THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



243 



EXTR7 ^0TeP> 



Who Shall Have Credit for an Invention ? 



Mr. Koot is not iiioliutd to give all the 

 credit to the mau who first imblishes an in- 

 vention. He closes his argument with the 

 following: — 



" Now, let lis siniinor this discussion 

 down into this illustrutiDu: Mr. A, a quiet 

 sort of mau, has been using a bee escuije, 

 say ten years. Mr. B, quite independently, 

 a prominent bee keeper, some ten years 

 later, invents the same thing, patents it, and 

 publishes it to the world. Is it fair or just 

 that Mr. B should go to Mr. A and say, 

 ' Here, you have got to stop using that. 1 

 was the first one to put)lisli that bee escape. 

 To )He. belongs the credit and royalty?' That 

 is the way we look at this ' firet publishing ' 

 matter." 



It may not be right that A should pay 

 royalty to B, as he has received from him no 

 benefit, but to whom shall the general public 

 give credit, or royalty if royalty is given? 

 Of what benefit is it that inventions be made 

 and then "kept still about?" Has Bro. 

 Root so soon forgotten the parable of the 

 unprofitable servant who hid hia talent in a 

 napkin? 



A Warning of Swarming. 



Bro. Jones, in the ( '. 7>. J., tells of a pecu- 

 liar action on the part of a few l)ees in front 

 of a hive from which a swarm is almost sure 

 to issue during the day. All colonies do not 

 give this warning, but all giving it swarm 

 within a few hours. Here is an extract from 

 an interesting little article on the subject 

 taken from the issue of -luly 1,5th: — 



"On looking round we pointed over to a 

 colony, perhaps eighty feet away, and said, 

 there is one that will swarm very soon. 

 ' How do you know ? ' was the reply, and we 

 remarked, do you not see those two or three 

 rows above the entrance, running up the 

 hive, apparently biting with their mandibles, 

 and hacking down again, that is, they move 

 backwards and forwards, continually work- 

 ing their feet and their mandibles, or hold- 

 ing their heads down closely to the hive, and 

 we noticed them doing the same thing on 

 the entrance board. One of our students 

 once named it the bee dance, or balancing 

 to their partners. ' Well,' he said, ' that 

 movemeiit is di'^tinct, and we shall never 

 fortret it,' for while standing there the swarm 

 issued." 



CI leanings for Sept. ir> has the following:— 



"On page 72H. current issue, J. A. Oreen 

 doubts the statement made by some, that 

 the raking motion on the iiart of the bees in 

 front of their entrances is prognostic of 

 swarming. We have observed this s(Taj)ing 

 or raking, hundreds of times, and it usually, 



with us, occurs some three or four weeks 

 ufter the honey season is closed, and swarm- 

 ing ceased. Almost any time during the 

 latter pail of July and all of August we can 

 find a good many of our colonies doing this 

 ' washboard act; ' and yet, so far as we can 

 discover, it means nothing. The bees at the 

 entrance evidently have nothing to do, and 

 think they must clean off the paint from the 

 alighting-board, as the paint to fhr.m is for- 

 eign." 



Successful Advertising. 

 An editorial in the American Bee Keeper 

 for August describes so well my own experi- 

 ence in advertising, and contains such good 

 advice upon the subject that I copy it entire. 

 Before doing so, however, I wish to say that 

 one of my advertisers, who begun last De- 

 cember to advertise queens, withdrew his 

 advertisement in July, saying that there was 

 no use in keeping it running when it was 

 impossible to keep up with orders. At the 

 same time some queen breeder who had had 

 hia advertisement in for perhaps two or 

 three issues only, but right in the height of 

 the season, would be complaining that it 

 didn't pay him: 



" To be a successful advertiser re<inires as 

 great sagacity and business ability as it does 

 to be a successful merchant or manufacturer. 

 In fact, ihe successful business man is al- 

 most invariably a wise advertiser. Of 

 course, there are many way in wliich one 

 can advertise, but the mediums most uni- 

 versally preferred are the newspaper and 

 magazine. A great many people send an 

 ad. to a paper for one insertion and expect 

 enough returns from it to keep them busy 

 for the balance of the season, and wlien but 

 two or three or possibly a dozen incjuiries 

 come in, they are disappointed and conclude 

 that advertising does not pay. If every ad. 

 would net the advertiser a profit, it does not 

 take a very intelligent mind to comprehend 

 that there, and there only, is the sure road 

 to success, but experience proves that the 

 small and timid advertiser is not a success- 

 ful one. To make a success of advertising 

 you must keep everlastingly at it. ^Ve fre- 

 quently have persons send us a small ad. to 

 occupy from three lines to an inch of space, 

 and after it has appeared once or twice we 

 get a letter from them saying take it out, 

 we don't think it pays very well. On the 

 other hand, almost every one of our large 

 advertisers have told us that their ads. in 

 the Be.'-Keeper paid them splendidly. There 

 is another noticable mistake made by many 

 advertisers, in that they advertise too late. 

 They wait until the season for selling their 

 goods is fully here and then they advertise 

 and are disappoinfed at the result. In the 

 July Review wo are credited by Rambler 

 with saying, ' We are greatly astonished at 

 the folly exhibited by some of the manufac- 

 turers an dealers in apiarian goods, in that 

 they advertise only during the selling time 



