AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



663 



™OS.G,lfflW«J.fcSS 



TlIOJflAS «. I^E^VIflAI^, 



EDITOR. 



VoLIXVII. May 21, 1891. No, 21, 



Editorial Buzzi}igs. 



Pity tlie One -who never sees 

 The butterflies, the birds, the bees. 

 Nor hears the music of the breeze 



When zephyrs soft are blowing'. 

 Who cannot in sweet comfort lie 

 Where clover blooms are thick and hig-h, 

 And hear the gentle nmrmur nig-h 



Of brooklets softly flowing. 



Krost last Saturday night, In the 

 northern portions of Illinois and Ohio, 

 greatly damaged fruit and vegetables, 

 entailing a loss of many thousands of 

 dollars. Even growing corn was nipped 

 and wheat badly frosted. 



Xlie Foul-Brood Bill was 



killed in the Wisconsin Legislature. It 

 died for the want of votes. The disease 

 is spreading in that State, and the Wis- 

 consin Farmer of May 9, says: "If 

 the disease continues to spread, the 

 time will soon come when bee-keeping 

 in Wisconsin will be a thing of the 

 past." 



Iniportiiis: Bees toy Mail.— 



This is now illegal, as will be seen by 

 the following correspondence. Mr. O. 

 B. Barrows writes us from Iowa thus : 



On May 5 I saw the following para- 

 graph : 



The Customs Collector of New York is au- 

 thorized by the Customs Department to order 

 the release, on the expected arrival there, of 

 a shipment of Italian queen-bees,sent through 

 the mails from Italy, to a citizen of Iowa, 

 upon payment of a fine equal to the duty 

 thereon. These bees are liable to duty at 20 

 per cent, ad valorem. 



I immediately wrote to the Custom 

 House officer at New York, and to-day 

 (May 11) received the following reply : 



"I am in receipt of your letter of the 

 5th inst., stating that you anticipate the 

 arrival in this country, through the 

 mails, of a package to your address, and 

 asking for certain information as to the 

 duty thereon, etc. I have to say that as 

 soon as any package arrives in the mails 

 addressed to you, you will be duly noti- 

 fied of the arrival, and as to what steps 

 will be necessary for you to take in the 

 matter ; but you are informed that the 

 importation through the mails of any 

 dutiable merchandise (except books and 

 printed matter), is a violation of the 

 law, and subjects the articles so im- 

 ported to forfeiture." 



As the American Bee Jouenal (if I 

 remember rightly) has stated that there 

 was no duty on bees, will the editor 

 please explain whether this is a new 

 (under the McKinley Bill) law, or a new 

 construction of the old law ? 



Each bee-keeper expects to comply 

 with the law, if he knows what it is, 

 and perhaps you can enlighten some 

 others who are as ignorant as your sub- 

 scriber. O. B. Baekows. 



As will be seen on page 632 of our 

 last issue, this is the result of the new 

 (McKinley) law. Queen-bees were ad- 

 mitted free under the old law exempting 

 "animals for breeding purposes." The 

 ruling is 7icw, placing them under simi- 

 lar restrictions (in the matter of pedi- 

 gree, etc.) to horses, cattle, and other 

 animals. Had it not been new, we should 

 have informed our readers early enough 

 to have prevented this annoyance. 



Do ]Vot Open the hives when it is 

 too cold in the shade for the bees to fly. 



