744 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



J^ovember 2 A 



GEORGE W. YORK. EDITOR. 



PUBLISHT WEEKLY BY 



118 Michigan Street, CHICAGO, ILL. 



[Entered at the Post-Office at Chicago aa Second-Class Mail Matter.] 



UNITED STATES BEE-KEEPERS' UNION 



Organized to advance the pursuit of Apiculture; to promote the interests of bee 

 keepers; to protect its members ; to prevent the adulteration of honey; and 

 to prosecute the dishonest honey-commiaeion men. 



Afembez'siiip .Fee— 92.00 -pGr A-nskxun* 



Executive committee— Pres.. George W. York; Vice-Pres., W. Z. Hutchinson ; 



Secretary, Dr. A. B. Mason, Station B. Toledo, Ohio. 

 Board of Directors— E. R. Root: E. 'Whitcomb; E. T. Abbott: C. P. Dadant; 



W.Z. Hutchinson: Dr. C. C.Miller, 

 Gbneral Manager and Treasurer- Eugene Secor, Forest City. Iowa. 



VOL. 38. NOVEMBER 24. 1898. - NO. 4/ 



Note.— The American Bee Journaiadopt^ tlie Ortliotrraphy of the following 

 Rule, recommended by the joint action ot the American Philological Asso- 

 ciation and the Philological Society of England:— Change "d" or "ed" final 

 to *t" when so pronounced, except when the '"e" affects a preceding sound. 



Xlie Ctaicago Bee-Keeper's Associatiou 



will hold its second quarterly meeting at y a.m. next Thurs- 

 day. Dec. 1. 1S9S, at the Briggs House, northeast corner of 

 Randolph St. and Fifth Ave. A fine program is being ar- 

 ranged by the Secretary, H. F. Moore. Dr. C. C. Miller and 

 other leading bee-keepers are expected from outside this 

 county. It is hoped that every bee-lteeper in Cook county 

 will be present, and help to make this new local organization 

 of bee-keepers a great success. 



An Experience -witfa Apis Dorsata.— Id the 



British Bee Journal of recent date wo find the following from 

 Rev. T. J. L. Mayer, writing from Sheikbudin, Punjab, North 

 India : 



"I have written for the last Government Blue Book on 

 Indian bees. I think your chance with Apis dorsata is nil. I 

 had seven colonies hived and fed all winter, and in the spring 

 the little brutes decampt by 20 and 30 a day, until each 

 queen, in turn, got disgusted and left the hive. Your only 

 chance is with the hill bee, Ghalozi. No uaicomb bees will 

 ever be domesticated unless put into hives whose entrance- 

 board is at the top, i. e., under the eaves of our modern hives." 



And yet there are those who want our Government to go 

 to great expense to import Apis dorsata. Here is a man who 

 had seven colonies of these bees in hives, and all of them left. 

 It seems to us that bee-keepers in this country would bet- 

 ter be satisfied with the Italian bees. Of course if our present 

 bees can be improved by careful selection and breeding, so 

 much the better. But we don't believe that our bee-keepers 

 want a foreign bee that won't be content to remain in hives 

 without being padlockt in, and the key hid somewhere. 



"Pussycat Style" ot Criticism.- Editor Hol- 

 termann, of the Canadian Bee Journal, quotes this editorial 

 paragraph from the Bee-Keepers' Review in reference to the 

 style of criticism that some think obtains in the bee-papers : 



"Perhaps you have not noticed it, but our apicultural 

 journalism has somewhat degenerated in the line of criticism. 

 It has fallen into what Mr. Heddon calls the ' pussy-cat style.' 

 Attempts at criticism are coucht in language so apologetic 

 and ' mealy-moutht ' as to nearly rob them of all force." 



Whereupon Mr. Holtermann offers this sentence of en» 

 dorsement : 



" By all means let us have done with the ' pussy-cat style ' 

 which too often means that one has not the pluck to say 

 openly what one would say in secret." 



Now, the only "pussy-cat style" of criticism that we 

 think needs to be " done with " is the kind that resembles the 

 scratching, spitting and yowling that one hears occasionally 

 at night in some back alley where two or more " pussy-cats " 

 seem to be having a dark but exciting convention. We have 

 no use for that kind of " pussy-cat style," and the sooner it Is 

 "done with" the better for all concerned, not only in the 

 back alley but also in any bee-paper, should the editor so far 

 forget himself as to let such " pussy-cats " get started. 



What is needed is criticism offered in a kindly, considerate 

 Christian spirit. It should require no " pluck " to offer that 

 kind, and it should be received in the same spirit as given. 



Yes, sir, the " pussy-cat" or Tom-cat style ought to be 

 "done with" — before it's begun. 



Descriptions of Hives.— A subscriber in Arizona 

 suggests that we publish " a series of articles descriptive of 

 each hive, with illustrations." Now, we like to receive sug- 

 gestions, but when any one hints that we begin on the over 

 900 hives that have been patented in this country, we just 

 feel like " throwing up the sponge." 



Let us suggest to our good friend, and to others, just to 

 send for the catalogs of all supply dealers that advertise in 

 the bee-papers, and they will get the descriptions and illustra- 

 tions of about all the hives that are of any value in this 



country. 



-♦-.-*^ 



California La^rs on Bees.— Mr. Geo. H. Stipp, 

 of San Francisco Co., Calif., wrote us as follows in reference 

 to the statutes relating to bees in that State : 



An inspection of the Index to the Laws of California, 

 covering the period from 1853 to 1893, discloses the follow- 

 ing named laws only, upon the statute books: 



Penalty for keeping bees in San Bernardino.Co. — Stats". 

 1877-8, p. 563. . ^^ 



Act for promotionof culture of bees. — Stats, 1883, p. 285. 



Inspectors of bees and duties. — Idem. 



I do not think any general laws have been past since 

 1893, but there may be numerous local ordinances ot record 

 in the county or counties to which pertaining. 



Geo. H. Stipp. 



Importance of tlie Exchange.— Prof. Cook, 

 of California, who is in an excellent position to judge of the 

 advantages offered by the exchange or co-operation idea 

 among producers, writes us as follows on the subject : 



The Southern California Fruit Exchange is becoming 

 more and more popular. Our producers on the farms and in 

 the orchards are coming to see that "co-operation" is the 

 motto of all successful business enterprise. The decline in 

 farm values, acd the absence of profits the last few years, 

 might have been avoided, had farmers followed those of all 

 other vocations — even down to the boot-blacks — and acted 

 together. 



The Citrus Fruit Exchange has had a struggle. It had to 

 fight the commission men in solid phalanx, and the ignorance, 

 suspicion and short-sightedness in its own ranks. Of course, 

 the Fruit Exchange has made some mistakes. Every new en- 

 terprise must do so ; but it has saved the fruit industry of 

 Southern California from collapse, has grown steadily in pop- 



