178 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



through the wall of the building, 

 with an alighting board just be- 

 neath. The amount of honey stored 

 v.'as increditable. When winter came 

 the bees retired to the inner box 

 and their treasure was taken at 

 leisure or just as needed. There 

 are in mind two colonies so man- 

 aged, that for some twenty years, 

 or more annually yielded fine 

 stores, and only swarmed two or 

 three times in all those years. The 

 statement is made with delibera- 

 tion that a greater weight of bet- 

 ter matured honey can be secured, 

 year after year, in this way than 

 in any other whatever, and with 

 less care. 

 The number of 

 colonies kept at 

 that time ex- 

 ceeded those 

 now fTund in 

 the same terri- 

 tory, and their 

 yie'd was very 

 satisfa c t o r y. 

 Everyone kept a 

 fev>f colonies and 

 what a clanging 

 of bells and 

 beating of pans 

 during swarming 

 time. The cha- 

 riviri to the 

 "two made one" 

 of the present 

 day is hardly 

 a circumstance 

 But honey was 

 hardly an article 

 of commerc e, 

 but one of home 

 producti'^n and 

 cons u m p t i o n 

 rather, and of 

 friendly barter, 

 gift or exchange. 

 Shortly after the 

 Civil war, came 

 the Langstroth 

 hive, the wooden 

 frame, the beau- 

 tiful Italian, and 

 the abundant and fascinating liter- 

 ature of an expanding but meagerly 

 developed art. It became the day 

 of commercialism, rather than love 

 for investigation of the mysterious 

 and occult ways of a wonderful in- 

 sect. Colonies were greatly multi- 

 plied, the field was over stocked. 



Geo. W. WilliaiiLs, Redkey, Ind. 

 elected secretai-y-treasiiLrei" of the 

 Natonal at St. Louis February 191 -t 



the unripened product, thin and 

 watery was prone to sour, and an 

 industry that flashed up like a 

 meteor fizlcd out in ignominy. 

 Then came the day of the special- 

 ist, with wider knowledge, with 

 closer care, with greater skill, with 

 more love and in consequence 

 greater profit and success. But with 

 all these the production of honey 

 sixty years ago was much greater 

 than now. 



Other factors have entered into 

 this problem making the production 

 of honey now more uncertain than 

 in that long ago. I recall when 

 buckwheat was raised on almost 

 every farm and what a gathering 



therefrom and 

 how strong and 

 well provided 



the colonies en- 

 tered the win- 

 ter, in that day 

 the clover sick- 

 ness of the soil 

 was a thing un- 

 known and it 

 filled the earth 

 in its plentitude. 

 The forests were 

 yet uncalled and 

 in their glory, 

 keeping the as- 

 per winds of 

 early spring 

 from sweeping 

 the surface of 

 the earth with 

 its raw touch 

 and mitigating 

 by their retained 

 mo'sture the 

 avidity of the 

 air. The loss 



of bees in the 

 early spring is a 

 calamity not less 

 than that dry- 

 ness of air that 

 cuts off the gol- 

 den flow in the 

 bowl of its birth 

 I am not quite 

 sure but that 

 the misceogeny of the kinds de- 

 teriorated the pugnaceous and vir- 

 ile stock that could so well care 

 for itself without the protecting 

 hand of man. I am not quite sure 

 that the same law of physical 

 prone ness to disease and inability 

 to combat it, in high development 



