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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



May 9, 



time in good, sound sleep. Why, Friend Taylor, if I liad to 

 get up at three oV-lock every morning, I do not thinl< I would 

 last more than one year; and if I did, I would be so nervous 

 that life would be a burden to myself and all about mo. I can 

 ■do all the work I want to do in one day and get out of bed at 

 six o'clock, and it Is a very rare thing when I am not in bed a 

 few minutes after ten. Of course, all people are not consti- 

 tuted as I am, but I am quite sure that no bee-keeper can 

 afford to turn himself into a machine for grinding out money, 

 and start the grinding at three a.m. every day. 



I am also fully persuaded that most people who are 

 engaged in rural pursuits would accomplish more if they 

 would put more brains into their work, and take less time to 

 do it. That is, give more time to recreation and intellectual 

 improvement and less to the drudgery of life. I detest a lazy 

 or shiftless man, but no one has to turn out at such an early 

 hour in order not to be justly called either one of these. There 

 may be times when duty will call us out at an unreasonably 

 early hour, but I am quite sure that neither duty nor the con- 

 dition of success calls upon the bee-keeper to rise at three 

 o'clock in the morning. So, I say, don't do it ! 



Carniolaii Bees.— "At first sight you would prob- 

 ably call them common black bees, and possibly at last sight." 

 —Dr. Miller. 



It seeius strange to me that so many people persist in say- 

 ing that there is not enough difference between the blacks and 

 Carniolans to enable an ordinary mortal to distinguish one 

 from the other. It would seem that these people had never 

 seen any pure gray Carniolans, or else their blacks are not the 

 kind which inhabit this neck of the woods. I have had a 

 number of colonies of Carniolans, and I have never found any 

 trouble in distinguishing them from the blacks. Neither has 

 any one ever come to my apiary, and had his attention called 

 to these bees, who could not see the difference at once. 



I bought a queen once of a prominent breeder of Carniolan 

 queens, the progeny of which could not be distinguished from 

 common blacks, and there was a good reason for It. The 

 queen was a black queen, mated to a black drone, and her 

 bees ii'cre blacks. I very much fear that many of the queens 

 which have been sold for Carniolans were nothing but German 

 bees, pure and simple; and, of course, one might call the 

 progeny of such queens "common blacks" first, last, and 

 altogether. 



I think it is just as easy to tell a Carniolan bee from a 

 fclack as it is to tell a horse from a mule. If some shall ask, 

 " How ?" I will simply say that they do not look alike, as any 

 one can readily see who will place the two side by side. There 

 is so much difference in their looks that I do not see how any 

 one can possibly take one for the other. Or at least this Is 

 true of all / have seen. 



Conducted by "BEE-MASTER." 



A Talk About Bees. 



In Germany, where there are more bees and bee-keepers 

 to the square mile than in any other part of the world, it Is no 

 uncommon thing for village and country parsons, in their 

 public prayers, to put up the petition, " God bless the bees !" 

 With what amazement such a petition would be heard in the 

 rural churches of Canada. Were it not for the astounding 

 ignorance of both ministers and their flocks about natural 

 science, we might expect to find this and many other similar 

 petitions included In the devotions of the sanctuary, and em- 

 bodied in the book of common prayer. But most Christians, 

 whether lay or clerical, know very little if any more about 

 •bees than is embodied in that juvenile song of Dr. Watts', 

 which we so often hear alluded to, usually more in jest than 

 in earnest. Like many other compositions meant for the 

 edification of the young and rising generation, this famous 

 song about " the little busy bee" is not so true to Nature and 

 to life as it might be, and ought to be. Dr. Watts himself 

 seems to have known little more about this insect than that it 

 is a model and a marvel of industry, which Is just as true of 

 the devil as it is of the bee. This fact, indeed, is recognized 

 by the poet in the couplet : — 



■• For Satan finds some mischief still. 

 For idle liands to do." 



It is a curious fact that the very first verse of Dr. Watts' 



song contains two great errors about the insect whose praise 

 it sings, — 



" How dotli the little busy bee 

 Improve the shining hour. 

 And gather honey all the day 

 From every openiuj; liower." 



In the first place, the bee does not gather hnney. It 

 gathers the sweet nectar secreted by the flowers, which is 

 converted into honey by some mysterious process that goes on 

 in the stomach of the bee. The nectar is transmuted into 

 honey by the busy gatherers of it, and the change takes place 

 during transit from the flower to the hive. 



A second error is that the bee gathers " from every open- 

 ing flower." It is only some flowers that secrete and yield 

 nectar. Attracted by the aroma of certain blooms, the bees 

 visit them and are invariably rewarded by a tiny drop of the 

 precious liquid of which they are in search. 



But not to dwell farther on the fragment of juvenile 

 poetry quoted from Dr. Watts, we may pass on to notice mat- 

 ters of greater practical importance. Among these our in- 

 debtedness to the bees and our dependence upon them may be 

 adverted to. These are far greater than most of us imagine. 

 After all, honey-gathering is not their most important func- 

 tion. We owe to them the beauty of the flower, the fertility 

 of the seed, and the ripe lusciousness of the fruit. The bee 

 that thoughtless mortals try to strike down and kill, often 

 only to find what an alert fighter it is, and what a sharp 

 rapier it carries. Is one of the greatest benefactors of the 

 human race. A brief reference to a few simple facts will 

 abundantly demonstrate the truth of this statement. 



Flowers are the reproductive organs of the plants that 

 bear them. No seed is produced unless pollen shed by the 

 anthers Is carried to the pistil. Some flowers have anthers 

 and no pistils : these are male blooms. Others have pistils 

 and no anthers: such are female. But by far the greater 

 number are hermaphrodite; that is, they carry both sexes 

 within themselves. Female blooms must have pollen brought 

 to them from male blooms, generally speaking, of the same 

 species, or the seed will fall. Often the seeds will not develop 

 even though the flower has both stamens and pistils, unless 

 the pollen of another flower is brought to fructify them. The 

 wind and insects are the two servants that perform this work. 

 Wind-fertilized, or anemophilous flowers, are, as a rule, scent- 

 less, honeyless, and Inconspicuous. But flowers that need the 

 aid of insects to fertilize them must Invite their visits : hence 

 honey is offered ; sweet perfumes attract ; and fine colors 

 reveal. Hermaphrodite flowers need insects scarcely less than 

 others, for although they produce pollen, yet their own pollen 

 is not so desiraljle as that from other blooms. The experi- 

 ments of that great naturalist, Darwin, on Cross-Fertilization, 

 have brought to light much of the wonderful working of the 

 laws of Insect life along these lines. But the subject is too 

 voluminous to be more than touched iii passing. 



Among the insect tribes, bees are the chief agents in the 

 fertilization of flowers. The necessary process is accomplished 

 in various ways. A species of the willow-herb, EpUoblum 

 awjustifolium, must have all its own pollen carried off to 

 other flowers before its pistils develop, when, in turn, it is 

 fructified by the pollen from other blooms. The primrose, 

 cineraria, orchids, tropKolum, heath-blooms, and other flowers 

 that might be named, present curious and diverse contri- 

 vances for utilizing the visits of the honey-bee. The straw- 

 berry, the most delicious fruit, often owes its fructification to 

 the bee. It is estimated that to produce a single perfect 

 strawberry from one hundred to double or triple that number 

 of independent fertilizations must be accomplished. If fertili- 

 zation fails, instead 0/ a luscious berry we have a hard, 

 shrunken, greenish mass. 



Ignorant people suppose bees to be enemies of fruit, 

 whereas, without them, we should not have so much. It is a 

 mistake to imagine that they injure fruit-blooms by visiting 

 them. Such visits are often absolutely necessary If any fruit 

 whatever is to form and mature. It is also a mistake to sup- 

 pose that bees puncture'grapes or other ripe fruit. They do 

 nothing of the kind. If the skin is broken by any other 

 means, they simply gather up the sweet juices that would 

 otherwise go to waste. 



ABC of Bee-C'ultiire. — We have some of these books 

 left, and in order to close them out quickly, we renew the low 

 offers we made on them. This is the fine cyclopedia of bee-keeping 

 by A. I. Root, containing 400 pages and nearly 200 engravings. 

 The regular price is $1.35, but we will send the American Bee Jour- 

 nal one year and the "ABC" bound in cloth— both for only -$1.80 ; 

 or the parchment cover (very heavy paper) "A B C" and the 

 American Bee Journal one year — both together only $1.50. 



