90 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIJU^W. 



The question box, A. B. J., 739, had quite 

 a racy time catching an apiarian thief. 

 'Pears like everyone knows how to deal with 

 thieves, except the poor unfortunates who 

 are troubled with them. Let me quote a lit- 

 tle, and add the obvious objections. 



Elwood— Offer a reward of fifty dollars — 

 More than your probable stealage bill for 

 twenty years. Mrs. Harrison— Keep Cypri- 

 an bees, or a bulldog — And punish innocent 

 persons a hundred times where the guilty 

 persons is punished once. Several — Watch — 

 And catch your death cold, but never the 

 thief. Dr. Brown— Set a gun — Unlawful and 

 unchristian ; and you'll forget about it and 

 get shot yourself. Hambaugh suggests a 

 gun with nothing but powder in it, which is 

 not quite so bad ; yet the rogue may stay 

 away six months, and keep a good fowling 

 piece idle and rusting, and wind up by steal- 

 ing the gun itself. Dadant and Doolittle 

 suggest guessing who he is, and making him 

 a present of honey. Pretty good, except 

 the guessing part. If you should guess the 

 wrong person, and he should guess ivhy you 

 presented the honey — why then, why then ! 



The racket seems to have stirred up one of 

 the brethren, who gives on page 2\) of the 

 current vclume, his personal experience. 

 You'll never guess how he wards off thieves. 

 Four cross dogs strung on wires by sliding 

 rings ! Mercy on us I Wouldn't a small pox 

 hospital help it some ? 



And this is the picture of the toad, as he is 

 set forth by the Canadian Bee- Master in the 

 A. B.J. ,779. He professes to be quoting 

 ( C. B. M., not the toad ) but I entertain a 

 doubt on that point. 



" Beside theliivo liesiiuats, and there prepares, 

 Apparently to say liis evening prayers ; 



He looks so solemu, grave, demuie, devout — 

 But, wretched liypoorite, and gracelebs lout, 



He knows too well the mischief he's about, 

 Anil catches bees— quicker than yon can siiout 



' .lack Robinson , or any other thing. 

 Regardless of the poison and the sting." 



Whack ! Hear how Sullivan — beg pardon, 

 Dadant — cracks the skulls of " we-un?," the 

 small hive men, on page 790, A. B. J., where 

 he says the bee-keepers in France are get- 

 ting over the delusion that small hives are 

 best. 



With the beginning of the year, and new 

 heads all around, the American Bee Journal 

 got one that reads " Biographical," and 

 forthwith goes in again into a puddle in 

 which it was. not loig since, the biggest 

 load. Eriend, F. L. Thompson is the first vic- 

 tim. Try him again sometime friend York : 



this one looks too much as if it were taken 

 with the X ray. Thanks for the sketch, 

 which is all right. 



In Thompson's initial article for the year 

 he suggests that there is as much poetry in 

 three or four colonies of bees as in a larger 

 number, if poetry is what we are really after. 



Ah, comrade Baldridge, prince among 

 sweet clover men, how could you ? How 

 could you publish that picture of a cane 

 brake of sweet clover which pppears on page 

 17, A. B. J. ? That's it to a T. True to 

 nature enough. But that exuberant leaf of 

 nature is just what makes our farmer friends 

 rage and pitch. They decidedly don't like 

 such a style of roadside — ahem I neither do I. 



Dadant on page 19, A. B. J., explains the 

 puzzle why the adulteration of foundation 

 is so much worse in Europe than here. 

 Northern Europe has little or none of our 

 fiercely hot weather ; consequently adultera- 

 ted foundation only occasionally results in 

 a breakdown there — not frequently enough 

 to break up the evil. Here failure is so 

 frequent that a dealer furnishing adultera- 

 ted foundation would soon kill off his busi- 

 ness. A little warning is also given in re- 

 gard to our best test of beeswax. Consider- 

 able admixture may be in wax and yet it 

 may crumble on prolonged chewing. If it 

 chews like gum it is more than half some- 

 thing else. So look a little out ; and take 

 the specific gravity by means of alcohol and 

 water so mixed that undoubted wax will 

 just nicely sink. Most adulterants are 

 lighter I believe. 



Friend E. A. Morgan says he is satisfied 

 that the tremor of cars close by does no 

 harm to an apiary winter or summer. Wish 

 I could be sure of this, as my apiary is nearer 

 the cars than I wish it were. 



InA. B. J., 18, R. C. Aikin, in his able 

 article on removing queens during the har- 

 vest honey flow, associates swarming with- 

 outthe presence of a free queen with the 

 first moveutenis of the young queens in their 

 cells. Never thought of it before, but very 

 likely that is correct. When a swarm comes 

 out and goes back, and swarms again for 

 keeps a day or two later, we have said the 

 old queen was to heavy to fly well, or a 

 young queen too young to fly yet. Probably 

 there is a third case, namely, no queen at all 

 as yet, but bees couldn't wait when young 

 queens began to kick about in their cells. 



Richards, O. March, K!, 1896. 



