THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



375 



from other ground, of course." Well, 

 we all borrow from each other, after 

 all, don't we V 



I tell you, brother bee-keepers, this 

 is a question of vital importance to 

 us all. I feel that in my past season's 

 production of nearly eleven tons of 

 honey, I have come lionestly by it; 

 that I injured no person's financial 

 interest in collecting it; that by so 

 doing I became a public benefactor ; 

 that I brought into use that whicli 

 otherwise would have remained use- 

 less to mankind ; that I did my little 

 mite to make my family comfortable 

 and happy ; and, on a broader scale, 

 aided in enriching my city, my coun- 

 ty, my State and my coiuitry; and 

 ■while doing this, any and all annoy- 

 ances arising from my business were 

 far below tlie average arising from 

 other avocations. 



We shall finally receive the rights 

 and respect that we deserve ; and 

 soon, if we band together and demand 

 them. This we have done, and are 

 still doing, but we cannot do so too 

 fast. Our Union should now number 

 by thousands rather than hundreds. 

 Finally it will number by thousands, 

 and why not now V Let us at once 

 protect our legal rights, and the 

 dignity of our calling. Let us all join 

 the Union. 



Dowagiac, 9 Mich. 



Read at the Johnson Co., Ind.. Convention. 



Tlie Bee of tHe BiMe, 



PKOF. C. H. HALL. 



The bee is an accompaniment of 

 civilization. Among all peoples of 

 culture the limpid honey is a luxury 

 of the table. The honey of Hymet- 

 tus, in old classic Greece, is famous 

 in prose and in song, and among the 

 old Romans it was regarded almost as 

 essential as bread is with us. Egypt, 

 and the valley of the Nile— the land 

 famous for its rainless seasons and its 

 majestic pyramids— brings to us the 

 same story of valued sweetness culled 

 from flower and fruit by the restless 

 bee. But the land of who.se honey 

 and whose bee we wish to speak at 

 this hour, is the country dear to every 

 Christian heart— the Holy Land witfi 

 its Jordan and its Galilee— with its 

 cliffs and its valleys, with its prophets 

 and its priests, with its kings and the 

 Christ. 



The word " bee " occurs but four 

 times in the Bible, so far as the writer 

 is aware, but the word " honey " is of 

 frequent occurrence. It must be re- 

 membered, however, that honey is 

 often used to designate a syrup made 

 from the juice of grapes, boiled down 

 and clarified, and very acceptable to 

 the taste. The sweet and quaint old 

 name of Deborah is simplv the 

 Hebrew word for bee, and is trans- 

 lated in our language. One Deborah 

 was the nurse of Rebekah, the wife 

 of Isaac; another was a prophetess 

 who judged Israel and sang the 

 loftiest songs of patriotism and piety. 

 In three out of four places where the 

 term " bee " occurs, it is used to 

 symbolize an overwhelming and de- 



stroying foe— indicating clearly that 

 in those olden times the bee was such 

 in disposition as it is to-day. Moses, 

 in giving a detailed account of the 

 woiiderful dealings of God with the 

 children of Israel, their blessings and 

 their scourgings, says: "And the 

 Amorites, which dwelt in the moun- 

 tain, came out against you, and 

 chased you, as bees do, and destroyfd 

 you in Seir, even unto Hormah." 

 How vivid is the picture thus briefly 

 given to him who has plunged des- 

 perately and blindly through lilac 

 hedge and rose-bush to escape the 

 fierce assaults of two or three vindic- 

 tive bees. To such an one at least 

 the interpretation of this verse of 

 scripture affords not a difficult task. 



The prophet Isaiah, in one of his 

 splendid pictures of the future— a 

 picture of promise and of threat — 

 says : " The Lord shall hiss for the 

 fly that is in the uttermost part of the 

 rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that 

 is in the land of Assyria, And they 

 shall come, and shall rest of them in 

 the desolate valleys, and in the holes 

 of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and 

 upon all bushes." Here we have a 

 most vivid picture of how their land 

 should be over run by foreign hosts 

 and armies, under the imagery of 

 swarms of bees filling the valleys and 

 the clefts in the barren rocks, and 

 even the useless thorn-tree and shrub. 



The Psalmist, on one occasion, 

 while magnifying the kindness of the 

 Lord in delivering him from danger 

 and distress, speaks of the nations 

 who compassed him about, in these 

 words : •' They compassed me about 

 like bees." 



In these passages which have been 

 quoted, it is plain to see how deeply 

 upon the mind of prophet, poet and 

 lawgiver the characteristics of the 

 bee have stamped themselves. The 

 bee represents resistless fury and 

 countless hosts, and is, therefore, the 

 symbol of a conquering foe. 



One of the most perplexing riddles 

 ever given for a foe to solve has its 

 origin in the toil of the bee. " Out of 

 the eater came forth meat, and out of 

 ttie strong came forth sweetness," for 

 three days perplexed the thirty Philis- 

 tine guests of Samson beyond meas- 

 ure, until they threatened his wife's 

 house with "flames if she did not 

 secure the answer for them. She wept 

 and intreated him in vain for liis 

 solution until the seventh and last 

 day of their feast, when wearied with 

 her tears and importunities, he told 

 her of its meaning. On a journey he 

 met with a lion, and unarmed though 

 he was, by the resistless strength of 

 his naked arms he destroyed it. Re- 

 turning along the same path, some- 

 time afterward, he found that a 

 swarm of bees had established them- 

 selves among the bones of the dried 

 carcass. He took the comb laden 

 with its refreshing sweetness and ate 

 of it, and also gave to his parents. 

 This incident furnished the occasion 

 for the riddle with which he so much 

 perplexed the Philistines. 



In a rare old book of travels, by 

 Clarke, an account is given of how 

 the people of f^yprus hive their bees 

 and collect their honey. He says : 



"They build up a wall formed en- 

 tirely of earthen cylinders, each about 

 three feet in lenglti, placed one above 

 tlie other, horizontally, and closed at 

 their extremities with mortar. This 

 wall is then covered with a shed, and 

 upwards of 100 hives may thus be 

 maintained within a very small com- 

 pass. Tnis description is of interest 

 on the present occasion because of a 

 note added in which he further says : 

 " The bee-hives of Egypt and of Pal- 

 estine are of the same kind. 'Those 

 of Egypt are made of coal-dust and 

 clay, which being blended together, 

 they form of the mixture a hollow 

 cylinder, of a span diameter, and as 

 long as they please, from to 12 feet ; 

 this is dried in the sun, and it bSz 

 comes so hard that it may be handlea 

 at will.'" 



Such hives as these just described 

 were of course for the tame bees. 

 From some accounts which reach us 

 it would seem that they who man- 

 aged bees in Palestine and other 

 lands in olden time controlled them 

 more easily than we do. The expres- 

 sion of the prophet, about " hissing 

 the bee," refers to their custom of 

 guiding them by some sound of the 

 voice, either ahiss, a whistle, or a cry. 

 One of the old writers thus speaks of 

 their customs: "They who kept 

 bees w-ere able to draw them out of 

 their hives, and conduct them into 

 fields, and bring them back again, 

 with the sound of a flute or the noise 

 of hissing." Another says : " AVhen 

 they are "disposed to fly away, their 

 keepers make a musical and harmoni- 

 ous sound, and that they are thus 

 brought back as by a Siren, and re- 

 stored to their hives." 



The land of Palestine, moreover, 

 was the home of multitudes of wild 

 bees. The warm valley of the Jor- 

 don, so far below the level of the sea, 

 with its flowers and its fruits, with its 

 living springs and its burdened vine- 

 yards, furnished an abundant pas- 

 ttirage. They built their combs in 

 the clefts of the rocks, old trees, and 

 wherever a vacant space could be 

 found, as in the bones of the slain 

 lion. Palestine, therefore, was a land, 

 of which it was often said, "flowing 

 with milk and honey." 



AVhile the word "bee" occurs so 

 few times in the Bible, the product of 

 the bee. under the names honey and 

 honey-comb, is mentioned more than 

 60 times. In at least 17 places the 

 country is called "a land flowing with 

 milk and honey." Under these fig- 

 ures of speech there is emphasized 

 that fact that the country shall pro- 

 duce abundantly the necessities and 

 the luxuries of life. By milk, the 

 necessities of life are suggested, as ife 

 contains every needful element for 

 the healthful growth of tlie body ; by 

 honey, the luxury and joy and beauty 

 of life are indicated. 



Solomon, in advising the young, 

 says: "My son, eat thou hmiey, be- 

 cause it is good ; and the honey-comb 

 which is sweet to thy taste." He 

 chooses this luxury of the table, how- 

 ever, to illustrate amoral lesson. For 

 he further continues. "So shall the 

 knowledge of wisdom be unto thy 

 soul." Here is seen a glimpse of the 



