THE AMEKIOAN BEE JOURNAL. 



669 



■-m 





THOMAS Q. ITEWMAN, Editor. 



Voinni. Oct 19,188], No. 42. 



TFliisperins; Winds kiss the hills of Octo- 

 ber : 



Thistleiiown phantoms drift ovt^r the lawn ; 

 Red t.'luwB tlie ivv. hke irhusl-Iit-'hted ember, 



Shrouiled in mist breaks tiie slow cotiiiug dawn : 

 Sunlighted vistas the wuodjand disclnaes. 

 Sleeping in shadow the still lake reposes. 

 Gone is the summer, its sweets and its roses — 



Harvest is past and the summer is gone. 



Plaintively sighing, the hrown leaves are falling. 

 Sadly the wood-dove mourns all the day long ; 



In the dim starlight the katydids calling. 

 Hush into slumber the brook and its song. 



Gone are the sowers, and ended their weeping. 



Gone are the gleaners, and finislied the reaping. 



Blossom and bee with the song-bird are sleeping- 

 Harvest is ended and summer is gone,- Sel. 



A Book about Beest is the title of a 

 new apicultural work, by the Rev, F, G. 

 Jenyns, rector of Koebworth. and member 

 of the Committee of the British Bee-Keep- 

 ers' Association. It is intended mainly for 

 young people, but no one, of whatever age, 

 can peruse its pages without being greatly 

 profited. It treats of the history, habits and 

 instincts of bees, and teaches the fundamen- 

 tal principles of modern bee-kreping. It 

 consists of 200 pages, and Is finely illus- 

 trated. The author shows himself to be a 

 thorough master of the subject, and the 

 entertaining and instructive manner in 

 which the book is written, will captivate all 

 who read it. It is Just such a book as should 

 be in the hands of the young people of 

 every land, from which may be learned 

 those lessons of industry, economy and 

 thrift which are so essential to the fullest 

 measure of success. 



How Beeswax Is made by the bees, is 

 described in the following, found in Mur- 

 ray's Magazine : 



It is no mere extraneous substance which 

 needs only to be collected for use : it is a bit 

 of individual organic home manufacture. 

 If you examine the under surface of a cell- 

 building worker, you will find beneath the 

 abdomen four pairs of white plates project- 

 ing from as many pockets la the incasing 

 rings of this part of the body. These are 

 the wax plates, made from the life blood of 

 the worker, E.vamine now with a lens one 

 of the hinder legs. You will find that the 

 stoutest joints are very square shouldered 

 at the binge, and that the bingo is well over 

 to one side, so that the shoulders form a 

 pair of jaws, which open whea the limb is 

 bent, and close when it is straightened. The 

 upper jaw has a row of spines which bite on 

 a plate on the lower Jaw. With this appara- 

 tus, piercing it with these spines, the worker 

 withdraws a wax plate from its pocket, 

 transfers It to the front legs, and thence to 

 the mouth, where it is laboriomly masticated 

 with a salivary secretion. Unless It under- 

 goes this process it lacks the ductility re- 

 quisite for cell-making. 



The S. \%'. Rich Bee lianr-Snit was on 



trial last week in the Delaware County Court 

 in New York. The New York Times gives 

 this account of it : 



What is known as the " bee-suit " between 

 Stephen W. Rich, defendant, and John M. 

 Olmstead, plaintitT, both of Hobart, Dela- 

 ware County, is now being tried in the 

 Delaware County Court. The suit is of gen- 

 eral interest to bee-men everywhere. The 

 facts in the case are these: In the spring 

 of 1886 Mr. Olmstoad ordered Mr. Rich to 

 move 40 colonies of bees, Mr. Olrastead as- 

 serting that the bees were a nuisance. He 

 said if Mr. Rich did not remove them he 

 would make him do so. Mr. Rich has about 

 .300 colonies of bees, 50 in a place. He is a 

 mem her of the National Bee-Keepers' Union, 

 which is backing Mr. Rich. The suit is be- 

 fore .Judge Boaidman,of Ithaca. The .ludge 

 says he has never had a like euit before. 

 Men interested in bees and honey from 

 several States are in attendance at the trial. 



The legal gentlemen who bad charge of 

 the case were F. N. Gilbert and J.B.GIeason, 

 of Stamford, for plaintiff, and A. C. Crosby, 

 of Delhi, for defendant. We understand 

 that the witnesses numbered about 40 per- 

 sons. The damages were set at $1,200, but 

 the jury, after a brief consultation, awarded 

 b\ni8ix cents ! This virtually declared that 

 tbey were not a nuisance. 



The principal point made by the defense 

 related to the lack of proof of the identity 

 of the trespassing bees as the property of 

 the defendant, rather than of neighboring 

 bee-keepers. The court ruled that the mat- 

 ter of identity was a question of fact to be 

 passed upon by the Jury in connection with 

 the question of damages. 



The plaintiff asked for $1,200 damages for 

 injuries inflicted by the bees upon his per- 

 son and property, but the jury, from which 

 every person having bees was excluded, 

 gave him but six cents to cover wounded 

 feelings and damaged property I 1 



Another paper says that " the trial, involv- 

 ing questions novel and important to the 

 beekeeping industry, attracted wide public 

 attention." The result is an overwhelming 

 defeat for the enemies of the pursuit of bee- 

 keeping, and another victory for the Na- 

 tional Bee-Keepers' Union. 



Uses of Propolis.— A correspondent of 

 the New England Farmer writes as follows 

 about propolis : 



The word propolis is pure Greek, from pro 

 for, or in behalf of, and palis, a city. It 

 ■ omes to mean a defense, a protection. 

 That is what It is to the bees, a means of 

 defense in winter, and, in fact, at all times. 

 The bees defend themselves with propolis, 

 stopping all openings, making the hive 

 tight, even water-tight with it. During the 

 summer a bottom-board of a hive was 

 pierced in several places by wood-bur- 

 rowers, but every place was stopped by 

 propolis. Bees will close with propolis a 

 hole an inch in diameter. When cool weather 

 comes, the bees cannot mould this propolis 

 to their needs : therefore, what is done to 

 keep through the winter should be done be- 

 fore the propolis season closes ; the bee- 

 keeper should know before this time comes, 

 that his bees have stores enough for the 

 winter. To break open the brood nest in 

 November may be fatal to the bees, and it is 

 better not to do it, or have occasion to do it. 



Drones. — A correspondent in the London 

 Journal nf Horticulture argues that the 

 drones are of more value in a hive than 

 many are disposed to think. He says : 



Drones are generally described as if they 

 were ot a uniform character, and all having 

 the same note in their hum. It is not so. 

 There are as differences in drones as in 

 queens, from the noble and stately looking 

 fellow to the dwarf and almost imperfect 

 insect. Now it Is a fact, the more handsome- 

 looking the drone ie. the more attractive is 

 his hum. Am I right, therefore, in saying 

 that this is a law in Nature, that the queen 

 from the sound may select the most perfect 

 drone with ease, to the future prosperity of 

 the hive? Are drones of use inside a hive 

 or are they not ? The following account of 

 what I found in a few hives lately will an- 

 swer the question. 



A hive weighty with honey, having many 

 drones, but a paucity of bees, had brood in 

 five combs in all stages. Two of these combs 

 were almost totally occupied by drones, and 

 their position was changed daily. Not one 

 of these drones will be killed until young 

 bees are hatched. 



The second hive I examined had little 

 honey, few bees, and a moderate number of 

 drones. The queen was newly fertilized.and 

 the bees were already slaughtering the 

 drones. 



The third had a paucity of bees, drones, 

 and meat. They also were killing the drones. 



The fourth hive was not examined in- 

 ternally, because I observed from the mo- 

 tion of the bees the queen was still a virgin, 

 and likely to he fiying soon. The drones of 

 this hive were on tne wing, and the bees 

 were tugging at them, which, to the experi- 

 enced would be taken as an onset upon 

 them: but It is common when the queen is 

 unfertilized, the bees get impatient, and 

 hurry out the drones in the manner indi- 

 cated. 



The interesting part of it was, that as one 

 bee tugged the drone half over the landing 

 board, another flew directly to him and fed 

 him, and then out flew the queen, coming 

 back in less than twenty minutes with signs 

 of fertilization, and the following day was 

 laying. Another queen, however, that was 

 fertilized more than a week since, has not 

 yet laid an egg. The hive is well stacked 

 and stored in everything, and no drones are 

 being killed. 



Some five or six years since we stated in 

 these columns that we had reason to think 

 that the drones were of far more value in 

 the hive than they were generally thought 

 to be. The above extract looks the same 

 way. Further investigation may give us 

 more light. 



The Editor has been "on Jury duty " for 

 the past two weeks, and from Monday morn- 

 ing until Saturday noon was "locked up," 

 and not allowed any communication with 

 the outside world. Correspondents and 

 readers will herein find the reason for any 

 apparent dereliction in duty. 



In a I^ecture on bee-government by Mr. 

 Wait, of Georgia, at the Vermont State 

 Board of Agriculture, we find the following 

 perhaps rather over-drawn sentiment : 



Though bees are not made in God's image, 

 yet many of their habits — neatness.industry, 

 economy and government— may profitably 

 be imitated by men. It has been supposed 

 that their government is an absolute mon- 

 archy, but on the contrary, it is a more per- 

 fect monarchy than the world has ever seen 

 among men, and the females have their 

 equal share. Mr. Wait here drew an amus- 

 ing comparison between their government 

 and our own — not only in a political but in a 

 social sense. 



The motto on the cover page of the 

 November number of Frank Leslie's Sunday 

 Magazine— a journal of refined, useful and 

 interesting literature— is well carried out in 

 the November number. "Vesta and the 

 Vestals," by Marc F. Vallette, is very inter- 

 esting, and the illustrations picture some 

 recent discoveries in Rome. Several good 

 poems and many short articles make up an 

 excellent number of this favorite family 

 magazine. 



