120 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



I have shown that inventions are in 

 demand. I now propose to touch upon 

 the other side of the question, namely, 

 that they are in excess. Some inventions 

 are lilve some men — it were better that 

 they had never been born. Many of the 

 so-called inventions have been a positive 

 curse to our industry. Beginners, and 

 over-enthusiastic bee-keepers, have 

 adopted them at a large expense, only to 

 find that they were a delusion and a 

 snare. And, too late, they discover they 

 might have tried a few to see whether 

 that number w^ould justify the adoption 

 of a larger number. 



In my travels recently among the bee- 

 keepers, I ran across three or four, who, 

 having been over-enthusiastic in regard 

 to the merits of a certain hive, had 

 made and put into operation anywhere 

 from 50 to 500. They had carefully 

 tried them, and had found them wanting, 

 and, at the time of my visit, I found the 

 hives stacked up by themselves, as it 

 were, a monument of apicultural foolish- 

 ness, and their owners well nigh dis- 

 couraged. Of course, they argued that 

 bees did not pay very well, and had come 

 to the general conclusion that the hives 

 recommended by Quinby and Langstroth 

 were best, after all. These are by no 

 means isolated cases. I hear of it 

 through correspondence too frequently. 

 It behooves editors, then, to be careful 

 what they recommend, or place before 

 the public. 



Perhaps it would not be too sweeping 

 to assert that about nine-tenths of the 

 apicultural inventions are absolutely 

 useless. They are a damage to the 

 poor people who are duped by them, and 

 a positive loss in time to the inventor. 

 Impractical inventions, as a rule, are 

 dreamed out by impractical men, and it 

 would be better if they never appeared 

 in the pages of a bee-periodical. 



A good many things that we younger 

 ones think we have discovered, were 

 years ago mentioned and described by 

 Father Langstroth and Father Quinby. 

 The most, I think, we can expect to do, 

 is to improve upon some old method or 

 device. While I would not discourage 

 invention, I certainly would warn the 

 novice against wasting too much time in 

 trying to get up something that will be 

 vastly superior to anything else ever 

 thought of, or dreamed of, by the fathers 

 of apiculture. 



There is just one thing more I should 

 like to speak of, although it is a little 

 foreign to the treatment of the subject 

 as above ; and that is, a sort of jealousy 

 among some of our apicultural inventors 

 as to who first originated or devised this 



or that thing. The priority of claim 

 rests not upon either one of the disput- 

 ants, as a general thing, but upon some 

 poor obscure bee-keeper who does not 

 care, who may have the credit of the 

 idea, so long as he and his bee-keeping 

 friends are benefited. He is not going 

 to lie awake nights to worry over it, 

 anyhow. 



I speak of this, because I have seen a 

 little undercurrent in some private corre- 

 spondence that passed through my 

 hands, and as long as the idea is simply 

 an improvement upon an old method, 

 and not legitimately an invention, what 

 matters it who has the credit ? If we 

 are jealous at all, let us be jealous for 

 each other — jealous that some one else 

 may have the honor rather than we. — 

 Read at the Michigan State Convention. 



Some Aiicnltnral Notes. 



J. M. YOUNG. 



A mild, pleasant Winter. 



The New Year came in like a lion in this 

 locality, with a northwest wind, accom- 

 panied with light snow. 



Bees were out enjoying the genial 

 warm sunshine, some two or three days 

 during the holidays. 



My notes written for the American 

 Bee Journal, will be chiefly directed to 

 beginners, but specialists may read them 

 too, if they want to. 



Closed-end frames "don't hit us " very 

 well. 



The American Bee Journal comes to 

 my desk this week, in a brand new 

 dress of beautiful clear type. It is now 

 a 2-column, 32 page folio, and chock 

 full of reading matter. 



Dr. Miller, a prominent apiarist of 

 this locality, is fixing up his business to 

 leave us and go south for his health. 



I have quite a lot of extracted honey 

 that has not candied yet, and the pros- 

 pects are that it will remain in its 

 liquid state all Winter. It was gathered 

 from Fall blossoms and from a rosin 

 weed that abounds abundantly in this 

 vicinity. 



Now is a good time to post up on Bee 

 literature during the long Winter even- 

 ings. If you do not take a bee-periodical, 

 subscribe at once, for you cannot keep 

 bees intelligently unless you keep posted. 

 The American Bee Journal and 

 Gleanings in Bee Culture, take the lead 

 over all periodicals published on this 

 subject. 



