824 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



Dec. 28, 1899. 



PCBLISHT WEEKLY BY 



George W. York & Company, 



118 Michigan St., Ciiicago, III. 



ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. f^*% SAMPLE COPY FREE. 



[Entered at the Post-Office at Chicago as Secoad-Class Mail Matter.] 



United Slates Bee-Keepers' Association. 



Org-auized to advance the pursuit of Apiculture : to promote the interest.'; 

 of bee-keepers ; to protect its members ; to prevent the adulteration of 

 houey ; and to prosecute the dishonest honey-commission men. 



JMombeFsblp Fee^^l.OO per Aatitun, 



Executive Committee— Pres., E. Whitcomb; Vice-Pres., C. A. Hatch- 

 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. 



Gen'l M.4x.\ger .\nd TRE.isuRER— Eugene Secor, Forest City, Iowa. 



VOL. 39. DECEMBER 28, 1899. NO. 52. 



Note— The American Bee Journal adopts the Orthography of the follow- 

 ingRule, recommended by_tl)e joint action of the American Philolog- 



ical Associat 



"d 



fects a preceding sound. 



ociation and the Philological Society of England: — Change 

 ed" final to "t" when so pronounced, except when the "e" a'f- 



The Happiest New Year ever known we wish to every 

 reader of the American Bee Journal. May it also be the 

 best year of your life so far. 



The Annual Index is a special feature of this number 

 of the American Bee Journal. It will be found very valu- 

 able for reference to all who have been careful enough to 

 preserve the numbers as they have come to hand each week 

 during- the year. What a variety of subjects have been re- 

 ferred to in just one short year I Truly, the bee is a mar- 

 vellous creature. 



The Thirty=Ninth Volume of the American Bee Jour- 

 nal is completed with this number— nearly two score j-ears 

 have past since it was started by Samuel Wagner, and pub- 

 lisht in Philadelphia, Pa. A good many changes have 

 occurred since then. Perhaps there are not more than ten 

 of its regular readers who were keeping bees at that time 

 and began then to read it. Nearly all of its old-time readers 

 and contributors have joined the "silent majority," and we 

 of the younger generation are left to carry on the work. 



Talking on Bees to School Children In The Ruralist 



for October we find the following endorsement from Mr. 

 J. O. Grimsley, the editor of the department of " Bees and 

 Honey " in that paper: 



Commenting on Editor York's " talk about bees " be- 

 fore the public school, the Progressive Bee-Keeper says : 

 "Would it not be a good idea for all of us to follow Mr. 



York's plan, and see if we cannot have at least one lecture 

 a year on bees, delivered to the children of our public 

 school ?" 



Happj- thought ; it would certainly be an excellent plan 

 which would, if the lectures were by well-informed, practi- 

 cal apiarists, lead to much good, not only to beedom, but to 

 fruit and vegetable growers as well. Passing thru the 

 fields and along the paths around the farm we see a bee 

 working busily from flower to flower. What is it ? Like 

 Poe's raven, it is just a bee — nothing more. It is gathering 

 its daily bread — nothing more. Thus goes the soliloquy of 

 the common, everyday passer-by, who has no knowledge 

 of the great work the humble little insect is doing for hu- 

 man it j-. 



It, with its thotisands of co-workers, is laying up in a 

 most attractive form, the most delicious of all sweets, and 

 the purest that man can get. It, with its co-workers, is 

 doing a grand work in the transmission of pollen from one 

 flower to another, thus insuring a development of the fruit 

 or vegetable crop. It, with its co-workers, and the colonies 

 at home, furnishes one of the most interesting subjects for 

 sttidy that the enquiring minds can grasp. Yet it is a bee, 

 only this, and nothing more. Like the sands of the sea- 

 shore, it is only one among a countless number that is 

 doing a great work while we sit idly by, under the shade of 

 a spreading fruit-tree, wondering why the honey-bee was 

 "made with a sting," and why " it is so ill," never stop- 

 ping to think — always calling it "high-tempered," when in 

 fact the human family is a thousand times more irritable. 

 It is a bee, nothing more. 



But let's all work to the standard, as set bj' Mr. Y'ork, 

 and see to it that each public school gets a lecture on bee- 

 keeping. The students will be benefitted, the county will 

 reap its share, and beedom will be a rich gleaner. 



Bee=Paper Publishers as Honey-Buyers. — In the Pro- 

 gressive Bee-Keeper for December, we find the following 

 from F. L. Thompon : 



" It is well to remember that the publishers of nearly 

 all the principal bee-papers are also honey-buyers. If they 

 know of sales at good prices that are likely to affect their 

 own interests if generally known, they are NOT going to 

 TELL. It would not be business. No one can expect it of 

 them." 



We cannot understand why Mr. Thompson should have 

 written that, unless he judges the publishers of bee-papers 

 from what he knovrs of hiinself. But we are glad to be able 

 to say that we are pretty well acquainted with the bee-paper 

 publishers who handle honey, and know that thej- would 

 not act as Mr. Thompson suggests he would if in their 

 place, namely, noi tell if any honey sales were made at good 

 prices. We want to say for ourselves that such an insinua- 

 tion is as untrue as it is unkind. We never have knowingly 

 allowed our own personal interests to interfere with giving 

 everything in the columns of this journal that any responsi- 

 ble and honest bee-keeper has reported to us concerning 

 sales of honey. Certainly, we do not publish everything 

 we know, for if we did, there would be some awful howling, 

 and from just such people as write paragraphs like the 

 above quotation. 



So long as we pay the right price to the honey-producer, 

 and he is satisfied, we are not going to worry about what 

 anybody says when talking just to hear himself talk. 



A Correction.— Editor Leahy says in the last issue of 

 his paper that we " misrepresented the ' Higginsville ' bee- 

 hive cover " when speaking editorially of bee-supplies for 

 1900, on page 760. We certainly were not aware that we 

 were misrepresenting anything in the least, and hereby 

 apologize for an unintentional error. We do not wish to do 

 a single individual, or even an apiarian fixture or imple- 

 ment, an injustice, and always feel like expressing our 

 thanks when any one calls our attention to it, if he thinks 

 we have publisht anything that is not borne out b3- the 

 facts. 



' Honey Calendar" in place of the Almanac— Seep. 807. 



