448 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 



to consideration that we are, very many of 

 ns, liable to this very weakness. I should 

 infer from your statement, that your wife is 

 taking one side of the querftion, and you the 

 other, and I fell to wondering if in your zeal 

 to carry your point, you did not forget the 

 real spirit of the Master, who told us that 

 "the Sabbath was made for man, and not 

 man lor the Sabbath." If you are really for- 

 getting your religion in your zeal for bee 

 culture, of course your wife should remon- 

 strate ; but the remonstrance should be in 

 the spirit of great love and kindness, should 

 it not ? And you on your part, if you think 

 differently, should present your views with 

 this same spirit. Candidly, I do not know 

 whether one ought to stay at home from 

 church or not to look after his bees. Doo- 

 little, who has written pretty fully on this 

 subject, seems rather to think he should ; 

 and if I raised comb honey as he does, it is 

 possible I might do the same. And yet for 

 all that, I am afraid my conscience would 

 trouble me sorely, if passers-by on their way 

 to church saw me, Sunday after Sunday, 

 with my coat off, flying around among the 

 bee-hives. I think I should try very hard to 

 go to church. I believe that the way I 

 should try would be to ask God, on bended 

 knee, to help me to plan some way by which 

 my influence might be thrown strongly and 

 constantly on the side of Christianity. 



OBITUARY. 



^E take the following from July No. of 

 the Exchange, and we hope our friends 

 will not fail to gather the moral con- 

 tained in the sad notice. 



Died at Denvor, Colo., .liine 16, of hasty consump- 

 tion, Theodore Houck, olCanaJoharie, N. Y., aged 'id 

 years and 3 months. 



We are reminded, in the death of Mr. H., of the 

 frailty of this life. Up to the first of last January, 

 Mr. H.was a perfectly healthy man, having passed an 

 examination just prior to that for a life insurance. 

 On the 3d of .January ho attended the meeting of the 

 Eastern N. Y. Bee-FCeepers' Convention, held at Al- 

 bany. He put up at a hotel that night, and was as- 

 signed a room and bed that bad not been used for 

 some time. The consequence was, he took a severe 

 cold, which settled on his lungs, and hurried him to 

 the grave with quick consumption. 



Mr. Houck was a thorough bee-man, beginning 

 when a boy, and continuing until health gave out 

 and death came. He loved the bees, and was never 

 happier than when among them. His public career 

 was short. About 18 months ago he purchased the 

 Bcc-Kccpers' Exchange from Mr. J. H. Nellis, and 

 conducted it up to within a very few weeks of his 

 death, his failing health compelling him to place 

 it in other hands. He leaves a widow, bowed down 

 with grief, having in one short year burled her hus- 

 band and little boy, their only child. 



We extend our heartfelt sympathies to her in this 

 hour of affliction, and pray that He who doth not let 

 a sparrow fall to the ground without his notice will 

 comfort and sustain her, and erive to her that grace 

 which will enable her to say, " Thy will be done." 



Thus you see, friends, a valuable life was 

 lost by a little carelessness in regard to a 

 sleeping-room. Carelessness and heedless- 

 ness are bad enough ; but when it comes 

 to result in the death of a fellow-being, it 

 seems awful to think of. As many valuable 

 lives have been lost in this way, we trust 

 that the importance of this matter of bed^ 

 rooms and bedding may receive the atten- 

 tion it demands. Poor friend Houck, full 



of business, and full of zeal and work, as we 

 are all of us now at this time, was obliged to 

 lay down his life, and bid adieu to his 

 friends, almost without warning. We echo 

 the concluding sentiment, "May He who 

 watches lovingly over all, comfort that be- 

 reaved wife ! " 



OUR OWN APIARY. 



ITS CONDITION THIS 6TH OF .lULY, 1883. 



■jflp T seems that Gleanings has lost one of its most 

 interesting features — to us at least, for we oft- 

 en used to meet with an article with the head- 

 iug,"Our Own Apiary," right from your honorable 

 self, which was of great interest to us, and, we pre- 

 sume, to all your readers living outside of your lim- 

 its. So, please take the hint, and do so again. 



S. D. Haskin and others. 

 Chandler's Valley, Pa., July 3, 188.'!. 



Well, friend XL, I shall be exceedingly 

 happy to accommodate you, but very likely 

 you and some " others" may be a little dis- 

 appointed. Perhaps not at the amount of 

 the business done in our apiary, but at the 

 condition in which you would find it, if you 

 were to visit us just now. For some days 

 past I have been wondering if some of the 

 friends would not feel a little disappointed on 

 making us a visit, after what I have taught 

 in the A E C book about system and order. 

 I presume you all know what I told you in 

 our June Juvenile. Well, our constant 

 aim has been to deal justly with our patrons, 

 rather than to take valuable time and skill 

 in putting things to rights, as we should do 

 if it were not for the great rush of business. 

 Our apiary to-day comprises about 200 col- 

 onies. The bees in the 200 hives, however, 

 ought to be in 400, according to my notion. 

 Were you to take a peep into the hives, you 

 would very likely find quite a number build- 

 ing combs back of the division-boards. In 

 some places you would lind odd-sized frames 

 of combs, sent us by those who have sold us 

 bees, standing in divers shapes in the chaff 

 hives, waiting to be transferred, and some 

 of them have been waiting so long that they 

 are now bulged and heavy with clover hon- 

 ey. Only yesterday our apiarist lifted out 

 four such combs, and stood them against a 

 chaff hive, and then began to consider where 

 he should put them. But before he got*^ 

 place for them, the sun swung around, and 

 one of them tumbled down in the grass, in a 

 heap, a nasty, squashy mess. The poor 

 daubed and draggled bees buzzed into a hive 

 not their own, at the risk of stinging the 

 queen. I wonder how many of you know 

 what an intolerable nuisance it is to have 

 hives in the apiary, containing odd - sized 

 combs. 



Even though our apiary does not present 

 a very tidy appearance, the hives are full of 

 bees and full of clover honey. On last 

 Monday we filled an order for 50 two-frame 

 nuclei, and it did not seem to thin off our 

 bees, or queens either. One of the boys is 

 just now at work pulling out the grass and 

 weeds around the hives and fixing a nice foot- 

 hold for the bees around the entrance, by 

 packing down a little shovelful of sandma^le 



