was no 

 good? I think if a small pebble was 

 placed on the bottom board of a hive 

 and looked like a snail, the bees would 

 cover it with propolis. I think also 

 that the snails of Rhode Island and 

 Pennsylvania know better than to 

 crawl into a bee hive full of bees; but 

 I don't think bees show much reason 

 when they resent the kind act of the 

 owner in trying to feed them in the 

 early spring time, or for a swarm to 

 leave a clean nice hive and flee to 

 some old rotten tree in the woods. 



NOTES FROM MISSISSIPPI. 



BY DR. O. M. BLANTON. 



FRIEND HILL: I closed last season 

 with 250 colonies and in May, 

 1905, found myself with 236, 

 which I consider doing very well. 



I find that most of my losses were 

 with my strongest colonies, which 

 were almost full of honey. The only 

 cf.use I can assign is that the bees 

 clustered on the combs of honey. The 

 temperature at one time was down 

 to four degrees below zero, and the 

 spring has been the coldest and wet- 

 test known here in years, so that the 

 bees have been able to gather scarce- 

 ly enough honey to feed the young 

 bees. 



Tomorrow I shall commence extract- 

 ing, as the season has set in in earn- 

 est, from white, and sweet clover, 

 corn, elder (not alder) and swamp 

 woodbine. 



For a bee-keeper working from 250 

 to 500 colonies of bees it is utterly 

 impossible to use the traps and ti'icks 

 recommended by the scientific ajiiar- 

 ists, such as drone-traps, queen-ex- 

 cluders, escapes and tight-^fitting or 



