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THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



storms. You locate it fifty miles away and 

 hasten to move your apiary thither. It skips, 

 meets you on the way and strikes the earth 

 again at the very place whence you have 

 moved your bees. This must remain the 

 despair of honey producers unless — a great 

 idea has struck me — where is Prof. Dyen- 

 forth ? If with balloons and dynamite he 

 can produce such a condition of the atmos- 

 phere as to compel it to deposit dew and 

 rain, why of course one would think by 

 smaller or larger or more widely distributed 

 doses of his explosives there could be no 

 difficulty in his producing such a condition 

 of the atmosphere as would compel the 

 flowers to yield a bountiful flow of nectar. 

 So a final solution of the matter may not be 

 so far off. I shall take out no patent on the 

 discovery and hereby freely give it to my 

 brother bee keepers in return for the many 

 benefits received. Now whom do I hear 

 claiming a prior right to this discovery ? 

 The Professor is already dubbed the Cloud 

 Compeller, and I take it that if he can com- 

 pel the clouds to gather, he must be just as 

 patent to compel them to retire or to stay 

 in the background ; of course all done thro' 

 his power to control the condition of the 

 atmosphere ; and his more comprehensive 

 title would be the Atmospheric Coiditioner. 

 So having control of the condition of the 

 atmosphere we may have it charged with 

 moisture or electricity or with the warmth 

 and serenity of the perfect day. We can 

 compel the honey plants to grow, the nectar 

 to flow, and the bees, by superlative weather, 

 to gather the nectar in. The modus operan- 

 di will no doubt be greatly simplified, and 

 we may reasonably expect that the Professor 

 within a few weeks will have on sale in con- 

 venient packages condition powders for the 

 weather, warranted effective or money re- 

 funded. 



In this connection it will be instructive io 

 relate a bit of my own experience during 

 the past season. In May I had more than 

 100 colonies moved twenty-five miles and 

 more to a place where good honey seasons 

 have been the rule for so long a time that 

 the memory of man runneth not to the con- 

 trary. Did I get a good croi) V No, not a 

 pound. I could not thus escape the decrees 

 of fate. The place lay a little beyond the 

 line of the early rain fall, and in June and 

 July there was a great drought. There was 

 afterwards a good prospect for a fall crop, 

 but during the last half of August and the 



first part of September there was almost 

 continual rain, so I was very thankful to 

 find the bees had about enough for winter. 

 If I had had my discovery in working order 

 I should have had a surplus of about two 

 hundred pounds of comb honey per colony 

 or twelve tons in the aggregate. But that is 

 only one of the might have beens. 



I might close here, trusting to the redemp- 

 tion to be wrought by my discovery, but my 

 wife says: "You had better go on. You 

 know the remark you made the other day 

 about Mr. Root in connection with inven- 

 tions, and somebody will be sure to get a 

 patent on it and Mr. Root will fight it, and 

 you remember you said when Mr. Root takes 

 sn — , red pepper, they 'most all sneeze, so 

 they'll all laugh at you ; and then think of 

 Mr. Root, who is so opposed to the use of 

 drugs, countenancing the giving of condition 

 powders to the weather." 



On reconsidering the matter I think my 

 wife is right. Dr. Miller or Dr. Tinker will 

 claim prior discovery, for how could a lay- 

 man invent a new medicine ? Then some- 

 one will get a patent on it and the pulling 

 and hauling will begin, and no good will 

 come of it for many years. In about twenty 

 years, when I am too old to enjoy it, Mr. 

 Root will send me seven and a half or eight 

 dollars for the privilege of making and 

 vending the powders ; but in the meantime 

 bee keepers can be saved only partially from 

 loss by getting what aid they can in the old 

 way, so I will proceed. 



From the item from my own experience 

 given above it appears how futile it would 

 be to expect certain success by moving 

 either to the flowers or to the place where 

 nectar is supposed to flow. Oue might cal- 

 culate that I had almost a sure thing in 

 moving my bees, but an enumeration of the 

 chickens hatched shows the calculation false. 

 If I had kept the bees at home they would 

 have secured surplus honey enough to have 

 paid expenses. As it is I have to charge the 

 expenses, greatly swollen, to profit and loss. 



In looking for a remedy it is to be remem- 

 bered that there is a wide latitude for the 

 exercise of choice in the matter of locations. 

 There are many places in northern Michigan 

 where bees from a single apiary could reach 

 clover, basswood, epilobium and fall flowers 

 in abundance. To one who is free to change 

 the place of his apiary what better advice 

 can be given than this : Select the best point 

 possible, settle down and keep your cup 



