354 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



June 8, 1899. 



enthusiasm ivould come again. As that cannot be, I mean 

 to husband the resources of muscle and mind so that I may 

 always feel a little like a boy, even if I live to be a hundred 

 years old. 



Other bee-keepers besides the sisters have tried so hard 

 to know everj'thing' and do everything' pertaining to the 

 pursuit, till nerve and brain have become so weary that they 

 turn for rest to something else. There are many things 

 pertaining to apiculture which the honey-producer can 

 afford not to know. It is no great matter to me whether a 

 swarm of bees is an organ or an oi-ganism. It is of consid- 

 erable importance to me to have every colony in the yard 

 in the best possible condition to do efficient work when the 

 time for work comes round, and my efforts will be directed 

 to this end. 



One mistake of the sisters — repeated by many no doubt 

 in these later and better days — was in reading so little be- 

 fore they undertook to do so much. The bee-papers (any of 

 them) are great helps to the beginner, and he should study 

 the advertisements with special care. They will save him 

 many a dollar. Then there are hints to be found all thru 

 their pages that will save the young bee-keeper from mak- 

 ing many mistakes. In order to get the g-reatest good from 

 these hint.4 it is necessary for the beginner in bee-keeping 

 to get and study a good bee-book till he has become toler- 

 ably familiar with bottom facts and first principles. Then 

 the beginner will not have to ask a whole lot of foolish 

 questions — questions that, later in life, he will be ashamed 

 that he ever askt. And then Dr. Miller will 

 have a little rest, as his occupation will be 

 partly gone. f 



The Linswik sisters, it seems, have found 

 out that there is not a great deal of money ! 

 to be made in honey-production. Some 

 others, it seems, found out the same thing 

 years ago, and degenerated into book-makers 

 and supply-makers for the throngs of new 

 and old bee-keepers who have hopes of suc- 

 ceeding in a pursuit in which the others 

 had found large success impossible. 



I am not building any castles in Spain 

 or here, out of the proceeds of the apiary, but 

 I have kept bees long enough to feel assured 

 that there is reasonable pay for their intelli- 

 gent and economical management. 



Decatur Co., Iowa. 



ensued, advice was askt. received and acted upon with this 

 result : Early in May, 1872, I became the happy possessor 

 of a colony of Italian bees, which had cost me only S25.00, 

 plus nearly S5.00 express charges I When, in June, mj- sister 

 came home from a six months' visit with a brother in the 

 South, she became my efficient helper and full partner in 

 the enterprise. 



AVe began with no knowledge whatever of bee-keeping ; 

 nor had we a bee-keeping- friend or acquaintance. The Ital- 

 ian Bee Co. — Mrs. E. S. Tupper and Mrs. Annie Savery — of 

 whom our bees- were purchast. had recommended to us a 

 small text-book and a monthly bee-journal partly devoted 

 to agriculture. As the publishers of this journal did not 

 advertise rival publications, nor give the address of corres- 

 pondents, we were shut out from access to the bee-keeping 

 fraternity. Still, much of our text-book's teaching was- 

 good, and often the paper contained interesting and val- 

 uable articles from the pens of writers of repute. Perhaps 

 it was as well that, for our first year, we were not too much 

 distracted bj- opposing counsels, even at the price of some 

 mistakes. 



Early in the j'ear 1873, at his office in Saginaw, I met 

 the late Dr. L. C. Whiting, and learned, from some chance 

 word, that to the duties of his profession he added the pleas- 

 ures of bee-keeping. During the remainder of that sitting 

 every opportunity for articulate speech on my part was 

 filled by a question. I think Dr. Whiting recognized it, 

 compassionately, as a case of bee-fever in the acute stage ; 



[Cyula Linswik and her sister (altho 

 that's not the real name), as Mr. Bevins says, 

 kept bees in northern Michigan, and the 

 older readers may remember how delightfully 

 were told in the bee-papers their haps and 

 mishaps. All that was j'ears ago, and noth- 

 ing has been heard from them for a long 

 time. Very pleasant it was, on opening the 

 Bee-Keepers' Review for November, 1898, to 

 find an elegant picture of the old home of 

 the two ladies, and also their present home, together with 

 a sketch of their career written by the same pen that so 

 charmed us years ago. (Thru the kindness of the Review 

 we are enabled to show the same pictures to our readers). 



In 1869 they took up their abode in the old home, a log 

 house surrounded by "the forest primeval," with bears, 

 wolves and deer for neighbors, the nearest post-office being 

 reacht by a trip of 20 miles over an unspeakably bad road. 



Minute particulars as to the result of their bee-keeping 

 are not given, but Editor Hutchinson avers that they have 

 been very successful, he, himself, from first to last, having 

 paid them several hundred dollars for bees, and he saj's the 

 honey they produce is as fine as any he has seen. The lit- 

 tle that is told as to their bee-keeping career, as written by 

 one of the sisters, is here given in full : — Editor.] 



In December, 1871, there appeared in the New York 

 Tribune an interesting report of the meeting of the Ameri- 

 can Bee-Keepers' Association, at Cleveland, Ohio. Glanc- 

 ing it over, my attention was arrested by the fact that two 

 ladies took a prominent part in the proceedings ; and that 

 thej' recommended bee-keeping as pleasant and profitable 

 employment for women. Correspondence with these ladies 



Present Home of Cyula Lins-wi!; aiu! 1 Icr Sutcr. 



for, in addition to the kindly patience with which he an- 

 swered all my queries, he quite overwhelmed me with grati- 

 tude by oft'ering to loan me a bound volume of the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal. It was, I think, the first volume after the 

 interruption in publication made during the war. As I 

 turned its pages at home, I could scarcely believe in my 

 good fortune — that a stranger from the remote backwoods 

 should have been trusted with such a treasure 1 It was our 

 open sesame into the bee-keeping world. 



We soon had in our possession the works of Langstroth 

 and Quinby, while the American Bee Journal, the Bee- 

 Keepers' Magazine and Gleanings — we began with the first 

 tiny copy of the latter — were regular visitants. 



And thenceforth how we studied and experimented, 

 and rejoiced over our bees. Ah, me I that such enjoyment 

 cannot last. That the enthusiasm must die out, leaving 

 only a faint thrill at the memor}- thereof — the memory of 

 those early days when the bee-3'ard was a charmed spot, a 

 refuge from loneliness, despondency, even one's own bad 

 temper 1 And later, when we had more work than play in 

 the apiary, it was still enchanted ground — a place where 

 one could forget the dinner-hour (if there chanced to be a 

 maid in the kitchen), forget the temperature (with the mer- 

 cury in the 90's), and be totally unmindful and unconscious 

 of extreme weariness — until nightfall and a summons to- 

 the supper-table made it only too apparent. 



It would have been pleasant employment to the last,. 



