THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



811 



I 



as the best practical way to slip out of reach 

 of Uncle Sam's baby-killing Herods ; and 

 Mr. H. will not take umbrage to the title 

 given above. 



Well, what is it like ? Our only bee jour- 

 nal in newspaper form. Some grumble at 

 the form ; but this reviewer says, Let alone 

 there ! Let the baby wear such clothes as 

 most convenient. When you make it 10,000 

 subscribers the clothes can be remodled if 

 desired. Of much more significance is the 

 authorship of the Quarterly. Mr. Heddon 

 goes Mr. Alley one better, in that he makes 

 a journal which is more completely a one- 

 man journal than the Apiculturist. All right 

 — only for such a journal the one man wants 

 to be " powerful " and tactful, and strong, 

 and wise. Mr. Heddon's personal opinions 

 prune him down considerably (either for 

 good or for evil) in his qualifications for be- 

 ing a lone hand editor. He is death on side- 

 issues, and non-bee-keeping departments — 

 and incineration to thase outlying depart- 

 ments of bee-keeping itself which are merely 

 interesting and curious, without offering any 

 direct harvest of dollars and cents. 'Spects 

 that a few years' experience, in such a re- 

 stricted field as he has marked out for him- 

 self, will of itself incline him to broaden out 

 a bit, as a relief to his own mind. At any 

 rate he has had large success in getting big 

 crops of honey, and knows a thing or two 

 about it. 



Hello ! big mistake already. That was 

 Heddon before he became an editor. Hed- 

 don the editor doubts whether he can fill all 

 his columns with bee matter which .shall be 

 up to his standard ; and in that case he 

 actually proposes to fill up with family read- 

 ing. Well, well ! What will become then 

 of his protest against "Our Homes" in 

 Gleanings f 



You see I am just reading the Quarterly 

 for the first time. He thought he was send- 

 ing it to me regularly ; and I felt a little 

 spunky because he didn't send me a sample 

 copy, and held off. At length I sent on my 

 quarter, and he promptly sent it right back 

 with a good natured apology. H'm, how of- 

 ten sand instead of grease gets into the 

 wheels of life without any human design 

 about it ! 



The editor of the Quarterly prefers to as- 

 sume the manners of a boxer, rather than 

 those which would become a nurse for 

 babies. And in his boxing he lays some of 

 the heaviest cuffs at the mutual admiration 



spirit he finds prevailing. And about half 

 right he is, too. It is a virtue to speak as 

 well as we can occasionally of those we are 

 tempted to speak ill of ; but certain other 

 persons are so situated that it is our obvious 

 interest to favor them. Too constant ex- 

 change of compliments between such per- 

 sons gets to be slightly disgusting after 

 awhile. Husband and wife should kiss each 

 other, but not on the street corners as a gen- 

 eral thing. 



Of late Mr, Heddon has developed the 

 rather unexpected merit of not spending a 

 great deal of space in arguing about adul- 

 teration. He does, however, one thing which 

 is in the nature of a knock-down argument 

 — offers honey at a special and very low 

 price to bee-keepers who happen to have 

 more market than crop. If we suppose that 

 he reserves two or three cents a pound profit 

 for himself (not a wild supposition concern- 

 ing a man who is not in apiculture for the 

 fun of it) there then remains no margin of 

 profit to pay for the risks of wrong doing 

 and law breaking. At least his argument, 

 it is cheaper to produce and sell genuine 

 honey than to adulterate, seems pretty well 

 supported by his conduct. If he is now sell- 

 ing glucose right straight along, a Union 

 formed to fight adulturation should halt him 

 or confess impotence, one would say. 



In his salutatory Mr. Heddon says he has 

 made bee-keeping pay better than his other 

 pursuits, even in recent bad years. And his 

 newspaper office, worth some $5,000, he 

 bought with the earnings of his apiaries. 

 Tell you how to do the same for 2.5 cts, — for, 

 quoth he : 



" This paper like a book, will not be stronger 

 or weaker than its author," 



Let us proceed to extract some of these 

 bits of experience. In column 4 we learn 

 that in all but quite severe winters he finds 

 that his out-door bees get through in better 

 order than the cellar wintered ones. But 

 even Heddon can't tell us when the extra 

 severe winter is going to come. In column 

 .5 we are taught to have the hive white, to 

 throw off the summer's heat, and the pack- 

 ing box dark red, to absorb all possible of 

 the winter's sun heat. The packing is to be 

 of sawdust, and not too thick — in fact much 

 thinner than the usual practice, in order that 

 the winter sunshine may not be altogether 

 lost in it. He finds that with five winters' 

 test thin packing surpasses thick packing by 

 fifteen per cent. In column r> he warns 



