112 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



terprise aud bare browu hands. Catch your 

 swarms instead of buying ; make your own 

 fixtures, and go in. 



I'll cheat Dr. Miller out of part of his dues 

 this one time, as he happens at the same 

 trade as myself, reviewing, and kindly re- 

 views me in advance. If I review him in re- 

 turn, and then we reciprocally review each 

 other a few more times, our reciprocations 

 might get as reiterative as the nursery story 

 of the kid that would'nt go ; and the Review, 

 on a candid review of our mutual reviews 

 might wish itself out of the whole business 

 " an hour and a half ago." By the way what 

 is the famous Stray Straw page but a review 

 of all beedom, boiled down to its most con- 

 centrated, vivid, sparkling form ? 



The Daggitt smoker certainly looks prom- 

 ising. If a satisfactory double bellows can 

 be constructed of suitable size it promises a 

 royal cure for an arch-nuisance, soot and tar 

 just where they are least wanted. But many 

 a winning idea lingers for years for lack of 

 a winning body to mate its soul. Only when 

 concrete and tested can we proclaim it the 

 smoker. If this bellows were put upon the 

 Clark smoker would not the Clark continue 

 to work in the same delightful way it usually 

 does when new ? The smoker is our most 

 important tool ; a poor one is the plague of 

 one's life ; the best possible one is greatly to 

 be longed for : and now we have smoker on 

 the carpet let's keep it there till something 

 to our profit materializes. 



B. Taylor seems specially near to us be- 

 cause we do not often see him spread around 

 in the other journals. He just belongs to 

 our own ingle-side. As a writer he has one 

 captivating quality to an unusually high de- 

 gree. What to call it I hardly know, unless 

 we call it transparency. When he is telling 

 something he is intensely interested in, his 

 interest becomes visible and contagious ; 

 and yet he seems to be unconscious of it, 

 somewhat as the glow-worm is of his shin- 

 ing. In the present letter something of this 

 appears where he tells of the joy in making 

 over again the machinery he sold for nearly 

 ifl.'jOO last spring. A parallel bar that will 

 move anywhere without delay, fuss, or mis- 

 take is indeed a valuable addition to a saw. 

 May it prove all that is hoped for it, and 

 come into general use. 



R. C. Aikin is one of our Review children 

 too ; and this time with K. D. arguments he 

 is defending his Knock-Down hive — just as 

 most of us would do if standing in his shoes. 



This number is a " good number " in hav- 

 ing nine columns editorial. See how 1 tell 

 my "pa" to do things after he has already 

 begun to do them ! News to me is that fun- 

 ny kink about the California red-wood — 

 shrinking endwise, and holding its lateral 

 dimensions true. Cheers for that oil stove 

 arrangement. Cellar air is quite poor enough 

 without defiling it with the products of com- 

 bustion. So let the hood of tin come well 

 abroad and down to catch the vitiated air, 

 and the stove-pipe junior run up to join the 

 big stove-pipe above — just as it ought to be. 



And now with shame I shall have to review 

 my review, and own up to the fib I told. My 

 memory was positive that I said bees with 

 stores behind them, meaning toward the 

 rear of the hive. My pencil-slip says so { I 

 usually write first in pencil and then copy 

 with ink for the printer), hut somewhere be- 

 tween my pencil and the finished print a 

 change got in. It was printed " stores be- 

 low them :" and already the ghosts of dead 

 colonies begin to " shake their gory locks " 

 at me. 



Wanted to "polish off" two journals in 

 this article, but can't come it. Its already 

 high time to prepare for the close by call- 

 ing— 



The General round Up 



Hear once how C. F. Muth in the Guide 

 goes back on sweet clover : 



" Infernal melilot. * * The English sparrow 

 iis a daisy to compare with it." 



Sparrow was brought over to eat insects. 

 It does. Never enough to amount to any- 

 thing. Sweet clover was introduced to yield 

 honey. It does. Does it often add many 

 pounds to anybody's surplus 'i Many men 

 of many minds. 



■' May it not be that the heating of the wax at 

 two distinct times renders the spores [of foul 

 brood] harmless ?"— J. H. Larbabee in A. B. J. 



May be that's it. Half kill a fellow, then 

 make him wait a few weeks without any 

 chance to recuperate, then half kill him 

 again. The professors must experiment on 

 this also. In such an important matter we 

 want all the points covered. 



The vote for Mr. Heddon as President of 

 B. K. Union is quite surprising. R. L. Tay- 

 lor 141, James Heddon VM. Heddon's speech 

 for letting alone the rogues the Union is 

 about to sail into was fresh in print if not in 

 mind at the time. It would be interesting if 

 we could know how far this vote represents 

 views of policy, and how- far mere personal 

 liking for the individual. 



