534 



•rHE SMBRICSH BBB JOURKMI*. 



Queries f Replies, 



Hiving Bees on Sunday. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 



Query 568.— Which is the proper thing for 

 a UhrlBtian man to do on the Sabbath, in 

 Bwarming time— stay at borne from church 

 and hive the swarms tnat issue, put on drone- 

 traps on that day, so as to detain the queens, 

 often causing worry and loss to both bees and 

 bee-keeper ? or let what swarms issue go to 

 the woods, as some of our most conscientious 

 people say that we should ?— Apis. 



Clip queens' wings.— P. L. Viallon. 

 Stay at home and hive the bees.— 

 Dadant & Son. 



The Christian man should always 

 stay at home and hive his swarms when 

 necessary.— J. P. H. BaowN. 



I stay at home and care for the 

 swarms, but I do no work with bees on 

 Sunday that can be done on another 

 day.— G. M. Doolittle. 



Save the bees, by all means. On the 

 subject of religion and morals, why not 

 consult the good and earnest Christians 

 f bout vnii. or in your neighborhood ? — 

 A. B. Mason. 



Being a preacher of the Gospel, I of 

 course do not stay at home to watch 

 the bees. I clip the wings of my queens, 

 and if a swarm issues on the Sabbath 

 while I am at church, they will return 

 to the hive, and try it again on Monday. 

 If it is right to pull an ox out of a pit 

 on the Sabbath, it is right, under ordi- 

 nary circumstances, to hive a swarm of 

 bees on that day.— M. Mahin. 



He should be governed by the dic- 

 tates of his conscience. If my ox should 

 fall into the ditch on the Sabbath day, 

 I should pull him out if I had to get a 

 derrick.- Mrs. L. Harrison. 



I see no harm in staying at home and 

 taking care of issuing swarms. The 

 queen and drone trap will prevent 

 swarming, and can be safely used for 

 that purpose. I do not allow my bees 

 to swarm naturally.— J. E. Pond. 



I would stay at home rather than 

 lose them. I would clip the wings of 

 all the queens, and cage them when 

 they swarmed, letting the swarming 

 bees return to the old hive— unless I 

 could find a better way.— C. C. Miller. 



It is certainly our duty to adopt 

 measures to prevent temporal loss, but 

 not at the expense of the spiritual ; and 

 here we will let every man's conscience 

 decide.— J. M. Hamisaugh. 



Save your bees any wav. If the 

 wings of the queens are clipped, it is 

 easy to save colonies with scarcely any 

 labor. We have simply to catch and 

 cage the queen. If one person must 

 remain at home each Sunday (but it is 

 only for a few weeks), by taking turns 

 this is not very trying, especially if one 

 has a good book or paper, as all should 

 have. — A. J. Cook. 



If one's colonies are not numerous, 

 traps can be used with little loss or in- 

 convenience, and therefore should be ; 

 but it is otherwise if the apiary is a 

 large one ; then, in my opinion, it would 

 be a Christian duty to stay at home 

 and save one's self, and therefore the 



world, from loss. But the injunction, 

 "Let every man be fully persuaded in 

 his own mind," is of the first impor- 

 tance.— K. L. Taylor. 



This is a moral question which I 

 think every Christian man or woman is 

 capable of deciding for himself or her- 

 self. The swarming season in my 

 locality does not include more than 

 three or four Sabbath days in the year; 

 and while watching over and caring for 

 my bees on these three or four Sab- 

 baths, I devote less time to my apiary 

 (on Sundays), taking the year around, 

 than I am compelled to do with my 

 small herd of Jersey cows.— G. W. 

 Demaree, 



I think that every " Christian man " 

 should be governed by the dictates of 

 his own conscience in cases of this 

 kind. If you are really a good Chris- 

 tian, you will not lose any of your 

 Christianity by remaining away from 

 church in the day time, tor a few Sun- 

 days, to hive what bees may swarm. 

 At the same time, you can read some- 

 thing besides political and sensational 

 papers.— H. D. Cutting. 



If yon must keep bees, I see no more 

 harm in giving them rtccfs.sac.v attention 

 on the Sabbath than feeding your 

 horses, milking the cows, etc. I have 

 had no experience with drone-traps — 

 you might try them and see how they 

 work. It would be folly to allow the 

 swarms to go to the woods.— C. H. 



DiBBERN. 



It is proper for a Christian man, or 

 any other man, to be diligent and cor- 

 rect in his business. We should feed 

 our horses, milk the cows, or if an 

 animal has fallen into the pit, pull it 

 out on Sunday, if we did not know it 

 before. We have no "Sabbath" as 

 such ; we have instead the Lord's Day 

 —a day of religious festivity and Chris- 

 tian work— not a day in which nothing 

 is to be done, but the one day in the 

 week in which the Lord expects full 

 time. If we have farms, if we have 

 animals, if we have bees, if we have 

 families, the Lord gave them, and he 

 expects us to care for them daily. — J. 

 M. Shuck. 



What is the proper thing for a Chris- 

 tian woman who has a baby, to do on 

 the Sabbath ? to go to church and let 

 the baby disturb half the congregation, 

 or stay home with it V Some maintain 

 that she should go, even if she has to 

 take the infant squall along. So some 

 argue that a bee-keeper should go to 

 church anyhow, to the neglect of im- 

 portant and unavoidable business, 

 which, if he is successful, God has com- 

 missioned him to attend to. I think 

 that no man should neglect important 

 business for tlie sake of appearing unto 

 men to be religious. The Savior did 

 not so teach. I believe in the spirit of 

 Christianity, and in the gospel of good 

 works, rather than in the letter and 

 the appearance. If we are especially 

 fitted to carry on any business, I be- 

 lieve it is our duty to guard it. Success 

 is a good thing for a Christian if he will 

 do good with the money. If one has a 

 large apiary, I hardly see how he could 

 neglect it in swarming time, if the 

 weather was fine. But we need not 

 watch the bees all summer. The 

 swarming fever is usually of short 



duration, and a skillful man knows 

 pretty nearly when to look for it. If 

 the queens' wings are clipped, and the 

 apiary managed to prevent after- 

 swarms, but little harm could come 

 from a short absence. I hardly ever 

 stay at home myself to look for swarms, 

 nor do I require the boys to do so on 

 Sunday. I never have lost but one 

 swarm while at church. But I live 

 within 80 rods of church, and am not 

 necessarily away more than two hours. 

 This is a question which every one 

 must answer for himself, in the light 

 of his surroundings, and of the appli- 

 ances which are known to the fraternity 

 to control swarming. When we have 

 learned to control swarms at pleasure 

 while working for comb honey or in- 

 crease, then the Sabbath question will 

 be easily answered. If it is right to 

 milk the cows and feed the teams on 

 Sunday, I cannot see where the harm 

 is for us to look after the bees, since 

 God implanted in them the instinct 

 which impels them to swarm.— E.Secor 



The proper thing for the Christian 

 man, or any other man, woman or child 

 to do is, to do right according to the 

 dictates of their own consciences, 

 whenever they are not, by so doing, in- 

 fringing upon the rights of others. 

 You will tail to find any injunction 

 anywhere within the Bible against 

 working or playing on Sunday. There 

 are such against working on Saturday, 

 the Sabbath ; but such able, religious 

 historians as Martin Luther, John Cal- 

 vin, Peter Heylin, John Frith, John 

 Milton and others, agreed that these 

 commandments were binding only upon 

 the Jews, else the Christian's day of 

 worship could not have been changed 

 from Saturday to Sunday— the day 

 which the Sun worshipers always held 

 sacred. The Bible Sabbath once hav- 

 ing been abrogated, there is no longer 

 any need of Christians keeping any day 

 as a holy day.— James Heddon. 



A "Christian" should make no at- 

 tempt to keep the Jewish Sabbath. It 

 cannot be done in this latitude— no 

 matter how much it may be attempted. 

 Christians are not bound by the old 

 Jewish law which Christ " took out of 

 the way, nailing it to his cross." Sun- 

 day is a day for religious devotion and 

 work, and it is no more harm to " hive 

 the bees " than it is to " milk the cow " 

 or " feed the stock " on that day. Christ 

 approved works of mercy and charity 

 even on the Jewish Sabbath ; and when 

 his disciples went through the corn- 

 fields on the Sabbath day and "plucked" 

 some of the "ears" for food, some of 

 the captious ones wanted Christ to re- 

 buke them— but he raised himself high 

 above the plane of their thoughts, and 

 refused to rebuke his followers, re- 

 marking : " The Son of Man is lord 

 [or master] also of the Sabbath." If 

 the bees swarm on Sunday, and you do 

 not use drone-traps, then stay at home 

 during the day and take care of the 

 swarms, and go to church in the even- 

 ing, if you have the opportunity ; it 

 will not interfere with your public 

 devotions more than two or three Sun- 

 days at most. We do not believe in 

 being " over righteous " or pbarasaical 

 — preferring to have our life and every 

 day actions plead for truth, justice and 

 right.— The Editor. 



