70 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Jan. 31, 



port, W. R. Graham was called on to speak, and did so as 

 follows : 



ADDRESS BY W. R. GRAHAM. 



Dear FrteTicZg ;— I never could talk, especially in public, 

 but I will do the best I can. I will say that while there has 

 been great progress made in apiculture, there are still millions 

 of pounds of honey going to waste for want of bees to pather 

 it. Nice comb honey is fine enough to adorn a king's table, 

 and I olwayn find sale for all the section honey I can pro- 

 duce, and I have noticed that when I have honey to sell, I 

 can always feel a little money in my pockets, and when I 

 have no honey I have but little money. 



From what I see here, it is one of the finest bee-countries 

 I ever saw, and all you need is bees to gather the honey. You 

 have one of the best teachers on bees, and not only one 

 teacher, you have five teachers right here in the Atchley 

 family, and you should be able to do well right from the start, 

 and not have to grope along as we had to do without a teacher. 

 Why, I do not know what I would have given 25 years ago to 

 have had a teacher like Mrs. Jennie Atchley. I could have 

 been worth much more than I am to-day. 



We may have large amounts of honey, but if we put it up 

 In attractive shape, it will be as ready sale as cotton, or any 

 other farm product. Take our State all over, and we have a 

 wonderful bee-country. If I was young, like I once was, I 

 would put an apiary here myself, as I see you have plenty of 

 unoccupied ground. 



When I started out to keep bees "kings" were all the 

 rulers the bees had, but since then the king must have died, as 

 the queen now occupies the royal chamber. It is said that 

 bees never change, but their government surely does, as I 

 believe now that it is neither king nor queen, but a "mother- 

 bee." I bring up these things to show you how dark it was 

 for us old-time bee-keepers, and still we do not know it all, 

 and likely never will, as there is yet lots to learn about 

 bees. 



I think that any one may keep bees who wants to, as I 

 do not think it is any harder to learn than any other business. 

 I think one should understand bee-keeping before starting out 

 too extensively, and in fact we should understand any kind of 

 business before we embark too heavily, or we will most likely 

 fail. My father was a farmer, and I can well remember, and 

 yet hear the sound of the dinner horn in my imagination, 

 ringing in my ears, and I thought it was the sweetest music I 

 ever heard in all my life, to hear the horn toot, toot, toot, as 

 I was always called on to go and hive the bees. Mother 

 would not give many toots till I was soon on the spot. 



One time I was stalled; it was on a Sunday, and father and 

 mother had gone to church, and left me and two sisters at 

 home. Well, as usual, the bees swarmed, and settled pretty 

 high up on an apple-tree. I went right up after them, and 

 began to saw off the limb, and soon I had it near enough off 

 to fall, but it was not clear off, and it came down against the 

 body of the tree so hard that it knocked the most of the bees 

 off of the limb, and oh, my! how they did sting; and soon I 

 came tumbling down out of the tree a great deal faster than 

 I went up, and no sooner had I hit the ground when I was 

 running, and my sisters took after me with brooms trying to 

 kill the bees, but the more they fought the bees, 

 the worse they stung. But finally we got them 

 to stop, but I did not hive them this time. My face swelled up 

 almost past recognition, and as soon as father came he said to 

 me, "Ah, yes, young man; they got you this time, did they ?" 

 Father went out and hived them. The ne.xt day 1 had to fill 

 my place between the plow-handles, and my face was so much 

 swollen that it gave me great pain to walk at all, but I 

 went right ahead as best I could, until father came and re- 

 lieved me. 



I have been engaged in keeping bees nearly all my life, 

 and I used to think, '20 years ago, that I knew it all, and 

 have just lived long enough to find that I know but little 

 yet. 



I always feel at home with a bee-keeper, and usually we 

 find bee-men or bee-keepers to be good people. Come to think 

 of it, I would love to have any of you show me a good bee- 

 keeper that gets drunk, or that is not a temperate man. It 

 seems that whisky and a bee-master won't stay in the same 

 hide — as one goes in, the other goes out. 



Dr. Marshall remarked that the more people you have 

 here to go into the business, the better, as you can all ship 

 your honey off to market in carload shipments, and save in 

 freights. For instance, I have lOUO pounds of honey and 

 you have lOOO, and so on; we can put it together and make 

 a carload, and be a great help to each other. 



I see no reason why 100 bee-men should not do well 

 here in Bee county. 1 have heard that the bee-business was 



like music— born in the person— and I begin to believe it a 

 little bit, as I have tried to teach several people how to keep 

 bees, and the more I told them the less they seemed to know; 

 and then, again I have found people that were very quick to 

 "catch on," and soon learn how to handle bees. We cannot 

 learn it all from books — we must depend on our judgment as 

 well as books, and start out as though we meant to make It a 

 success, and I tell you that it won't be long till you will be 

 "right in the ring" ; and if you do run on some failures, don't 

 tell everybody about it, but go to work and remedy the 

 matter as soon as possible, without asking any one, and 

 I tell you it will not be long till you will be a bee-keeper. 

 We have no wintering troubles here, and that is one of 

 the puzzling questions we can leave out. Do not understand 

 me that I do not read books, for I do read all I can get time, 

 and we should postourselves and keep right up with the times 

 as nearly as we can. What I mean by not asking ques- 

 tions, etc., is, we should not take up our own valuable time, 

 as well as that of our teacher, asking questions about finding 

 a queen on a comb where we thought she ought not to be, and 

 write a great long letter asking why she was over there. 

 All those tilings we call foolishness, and if we are going to 

 be much of a bee-keeper we will work out these simple things 

 ourselves. W. R. Graham. 



(To be continued.) 



CONDnCTED BY 

 DR. C C. AIILLER. MAREXGO, ILJL. 



[Questions may be mailed to the Bee Journal, or to Dr. Miller direct.] 



Wants Basswood Sprouts. 



I would like to secure for next spring's planting about 50 

 or 100 basswood sprouts. Could you refer me to where I 

 could get them at reasonable rates ? W. S. M. 



Farmington, New Mexico. 



Answer. — I don't know a thing about it. Perhaps they 

 could be had from some near nurseryman. A few years ago 

 a man in the State of New York sold them quite reasonably, 

 but I don't know whether he does now. A good deal of in- 

 quiry has been made lately, and it would be a good plan for 

 those who have lindens for sale to advertise. 



Botanical Names of Some Common Plants. 



Did not Dr. Miller or the printers make a mistake in nam- 

 ing the plants on page 39 ? Eiipntorium rolundifolinm is 

 boneset or thoroughwort. Horehound is Mnrrubiuni vulonre. 

 Black horehound isM. Bnllota Nigra. Uorsemint is Monarda 

 punctata, and not piinciata as was given. 



The smartweed, which yields honey in this part of the 

 country, is Polygonum Pennsylvanicum, and not P. persicarla. 

 Persicaria, ladies' thumb, is a plant of the same family, but is 

 only about one foot high, and does not furnish any honey. Or 

 at least that is my opinion. 



The honey mesquite is Pi'osopis juUfiora. All of these ex- 

 cept the last are according to Gray, and he does not give the 

 mesquite. 



The catclaw I fail to find, and I doubt if this is the proper 

 name. Emerson T. Abbott. 



St. Joseph, Mo. 



Answer. — Thanks, Bro. Abbott. The easiest way for me 

 to do would be to lay the whole thing to that rascally printer, 

 John the German. But I don't think John had anything to 

 do with it unless it be that he turned "punctata" into 

 " punciata." 



You are right, the common hoarhound is marrul>luni vul- 

 gare, and that's the one I ought to have given, but it seems 

 there are several horehounds, and I took the first one I came 

 to. I confess I feel a good deal as If I'd been standing on my 

 head after hunting up some of these names, for they seem 

 considerably mixed up in the botanies and bee-books. For ex- 

 ample, horsemint, in Wood's botany — I'm sorry to say I havn't 

 Gray's — is Monarda punctata, and also M. fistulosa, and in 

 Prof. Cook's Manual it's M. aristata. 



Are you sure you're not mistaken about Eupatorlxim 

 rotundlfoUum ? According to Wood and the Standard die- 



