80 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 



been, apparently, from the bees getting over 

 to one side, or one end, where there were no 

 stores. As this plan Avould, as a general 

 thing, have to be arranged for during warm 

 weather, so as to feed up to till the three 

 combs, we can't very well test it this winter. 



SIMPIilCITY IN DETAILS. 



HAS IT ANY THING TO DO WITH BEE CULTUKE; 



fJjHE older I grow, the more I am im- 

 pressed with the importance of hav- 

 — ' ing work so it consists of only a few 

 plain simple details. We are, as a class, 

 awkward and unwieldy ; and when I say 

 «ie, I mean humanity, myself included. In 

 my early lite I got scolded on almost every 

 side, because I could not understand on the 

 impulse of the moment, and I haven't got 

 over it yet. If they would give me direc- 

 tions, plain and simple, in a book, I conld 

 sit down and study it out ; and on this ac- 

 count I soon began to prefer our school text- 

 books to an oral teacher. The teachers, 

 many of them, had no patience with my 

 slowness and stupidity; but the books had 

 all the patience in the world, and would 

 keep still and let me take all the time I 

 wanted. So I loved the books, and by and 

 by astonished my teachers because I had 

 mastered difficult things in the books, with- 

 out being shown by siny one. Well. I sus- 

 pect there are lots of boys and girls like me 

 who will get along very well if you give 

 them time enough; and when they go to 

 school we usually give them time, I believe, 

 imtil time, if I am not mistaken, of ttimes 

 hangs heavily on their hands. Bat it isn't 

 convenient always to do this. There are 

 times when we want them to act at once ; 

 and* the great problem is, to make every 

 thing so plain that they can act at once, 

 without danger of making a mistake. (Some 

 errand must be done before a train goes out, 

 and a failure or mistake in directions may 

 result in the loss of much money or hard 

 work, and possibly loss of life. A lady men- 

 tioned, a few days ago, in a temperance lec- 

 ture, that she was once in a strange city, 

 and wanted to find a certain ])lace. She re- 

 ceived directions from different people; but 

 although they were all very kind and oblig- 

 ing, their directions were all based upon the 

 supposition that she had some general 

 knowledge of the city, which she had not ; 

 and so she wandered, until, in despair, she 

 applied to a small boy. His bright young 

 mind took in the situation of affairs at once, 

 and he directed,— 



" Why, missus, you just go till you come 

 to a house with an iron fence around it, and 

 that's the place." 



If she didn't know any thing about De- 

 troit she knew what an iron fence was, no 

 matter where she lived ; and thousands of 

 times in our lives we want just such direc- 

 tions as the boy gave. Now the point is, to 

 have our wits about us so we can always 



five directions as intelligibly as the boy did. 

 expect you will come back on me and say 

 I do not give my answers to your letters of 

 inquiry as plain as an " iron fence," by con- 



siderable, and I know they are not. The 

 trouble is, we are getting so many iron fences, 

 and every thing else, that even an old hand 

 might wander helplessly if he didn't look 

 out. 



A friend has just written an article de- 

 scribing an outer shell to set over a Simplic- 

 ity so as to make a chaff hive of it ; or, in 

 other words, to have a chaff hive so the in- 

 side could be lifted out and used as a sum- 

 mer hive. Now, although such an arrange- 

 ment might be very handy, it would be com- 

 plicating things so much more that I have 

 thought best not to publish it, and so with 

 hosts of new ideas. You may urge, that it 

 will do no harm to let everybody describe 

 his new inventions, and people can then use 

 them or let them alone. Very true ; but al- 

 most every thing of this kind I describe is 

 ordered forthwith by some of our ABC 

 scholars ; and if I won't make it for them 

 they get it made elsewhere ; and then when 

 it doesn't work, or lit in with plain direc- 

 tions I have given in the ABC book, they 

 write me long letters of explanation, and 

 want my advice. I am not complaining of 

 this at all, mind you, for I want them to 

 write and tell me all their troubles ; but 1 

 complain of myself many times, because 1 

 have been so foolish as to publish so many 

 new things to lead beginners out of the beat- 

 en path. 



A little while ago we talked of grading 

 the l-lb. sections. Well, if everybody used 

 them, and they were as staple as sugar and 

 soap, I could easily do it ; but if you push in 

 on us with a Hb. section, I should have to 

 grade them too ; and by and by even our 

 warehouse wouldn't hold them all. More 

 than that, if it did, the clerks couldn't find 

 what it was you were sending for; and 

 worse still, I should soon have my money all 

 locked up in such a chaos of " odd sizes " I 

 should be in danger of becoming bankrupt. 

 Who would want to learn bee culture when 

 it gets to be worse than learning a new lan- 

 guage ? Even the Simplicity hive that I 

 have fondly hoped would be the Simplicity 

 for a century at least, has had to have its 

 frames put crosswise as well as lengthwise ; 

 has had to have a new top and a new bot- 

 tom ; and now friend Hasty wants to put 

 shirts on them. We must stop somewhere, 

 or we shall all turn to chaff', and blow away. 

 There is no trouble about bees paying, if we 

 would manage them as simply as we did 

 when we first commenced ; for every num- 

 ber of Gleanings, and Juvenile too, is 

 full of accounts of the very great results 

 that have been attained by almost new hands 

 with only a few bees. 



It costs us tremendously to change bee- 

 feeders or queen-cages. We have to do ex- 

 pensive experimenting, get new tools and 

 machinery for making them, get engravings 

 for Gleanings and the price list, and final- 

 ly take out and fill in for the ABC book. I 

 tell you, brethren, I am going heavy on 

 " sticking to the old way," and I am going 

 to stop inventing new things, unless there is 

 a very large prospect of some great improve- 

 ment being made, by just giving a little 

 "twist or turn "to something we have got 

 already. Won't you go with me V 



