1895. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



701 



that he could carry out his part in the services, and was so 

 anxious to do so, that I could not insist. 



On Sabbath morning he was unusually bright, and over- 

 flowing with happiness and eratitude to the Lord for his 

 blessings. My eldest son, with his wife and baby, had been 

 spending a week with us, and he was much pleased with, and 

 proud of, his little great-granddaughter. He asked her 

 mother that morning to wheel her little carriage into his warm 

 room, and I shall not soon forget how happy he looked as he 

 sat beside it, talking to and caressing the little one. The# 

 were at the church. 



After dressing, father seemed much fatigued, and I again 

 asked him whether he thought it were best for him to try to 

 preach. He replied, "Oh, yes! I will say a few words, and 

 then I will come home and rest, rest, rest." He is most cer- 

 tainly " at rest with the Lord." 



Before prea<'hing. Rev. Amos 0. Raber moved the pulpit 

 to one side and placed a chair on the front of the platform. 

 Father began to address the audience sitting, with some ex- 

 planatory remarks as to his weakness. After a few introduc- 

 tory sentences requesting the prayers of the congregation for 

 himself and the service, he said : "I am a firm believer in 

 prayer. It is of the love of God that I wish to speak to you 

 this morning — what it has been, what it is, what it means to 



us, and what we ought " As he finished the last word he 



hesitated ; his form straightened out convulsively ; his head 

 fell backward, and in about three minutes he was "absent 

 from the body, at home with the Lord." 



There was no scene of confusion in the church. Tears 

 were running down every cheek, but there were no screams, 

 no loud sobbing. As one person remarked, " Heaven never 

 seemed so near before ; it seemed but a step." 



"Then, with no Bery throbbing pain. 



No slow ffraintlons of decay. 

 Death broke at once the vital cbjiiu 

 And freed his soul the nearest way." 



Sincerely yours, 

 Dayton, Ohio, Oct. 8. Anna L. Cowan. 



Bee-Culture Recognized. — Some of ihe Western 

 States are taking quite an interest in the subject of bee-keep- 

 ing, as they ought to do. At least Missouri and Kansas are 

 doing so. I am made' aware of this, from the fact that Rev. 

 Emerson T. Abbott has recently been requested to deliver an 

 address on the subject of "The Relation of Bees to Horticul- 

 ture," at the next meeting of the Missouri State Horticultural 

 Society, to be held Dec. 3, 4 and 5, at Neosho, Mo. 



Mr. Abbott has also been invited by the Kansas State 

 Board of Agriculture to address them at their next annual 

 meeting, to be held at Topeka, Jan. 8, 9 and 10, 1896, on 

 the subject of " Bee-Rearing and Honey-Production for 

 Farmers." Secretary F. D. Coburn, when extending this in- 

 vitation to Mr. Abbott, said : 



"The purpose of this would be to point out to our people 

 the feasibility and ways and means of every farmer having, if 

 he will, an abundance of honey for home use and to spare, 

 with almost no expense, by simply utilizing the abundant free 

 materials around him permitted to ' waste their sweetness on 

 the desert air.'" 



While the above speaks well for Mr. Abbott, it also plainly 

 shows that those interested in horticulture and general farm- 

 ing are awaking to the importance of bee-culture as an aid to 

 the fruit-grower and to the farmer. It is earnestly hoped that 

 other horticultural societies and .State boards of agriculture 

 may go and do likewise, as there is in nearly every State some 

 one who is abundantly able to present the subject of bee-cul- 

 ture in its proper light, and who would at the same time be 

 doing a grand service to those interested in rural industries. 

 -«-•-• 



mr. Alfred H. Piewnian, manager of the Cedar 

 Rapids Candy Company, of Iowa, called at the Bee Journal 

 office on Saturday, Oct. 19. He was for years a member of 

 the well-known firm of Thomas G. Newman <fe Son, of Chicago, 

 who were prominent dealers in bee-keepers' supplies and pub- 

 lishers of the Bee Journal previous to June 1, 1892. At that 

 time the Bee Journal was sold to the present publishers, and 

 the bee-supply business continued by Thomas G. Newman 

 until Sept. 16, 1895, when he sold out to The A. I. Root Co. 



A^o^g tl;?e Bee-Papers 



Gleaaed by L>r. ItllUer. 



LONG-DISTANCE MAILING-CAGE. 



A. E. Manum describes in Gleanings a cage for mailing 

 long distances that seems admirably adapted for that pur- 

 pose. It contains at each end two of the usual compartments 

 filled with Good candy, and a central compartment with honey 

 in the comb. Outside, the cage measures 7!ix2}^xl>i, and 

 weighs, ready to mail, five ounces. It holds 75 or 80 bees, 

 with food to last at least 60 days. 



RAPE AS A HONEY-PLANT, ALSO FOR CATTLE, HOGS, AND 

 SHEEP. 



I received one pound of rape seed last spring, and sowed 

 perhaps a third of it on poor, sandy land, and my bees just 

 fairly swarmed on it for fully one month ; and I also cut it up 

 to feed my hogs on, and they ate it in preference to corn. I 

 had the rape along my pasture fence, and was compelled to 

 cut up all near the fence to prevent their reaching through to 

 get at the rape, and my cattle were not short of pasture, 

 either. I think it is one of the best honey-plants I ever saw, 

 not even excepting white clover. I do not know how much 

 honey my bees gathered from rape, simply because I was run- 

 ning them for increase this year ; and I thrashed 23^ bushels 

 of seed. — Jas. Pratt, in Gleanings. 



RIPE HONEr FOR WINTER AND SPRING. 



G. M. Doolittle says in Gleanings : " In my opinion, up- 

 on the injudicious use of the extractor is chargeable much of 

 the loss of bees in winter; for where we hear of large yields 

 of honey taken with the extractor late in the season, we al- 

 most always hear of a corresponding loss of bees by the same 

 parties the next spring. To overcome this difficulty it is bet- 

 ter to set aside enough combs of thoroughly ripened, sealed 

 honey during the season to winter our bees ; and then, when 

 the honey-yield is over, exchange combs with the bees, ex- 

 tracting all that is left in the combs taken from the bees, if 

 we so desire. In this way we are sure that the bees have 

 such honey as they ought to have to winter on. This applies 

 only to those who are prone to extract too closely during the 

 season ; but it is a good plan to work a few colonies for such 

 combs of thoroughly ripened honey to be used in case of 

 emergency, no matter how the bees are worked." 



SECOND-HAND SQUARE OIL-CANS. 



After a 20-years' experience, using thousands of cans, I 

 am better satisfied with good oil-cans than to buy new ones. 

 I have bought Lower California honey in new cans that were 

 made of poor or lead tin, and so poorly put together that 

 nearly all were in a leaky condition ; but good oil-cans, al- 

 ways rejecting those that are rusty inside, being crimped at 

 the seams, very seldom leak there, and, if well cleaned, I like 

 better than the new ones made on this coast. I give 8 to 10 

 cents for them. I melt off the four faucets by setting four 

 cans, with the corners that have the the faucets, together, 

 putting a shovel of hot coals on them. A good worker can 

 clean about 100 in a day by putting in a handful of un- 

 slacked lime in each, with three or four quarts of boiling 

 water. After it is slacked, rinse it well, and afterward rinse 

 out twice with cold water, washing them twice with lime. In 

 that way it will clean them perfectly. — S. S. Butler, in Glean- 

 ings. 



IS THE HONET-BEE INDIGENOUS TO THIS COUNTRY ? 



The only authority quoted by Dr. Belknap for the prob- 

 able existence of the bee in any part of the United States is 

 the finding of a single pot of honey by the expedition of 

 DeSoto at a place called Chiaha, on an island surrounded by 

 shallow water, supposed to be on the upper part of the Mobile 

 river, in Southern Georgia. I have referred to the narrative, 

 as translated by Purchas, and find that this was the only 

 honey seen or heard of by the expedition, which met with no 

 bees. The granaries and storehouses of the natives were con- 

 stantly ransacked by these needy Spaniards, from June, 

 1539, to July, 15-13 ; and Barton pertinently remarks, " Had 

 the honey-bee been a native of the countries which were the 

 scene of DeSoto's villainies, the valuable products of this in- 

 sect would have been frequently met with, and the bees, ia 

 territories pregnant with a profusion of nectareous plants, 

 would have been seen very often, and in great numbers." 



In addition to the above I may add that I have carefully 



