THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



371 



things from other journals for the Review 

 and have them "seasonable," if what 

 they publish is seasonable. I have fre- 

 quently had occasion to, and did, profit 

 by "unseasonable matter" in the bee- 

 journals, and also in other publications, 

 but it never occurred to me that if I 

 wanted seasonable information that the 

 last publication received should contain 

 just the information wanted. We've had 

 an unabridged dictionary and an ency- 

 clopedia for many j-ears, and they are full 

 of "unseasonable matter," but it's ready 

 for our use whenever we do want it; and 

 stored sway in such shape that we know 

 just where to find it when we want it. 

 The same is true of our bee-journal infor- 

 mation. At the close of each volume we 

 are furnished with an index that tells us 

 just where to find the information we 

 want; but it may not be in the last com- 

 pleted volume; and we may have to re- 

 fer to some older volumes; and it is verv 

 nice to have them bound in some wav, 

 for ready reference; provided they are 

 published in such shape as to make them 

 convenient to handle and put awav in a 

 book case. I have had a goodly number 

 of volumes of the American Bee Journal 

 bound, beginning with 1873, but some of 

 them are so large as to be very unhand v; 

 and in the later volumes advertisements 

 are so mixed with the reading matter, or 

 the reading matter so mixed in with the 

 advertisements, as to make them quite 

 cumbersome if bound; and one doesn't 

 care to have half of a volu...e of adver- 

 tisements bound for the sake of the half 

 volume of reading matter. 



I have a habit of making an index of 

 my own when reading an uncompleted 

 volume. If I find any thing I wish to re- 

 fer to again I note it down in my index; 

 and so, in a brief space, make such mat- 

 ter as I wish to refer to again, "season- 

 able." I have but one index for the 

 eight bee-journals that come to me, and a 

 single letter tells me which journal to 

 look in. For example, R stands for Re- 

 view; B for American Bee Keeper; V for 

 Progressive Bee Keeper; etc. 



[Dear Doctor, if the other journals 

 were all seasonable in their contents, and 

 you make up your department from 

 items culled from current issues of the 

 other journals, as you are expected to do, 

 your items would not be seasonable when 

 printed in the Review; at least, a large 

 number of them would not, but, as I said 

 in my editorial on the subject, this matter 

 of seasonableness can be earned too far; 

 as I have just intimated, j'0« have some 

 excuse or reason for giving items out of 

 season. 



The index in the journals, and such an 

 index as you make for yourself, are a 

 great help in overcoming the unseason- 

 ability of our bee-journals, but, if a man 

 doesn't know what he wishes to find, an 

 index is of no help to him. That is, if 

 a man reads of some little kink, and then 

 so long a time elapses before he can put 

 it into operation that he forgets all about 

 it, an index will not help him. If a man 

 would make a seasonable index, that is, 

 have an index in which is noted all of the 

 best articles from all of the journals, on 

 the subject of swarming, for instance, 

 another notation of articles on feeding 

 bees, and so on, covering all of the dif- 

 ferent prominent subjects, and then 

 would look up ail of these articles as the 

 season approached when the informatior 

 would be needed, the seasonabilit}' of bee- 

 journals would not be of so great impor- 

 tance to him. I think Mr. Doolittle does 

 something like this; but there are few 

 men like him. 



The Doctor refers to the dictionary as 

 containing unseasonable subjects. Yes, 

 and so do the bee books; and it is all 

 right that they should. They ought to 

 contain "the whole thing." A news- 

 paper is a typification of seasonabilitj'; a 

 book covers the whole ground; a journal 

 or magazine is a cross between the two. 

 —Ed.] 

 fa.steningdown -^ honey e.xtr.vctor 



SO IT C.\N NOT "D.\NCK." 



I presume many bee-keepers who use 

 an extractor have been pestered by the 

 extractor making an effort to "dance a 



