500 



THE AMERIC.iN BEE JOURNAL. 



Let some bee-keeper of each leading 

 city look after railroad rates. It will 

 be the last week of the great Ciiicin- 

 uati Exposition. This is a great at- 

 traction, and will make it easy to 

 secure reduced rates. Round trip 

 tickets from Detroit are promised for 

 $5. A. J. Cook, Preskldit. 



Rev. L. L. Langstroth.— We have 

 received the following letter from 

 Mr. Langstroth, which we know will 

 be read with more than usual interest 

 by the thousands of apiarists who 

 have a tender regard for him, and 

 wish him health for years yet to come. 



Oxford. Ohio. July 26, 1SS2 : 

 My health for the last few montlis 

 has considerably improved, but not 

 enough to permit me to resume my 

 pen with any freedom. In the 4-5 years 

 since 1 began to keep bees I have never 

 known so poor a season for honey. 

 The strongest colonies of some of our 

 largest bee-keepers have not a cell of 

 sealed honev, and only a few daj's 

 supplv on hand, and yet the bloom of 

 white"clover has been and still is un- 

 usually good, and the weather appar- 

 eutlv all that could be desired. 

 Yerv truly vour friend, 



L. L. Langstkoth. 

 Oxford, Julv 26. 1SS2. 



1^- The Amerian Express Company 

 money order system is the cheapest, 

 safest and most convenient way of re- 

 mitting small sums of money. Their 

 rates for SI to So are 5 cents : over So 

 to SIO, 8 cents. They can be pur- 

 chased at any point where the com- 

 pany have an ofHce, except Canada, 

 and can be made payable at any one 

 of the company's 4,000 offices. 



Paid orders are tiled in the Treas- 

 urer's office, and always accessible for 

 reference, and the remitter gets a re- 

 ceipt for money sent. 



For safety, when sending money to 

 this office, all should get either a post 

 office or express money order. 



®°One of our exchanges says: 

 The Montreal Witness has been to 

 the expense of getting a special tele- 

 gram from Toronto which says: " A 

 young lady at Riverside Suburb has 

 been severely injured about the face 

 and neck by bees which were attracted 

 by the profuse trimmings of artificial 

 flowers on her hat." The Canadians 

 who will believe that will believe any- 

 thing. _ 



^- The Bee Journal is mailed at 

 the Chicago Postoffice every Tuesday, 

 and any irregularity in its arrival is 

 due to the postal employes, or some 

 cause beyond our control. 



iUSCELLANEOUS. 



Bee Pasturage.— The Indiana Farm- 

 er has this to say about providing 

 pasturage for bees : 



The necessity for providing pastur- 

 age for the bees is becoming more ap- 

 parent each season. As the laud be- 

 comes better tilled, many of our best 

 honey producing plants become ex- 

 tinct. There are many plants that 

 yield immense quantities of honey, 

 and bv studying the habits and time 

 of blooming", will give us an idea of 

 what to plant to keep up a rotation of 

 blossoms, so that there need be no 

 total cessation of the honey lio\v from 

 early spring to frost. Our roads and 

 by-ways are lined with worthless 

 weeds, but with a little care they may 

 be filled with honey producing plants. 

 Sweet clover, catnip, mother-wort, 

 borage, boneset and figwort, are all 

 good honey plants, and bloom from 

 the first of" July to frost. Whether it 

 will pay to crop for honey as is now 

 done for butter or milk, we are not as 

 yet certain, but the question is being 

 thoroughly discussed, and will lead to 

 positive facts in the near future. 

 Many acres of honey plants have been 

 sown in the last two years, and we 

 hope to have some reports of practi- 

 cal tests before long. A friend of 

 ours has a couple of acres sown to sev- 

 eral kinds of mints, and he is very en- 

 thusiastic over the result. He gave 

 us a sami^le of a very aromatic flavor 

 and fine in appearance, and says also 

 his entire crop of last year was fla- 

 vored with the mint, giving much sat- 

 isfaction to his customers, many of 

 whom preferred it to the clear white 

 clover honev. 



Bees Fertiliziug the Clovers.— The 



Farmer and Manufacturer for August 

 gives the following item on this sub- 

 ject : 



Darwin's researches have proved 

 the action of bees in fertilization of 

 flowers. Every farmer who grows 

 red clover for the seed sake is too 

 familiar with the uncertainty of this 

 crop, the seeds of which ripen with 

 most vexatious inequality. Heir Ha- 

 berlandt, wdio has followed up and 

 confirmed the researches of Darwin 

 in reference to these particular flow- 

 ers, strongly recommends the rearing 

 of bees on all clover farms for the 

 special purpose of fertilization, even 

 though their honey be disregarded, 

 for it appears that clover is entirely 

 dependent on insects for its fertiliza- 

 tion, and chiefly on bees. The form 

 of the flowers and the manner in 

 which the maturity of the lower flor- 

 ets precedes that of the upper florets, 

 renders the success or failure of a 

 clover-seed crop simply a result of the 

 employment or non-employment of 

 these humble farm laborers. 



Breeding the Best Queens. — The 



Orange Bulletin gives its views on this 

 subject in the following language : 



We deem it a very great mistake to 

 suppose that tlie queen that can lay 

 the greatest number of eggs in a given 

 time is therefore a desirable queen ; 

 but it a queen bee is capable of laying 

 .500,000 eggs in a life time, shall we 

 have them laid in two or four years'? 

 We should prefer their being laid dur- 

 ing the longer period. All such ques- 

 tions should be well studied and prop- 

 erly digested liy the apiarist as well as 

 giving a strict" adh&rence to natural 

 laws governing the bees. When we 

 look into the laws that govern the pro- 

 duction of animal life, we find that 

 one law obtains from man down 

 through all the grades of lower animal 

 life, VIZ., " The animal after his kind." 

 While climate and surroundings have 

 their influence, man is still man, 

 whether barbarous or enlightened, 

 and his domestic animals when bred 

 with any special peculiarity or trait in 

 view, have developed the traits de- 

 sired, while tliere are many desirable 

 traits in our present strain of Italian 

 bees that should be fostered in breed- 

 ing. Queen breeding is a mechanical 

 art, and should be better understood 

 bv those who make such loud profes- 

 si"ons and furnish too many cheap and 

 worthless queens for the unsophisti- 

 cated novice, who too often meets dis- 

 aster and loss for want of a better 

 knowledge of the true principles that 

 should govern all business connected 

 with successful and practical apicul- 

 ture. Avoid all queens reared in small 

 nuclei or weak colonies. 



Still Breeding.- The Indiana Far- 

 mer gives its views of the prospect of 

 the remainder of the season for bees, 

 and their conditon for winter, thus : 



Usually there is a dearth of honey- 

 producing flora from the middle of 

 July to the latter part of August. But 

 the copious rains of early summer, and 

 cool nights have retarded the growth 

 of white clover, and induced the 

 growth of fall flowers to such an ex- 

 tent, that the bees are still finding 

 work to do. Weak colonies and nuclei 

 are breeding very fast with a prospect 

 of going into winter quarters in good 

 condition. 



The Difference.- From an exchange 

 we glean the following amusing 

 paragraph : 



When an old-fashioned merchant in 

 New Jersey came to look over an or- 

 der made out by his new-fashioned 

 clerk, the other day , he looked up over 

 his spectacles, and said, "James, I see 

 you have spelled shugar without an 

 li." "Yes, sir, that's the proper way." 

 "But 1 have spelled it with an 'li' for 

 the last twenty-nine years." "Can't 

 help that, sir. Sugar should not be 

 spelled with an 'h.^" " Well, mebbe 

 it shouldn't." sighed the old man, 

 "mebbe it shouldn't. I presume that 

 tliis mixing in glucose does make a 

 difference somewhere." 



