AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



759 



Wavelets o! News. 



Honey-Dew as Winter Stores. 



The fifth annual Illinois State Conven- 

 tion of the Young People's Society of 

 Christian Endeavor met in this city last 

 week, and one thousand and forty-three 

 delegates registered from abroad. Many 

 others, taking advantage of the cheap 

 rates, visited this city; among them Greo. 

 Poindexter, of Kenney, 111., Who has an 

 apiary of 140 colonies. 



He said that he took a pointer of how 

 bees would Winter upon honey-dew 

 from this circumstance : He took three 

 queen bees to the State Fair, two of 

 them caged upon a section of honey-dew, 

 and one of them upon last year's honey. 

 When he had returned home he found 

 that the bees and queens caged upon the 

 honey-dew were all dead, while the one 

 upon last year's honey was lively. He 

 thought that there might not have been 

 sufficient ventilation, and this made him 

 think that colonies would require abund- 

 ant ventilation this Winter on account 

 of their stores. — Mrs. L. Harrison, in 

 the Prairie Farmer. 



Brown's Queer Bee-Tree. 



Joseph Brown, who works in the lum- 

 ber woods near Galeton, Pa., came into 

 town and got William Squires to go with 

 him to Bald Hill to help him gather the 

 stores from a bee-tree he said he had dis- 

 covered on his way in from the woods. 



"I heard the bees buzzing in the tree 

 while I was five rods away from it," 

 Brown said, " or I wouldn't have dis- 

 covered it." 



The men took with them 3 patent pails 

 to hold the honey, an ax to cut the 

 tree down, and a lot of sulphur to burn 

 in the hollow, for the purpose of smooth- 

 ering the bees. Brown led the way to 

 the tree, but they could not hear the 

 humming. The tree was hit with the 

 ax and the humming struck up immedi- 

 ately, and so loud as to startle the young 

 men. They found near the bottom of 

 the trunk a hole where the occupants of 

 the tree had made their entrance, and 

 the sulphur fire was started there, and 

 its stifling fumes went up into the hollow 

 tree. For a time the buzzing inside was 

 terrific, but gradually grew fainter and 

 fainter as the sulphur had its deadly 

 effect, and finally ceased entirely. 



" Now we'll cut her down and gobble 

 that stock of honey," said Brown. 



The tree was chopped down, and when 

 it fell and displayed its hollow interior, 

 the two bee hunters were not only sur- 

 prised but disgusted. Instead of layers 

 of rich honey they were greeted by the 

 sight of a tangled mass of rattlesnakes, 

 which had been suffocated by the sul- 

 phur fumes. The snakes had chosen the 

 hollow tree for their Winter home. There 

 were fifty-eight large rattlers and eight 

 blacksnakes, a puff adder and three 

 copperheads in the collection. The noise 

 Brown had thought was the buzzing of 

 wild bees was made by the rattling of 

 rattlesnakes in chorus as he was passing. 

 Brown and Squires Will get about two 

 gallons of oil out of the rattlesnakes, 

 which will net them at least .$100, so 

 their queer bee-tree will pan out a good 

 day's work after all. — New York Sun, 



Mineral Wax. 



At the mouth of Nehalem River,on the 

 coast of Oregon, a very queer substance 

 is found. It has the appearance of a 

 mineral at first sight, but on close in- 

 spection, and under practical test, it 

 app^rs to be beeswax. It has all the 

 useful properties of beeswax, and it is 

 sold in Astoria at the regular market 

 price of the beeswax. It is washed 

 ashore at high tide in quantities ranging 

 from a lump the size of a walnut to a 

 chunk weighing 150 pounds. It is also 

 found on shore, in black soil where trees 

 are growing, at considerable elevations 

 above the water. 



A piece of this strange substance has 

 just been submitted to expert examina- 

 tion in New York, and is declared to be 

 what is known as mineral wax. This 

 substance has for years been known to 

 exist in the lignite beds of the North- 

 west. The quantities found on the 

 Oregon coast would seem to indicate the 

 existence of a tertiary lignite bed in the 

 neighborhood. It belongs to the hydro- 

 carbon series allied to the retinites and 

 ambers — fossil remains of resinous trees 

 of the tertiary age.— Pittsburg Dispatch. 



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