370 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



July 



thought of following swarms on horseback ; 

 but around liere the fences would be an ob- 

 stacle. You were near the open prairie, and 

 that boy plowing, alarmed in time by your 

 (iSw-beil (who says cow-beils don't do goodV) 

 was just in trimto give us the desired infor- 

 mation we now want. Doubtless, he thought 

 he had made a failure of it ; but if you know 

 where he is now, just tell him we have 

 placed a dollar to his credit, for that seven- 

 mile ride. Let us sum up. We now know 

 that a swarm of bees sometimes goes as far 

 as seveii miles, and that they travel, when 

 on the " war-path." sometimes, at least, as 

 fast as a horse gallops, and now we want to 

 know how fast that horse went* Probably 

 10 miles an hour, friend F.?— I think some 

 bees, or bees sometimes, perhaps, remember 

 their location the fall before; and other 

 times, or other bees, do not. 



-sa- 



A NEW BEE JOURN.lIi. 



er late, the advent of a new bee journal 

 has become quite a novelty ; more so, 

 in fact, than their departure. But 

 here lies before us a genuine sample of 

 " Vol. I., No. 1," of the Avierican AincuUu- 

 rist, S. M. Locke, Editor and Proprietor, 

 Salem, Mass. It contains 2i pages of read- 

 ing-matter, 51 X 9i, besides 8 pages of adver- 

 tisements. It is set in " long-primer " type, 

 which is two sizes larger than this, leaded, 

 making a y^xY readable page. The press- 

 work is very good, and great care seems to 

 be taken by the proof-reader. The high 

 quality ol^ the advertisements is especially 

 commencTable. In short, Bro. Locke has 

 left little if any room for complaint from 

 any who want a good bee journal. Month- 

 ly; $1.00 a year. 



The irrepressible and inimitable Hasty 

 furnishes the following article, which we 

 copy for its intrinsic merit, and as a fair 

 sample of the journal : — 



POPDTjAR misapprehensions in REG.IRD TO BEE 

 CtTLTURE. 



''Fussing with bees," is what they call it, because, 

 you see, they do not think it laborious enough to be 

 called wrtrk — a very suitable occupation for confirm- 

 ed invalids, and constitutionally tired and )c-tired 

 clerKymen, and for ladies in search of a sphere. 

 These ideas can not be squelched at once, but we can 

 put in our protest, and some day or other the truth 

 will prevail. 



Some women can keep bees. And just so some 

 women can raise forty acres of corn. Success in 

 either path must be won by downright hard work. 

 As a vocation for women, bee-keeping does have 

 this much in its favor: that great tyrant, "Society," 

 gives permission to keep bees; while if a woman 

 essay the forty acres of cnrn^ society would frown 

 her down asanamazon. The woman who goes at 

 bee-keeping as the half of female domestics go at 

 housework, or as one-half of well-born daughters go 

 at their various ways of disguising idleness, can do 

 nothing else than fail. 



Some invalids can get a few beee, and, by healthful 

 work in the open air, build up their health while 

 they are building up their apiary; but nothing but 

 a ruinous ftiilupc could come of the attempt to run 

 a large apiary at once — unless the alleged invalid 

 had somewhere, either active or latent, a large 

 capacity for work. Invalids that suffer seriously 

 when exposed to hot sun, or in any way subject lo 

 overheating of the blood, had better let bee-keeping 

 alone. A man who is going to run a hundred colonies 

 of beeg through the swarming season needs be a 

 regular salamander, almost as much so as if he were 

 a puddler of iron, or a steamboat fireman. A little 



rebate may be granted here. Nothing herein con- 

 tained is intended to forbid a confirmed invalid, or 

 any other man or woman, from keeping a few bees, 

 and supplying her own table with honey. 



Clergymen are subject to the same restraint as to 

 a vocation that women are. Parishioners would 

 kick up such a row about the matter that walking- 

 papers would have to be made out, if the pastor 

 should mend boats, or keep a grocery. Excepting 

 work with the pen, scarce any thing could be named 

 that would provoke so little opposition as bee-keep- 

 ing—but no lazy folks need apply. At any rate, 

 unless the support be very inadequate, and the need 

 of more income quite urgent, a pastor should 

 usually be content with a small apiary. A little 

 change of thought, and its accompanying exercise 

 in the open air, will not injure the quality of the 

 Sunday's sermon, but improve it. Keally, fellow- 

 mortals, let us pity the sorrows of the poor clergy- 

 men—required to dress and live like $5010 a year, 

 while receiving $300 and a donation of the cold- 

 victual sort. 



In thus affirming that bee-keeping is hard work, I 

 do not assert that great strength is absolutely re- 

 quired. People who can lift but a small number of 

 pounds may succeed, if that is all the disability. 

 Strength often comes very handy, however; and 

 considerable expenditure of muscle must be put 

 forth for many hours of the day. I have been a 

 farmer-boy under a good old farmer who was a foe 

 to both leisure and play; but I think I never in my 

 life wrought so many hours as last summer with my 

 bees. Apiary work has much of it to be done in a 

 half-bent posture, and is the harder on that account. 



To go for another misapprehension, bee-keeping 

 is very dirty work. Outsiders think it is nice — 

 misled, probably, by the dainty purity of a section 

 of clover honey. Alas ! there is a difference between 

 the product and the work, as much as there is 

 b'^tween a nice sheet ef white paper and the work 

 of gathering and sorting the rags. If one contem- 

 plated becoming a sailor, he would i-egret the hard 

 jiecessity of getting used to having his hands con- 

 tinually covered with pitch and tar. Between 

 tar and propolis, there is scarce a penny to choose. 

 There are agents that will remove propolis from the 

 hands, but practically one has to get used to having 

 his hands stuck up with it most of the time. If 

 something that it will not do to defile must be 

 touched, just rub the hands with soil or sawdust, or 

 clench the smooth branch of a tree, and wrench the 

 closed flr)gers around it until the propolis, partly 

 rubbed off and partly glazed over, ceases for the 

 moment to stick. 



A brand-new misapprehension that has got afloat 

 of late is that bee culture is enormously profitable, 

 a regular bonanza, in fact, say 100 colonies yielding 

 $50 each, equal to $5000 per year. I fear that the 

 sulphurous and nigritudinous lies some brethren 

 and sisters have been telling are responsible for 

 much of this. When you find a bee-man who makes 

 $5000 per year on his bees, just cast a net over him 

 until the rest of us can come and take a good look. 

 The net will last many years before it is worn out. 



Another misapprehension that I fear has gained 

 some currency is that apiculture is a matter of such 

 simple routine that any person, even though not 

 naturally ingenious or thoughtful, can easily master 

 it. This looks to me as the most rank error of all. 

 A bungler can not keep bees with success. In 

 scarcely any other avocation is a living won by so 

 large an expenditure of brain. 



To all these disadvantages another must be added. 

 The business has a spice of lottery about it. Fright- 

 ful losses are liable to corne in February, March, and 

 April, sweeping away perhaps five hundred dollars' 

 worth of bees as with the " bees-em " of destruction. 

 Moreover, once in a while will come a summer in 

 which scarcely a pound of surplus honey can bo 

 obtained. The downcast bee-man, with no income 

 at all to draw on, must either buy barrels of sugar to 

 feed the bees for their winter food, or sacrifice a 

 part of them. That is to say, part must be sold for 

 the trifle they will bring, and the money spent in 

 sugar to winter the rest; or else colonies must be 

 united with each other, possibly some destroyed 

 altogether, and what honey there is concentrated in 

 a few hives, to keep a fraction of the apiary alive 

 till spring. 



There, now! I've pretty much said it. And there 

 are lots of things on the other side of the shield that 

 I have not tried to say. With all the drawbacks, 

 bee-keeping is an intensely fascinating pursuit. 

 Many fail. Some succeed. A very few employ men 



