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THE AMERICAJS BEE JOURNAL. 



to the purpose. It is placed in feeders 

 of a dummy pattern, and liiing at tlie 

 side of the brood-nest ; it may also be 

 placed in a feeder having a wire-cloth 

 bottom, which is placed over the bees. 



Mr. S. has also an uncapping ma- 

 chine, the first principle of wlaich con- 

 sists in its having two oscillating 

 knives, which, driven by foot power, 

 have a reverse motion while the comb 

 is passed down between them and the 

 cappings are quickly removed from 

 both sides at once. In order to make 

 this a success the combs must be 

 built between separators, or, as Mr. 

 S. calls them, " dividers." When pro- 

 ducing extracted honey, Mr. S. uses 

 these "dividers" in the supers or 

 upper stories. It seems to me as 

 though all this is " too much ma- 

 chinery." 



The author is opposed to reversible 

 frames and hives, but it would seem 

 from his remarks upon the subject 

 that his acquaintance with them has 

 been confined to clumsy or ill-con- 

 trived styles. For instance, he speaks 

 of working with a standard frame 

 with no bottom " rail," thus he has a 

 comb one inch deeper than those who 

 use a thick "rail" for reversing. (!) 

 He says he made a number of hives in 

 1876, which could be reversed entire, 

 and he has proved to his satisfaction 

 that the plan is based upon no sound 

 principle ; that it causes more labor, 

 and no better results can be obtained. 

 My own experience is that those re- 

 sults which Mr. S. so justly praises, 

 viz : empty brood-nests at the end of 

 the season, and thus an opportunity 

 of feeding sugar for winter can be 

 secured with less labor by invertible 

 hives than by any other method ; and 

 I think if Mr. S. "could give the best 

 style of invertit)le hive a fair trial he 

 would be of the same opinion. One 

 thing is certain, all things must 

 eventually stand upon their merits. 



Now let no one who reads this re- 

 view write to me or to the American 

 Bee Journal and ask questions or 

 criticise, until they have first read the 

 book, as they may therein find an 

 answer. Many other topics are 

 treated in the book, but lack of space 

 forbids even mention of them. Books 

 that tell us exactly hmo to do things 

 are valuable, but if there is any bools 

 that I tlioroughly enjoy it is one that 

 sets me thinking ; that furnishes me 

 seed thoughts. Such is "Simmins' 

 Non-Swarming System." 



Rogersville,^ Mich. 



For tbe Amencan Bee Journal. 



Tie Poetry of Bee-Keeping, 



EUGENE SECOR. 



Neighbor Smith is something of a 

 wag. Neighlior Smith is also inter- 

 ested in bee-keeping. He has been 

 in the habit of borrowing my bee- 

 papers to read. One of neighbor 

 Smilli's favorite maxims is, " Never 

 buy anything you can borrow." 

 Another is, " Whafs the use of hav- 

 ing friends if you don't use them." 



Neighbor Smith brought home the 

 borrowed papers the other evening. 



That was in violation of another of 

 his favorite sayings,viz : " It's trouble 

 enough to borrow a thing without 

 having to return it." " But," he 

 added with a twinkle in his eye, 

 which made me think of Santa Glaus, 

 " I like those apples of yours pretty 

 well, and as the evenings are getting 

 long, and the time before election 

 short, I just thought I would make an 

 excuse to come over to talk politics, 

 religion or bees." 



"What part of the bee-papers do I 

 like best'? Well, I'll just give you 

 my humble opinion that Doolittle 

 wasn't well named ; for he does 7nore 

 than any other writer to convince 

 me that he knows what he's talking 

 about. There's no fustian about him. 

 He don't expect to start a National 

 bank from the proceeds of 10 colonies 

 of bees in one season without work. 



" Another thing I've noticed lately 

 in the bee-papers which makes an old 

 veteran like me laugh all over — that's 

 the poetry of bee-lieeping. I wish 

 some of those distinguished literary 

 lights, who have been writing poetry 

 about the bees, and about the poetry 

 of bee-keeping, would just come and 

 help me take off my honey after the 

 first hard frost, and get the bees ready 

 for winter. If they didn't sing a dif- 

 ferent song then, I'd have some faith 

 in this poetry business. I would like 

 to see some who are overflowing with 

 poetic bubbles, go through a few 

 hybrid colonies the second day after 

 a hard frost. If they didn't hibernate 

 in the bosom of their families after a 

 few charges, then I'd believe that 

 bee-keeping was good for the sick— 

 for the women as well— for the dude 

 of the town or the country belle. 



" I never have seen two lines of 

 poetry in the bee-business in 25 years 

 of hard work ; and the nearest to 

 poetry of anything that I ever read 

 of, was when Samson extracted honey 

 out of the carcass of a dead lion on 

 his way to see his girl. There's a 

 little of the " sweet hum " in that, no 

 mistake. But we who have to rustle 

 for a living find but little poetry in 

 the back-aches and the arm-aches and 

 the sting-aches of the honey-business. 

 And, then, after we've tolled like a 

 galley-slave to get a crop, to have 

 some grocery-man, whose only capital 

 is cheek, to tell us that we made it ! 

 Or, if it is comb honey, to have some 

 honest granger who happens to have 

 the enormous crop of 200 pounds, 

 demoralize the market by dickering it 

 off for 8 or 10 cents per pound. 



" You who have only ten or a dozen 

 colonies, and g:et just honey enough 

 to treat your friends when they come 

 to see you, can see all the winsome 

 delights and poetical fancies that an 

 idle dreamer can imagine. You prob- 

 ably let the patient wife or the duti- 

 ful son do all the hard work in the 

 bee-yard. You put me in mind of a 

 hen with one chicken. She makes 

 just as much noise, and puts on just 

 as many airs as though she were a 

 patent, double-decked incubator. If 

 we could understand her clack she 

 would probably be singing about the 

 cliarming pastimes of the chicken 

 business ; while the staid old biddy 

 that comes off with thirteen chicks 



every clatter, is too busy scratching 

 worms to see the rythmical lines float- 

 ing in the dreamy atmosphere down 

 in the brush lot. 



" We who produce all the honey 

 don't have the time nor the self- 

 assurance to tell more than we know 

 through the bee-papers. We don't 

 care enough about seeing our names 

 in print to give ten pounds of honey 

 to every local editor for a puff, either. 

 Now you may say to any of these 

 ' sweet hum ' men who are anxious to 

 embark in light and profitable busi- 

 ness, adapted to gentlemen in poor 

 health or sickly women, that I'll sell 

 100 colonies, poetry and all, cheap. 

 But the poetry would be something 

 like this : 



•Tis the bees' delight to buzz and bite— 



They're always spoiltnK for a agbt, 



And always sure to win it. 



They'll linocli the music out of a poet. 



They'll make a rheumaticky subject go it, 



Though he couldn't stir a peg he'd shin it — 



if two or three good healthy hybrids 

 of warlike instincts struck a bee-line 

 for some prominent bare spot about 

 his physiognomy." 



Neighbor Smith said many more 

 things during the evening, which I 

 have not now time to relate. 



Forest City, 5 Iowa. 



Canaflian Apiarists in London. 



The Canadians who have taken 

 their honey to London to exhibit at 

 the " Colonial," were tendered a ban- 

 quet by the British apiarists, which 

 was a very brilliant affair. The British 

 Bee Journal speaking of it, remarks 

 as follows : 



The bee-keepers of Great Britain 

 have good reason to look back on the 

 gathering that took place on Wednes- 

 day, Oct. 6, at the Exhibition at 

 South Kensington, with no slight 

 degree of hopefulness and compla- 

 cency. The primary object of the 

 meeting, namely, to extend the hand 

 of friendship and fellowship to those 

 who in a distant country are occupied 

 in the same pursuit as themselves, 

 was one that would commend itself 

 to all imbued with fraternal feelings. 

 But while this was the principal 

 cause that induced so many to gatlier 

 together, other thoughts must have 

 flashed across their minds when they 

 contemplated the great number that 

 were present at the luncheon at mid- 

 day, and at the conversation in the 

 evening. 



It seems but a short time ago that 

 bee-keeping was an industry strug- 

 gling for a bare existence, scarcely 

 known or recognized, disregarded by 

 most people, practiced by few ; but 

 prescient minds conceived tlie idea 

 that this industry, so weak and so 

 obscure, might be fostered and be- 

 come a boon to many cottagers and 

 laborers ; and fraught with this view 

 they brushed aside the indifference 

 of those around, and, by dint of per- 

 severance, energy, and tact— never 

 losing hope, marching on, they at 

 length attained their sought-for end. 

 Some that sowed have not reaped — 



