THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



185 



be the first to promulgate the thing. As by 

 the Review came the scratches, even so by 

 the Review came the ointment to cure it. 

 The general lines of thought and effort are 

 similar to those followed by Taylor, Aikin, 

 Wells, Coverdale, and probably others ; but 

 Langdon's method has a finished, practical, 

 licked-into-shape appearance to which the 

 others will probably bow with the best grace 

 they can command. " Beat the drums, here 

 the conquering hero comes," having won the 

 first campaign of a season's work in a large 

 apiary. Mary herself (on different lines) has 

 been a hard fighter against the swarming 

 nuisance — licked every time — and now with- 

 out tears she takes off her bonnet and walks 

 behind the victor's chariot — example for the 

 rest of you who have got left. And what a 

 lot of schemes and dreams, self-hivers and 

 self-everythings, queen-traps and rattle- 

 traps are now invited to go amiably to the 

 rubbish heap ! Still the hero of the first 

 campaign is not sure to turn up president at 

 the close of the war. But the method will 

 have a great run no doubt. In localities 

 where the honey season is short, sharp, early 

 and sure it hardly looks possible for it to 

 fail. Where swarming and surplus are both 

 possible for four or five months it may yet 

 run against some unforeseen stump. Mary 

 will venture the guess that it has come to 

 stay in nearly all comb honey out-apiaries, 

 but that many home yards will discard it 

 after awhile. 



Bee-keepers incline to be aesthetic in feel- 

 ing ; and they have greatly decried the old 

 bee-keeping, with its brimstone pit, for 

 cruelty. It is in order therefore to remem- 

 ber that the new plan is a cruel one — much 

 more cruel than extinguishing once for all 

 half the colonies in autumn. All the same I 

 suppose we must have the new plan, cruelty 

 and all, if it works. With experience we may 

 learn practical ways to mitigate the severi- 

 ties so that only the young queens and drones 

 will be starved, or at most only part of the 

 young workers. Water fount inside, and 

 wire grating to let the nurses on the plenty 

 side share the nectar they are holding with 

 the distressed nurses on the famine side, 

 look feasible. But if we should mitigate 

 all the cruelty the baby queens would not be 

 destroyed, swarming would follow, and the 

 whole thing " bust up." 



In a normal colony there are often several 

 pounds of partly grown larvae. Several 

 pounds of substance, largely water, must be 



forthcoming within three or four days to 

 complete the growth. Slide closes and not a 

 drop of water or a pellet of pollen can enter 

 for a week. Honey cannot possibly fill but 

 part of the need. There is some pollen on 

 hand, and some cells of diluted nectar food. 

 Then the nurses can probably draw on the 

 juices of their own bodies to a certain extent. 

 Next the larval drones are torn up and their 

 juices sucked out. Then, if the worker 

 brood are not grown, the full bitterness of 

 famine and death has come — not pleasant to 

 contemplate. The society for preventing 

 cruelty to animals has already arrested a 

 man for dehorning his cows ; and his fellows 

 are preparing to chip in and run the thing 

 up to the highest court. If that powerful 

 and popular society should summon friend 

 Langdon to come up to the captain's office 

 they would have a much stronger case than 

 can be made against the dairymen. 



The General round Up. 



We must keep a sharp eye on that Ram- 

 bler, and the plan he proposes in last Re- 

 view, page 134. Outwardly we cannot very 

 well howl " Swindle ! fraud ! dishonesty !" 

 but how some of us will ruminate these 

 words inwardly, if he sends a car load of 

 California fruits, nuts and honey to each of 

 our county towns ! In fact man is so got up 

 that he thinks whatever pinches his individ- 

 ual corns must be a fraud — no further argu- 

 ment needed, or tolerated. But, from a Cal- 

 ifornia point of view, the wisdom of using 

 commission men instead of antagonizing 

 them, and then sprinkling car loads all 

 through the territory they do not cover, is 

 superb, 



S. E. Miller in the Progressive addresses 

 his chief as " Mr. Higginsville," because he 

 neglects to run up his name. Right. Hit 

 him again. In specialist journalism when 

 an editor wants to hide his personality of ten- 

 er than not it is because he is ashamed of 

 his work — or lack of work. Make him avow 

 himself and he'll do a better job. 



The last American Bee-Keeper, with a 

 quiet dignity that sounds like an editorial 

 from some other world than this, says of 

 sugar-honey — 



" We are perfectly willing to have the subject 

 thoroaghly discussed through our colnmns." 



Doolittle in the American Farmer, quoted 

 in the Guide, page 70, proves the point that 

 bees do not always die from losing their 

 stings. Somewhere, not long since we had 

 seemingly reliable observations of the num- 



