OUR FRIENDS, THE BEES OF: 
the hardest exertion of all was probably 
on the short Dent du Géant, the most 
continuous anxiety on the Grands Char- 
moz, and the most thrilling and most in- 
teresting experiences on the Dent du 
Reguin. As for views, too, perhaps the 
Requin was the finest, although they 
were quite different in character and per- 
haps not more beautiful than those on 
Monte Rosa and Mt. Blanc. Clouds 
veiled the views on the Weisshorn and 
the Grands Chermoz, but views through 
mist and peeps through flitting clouds 
have the added charm of mystery and 
constant variety. 
~] 
| 
How one climbs, why-one feels that it 
is safe to go on such ascents, what one’s 
sensations actually are, and, above all, 
what there is to offset such strain and 
anxiety have hardly been suggested. In 
so summary a review of merely the chief 
difficulties of 16 climbs, I cannot hope to 
have given any of the feeling of the won- 
ders of the High Alps. For even an 
idea of what it is really like I must trust 
to the illustrations, and for the rest can 
only hope that I have aroused enough 
interest to stimulate the reader’s own 
imagination or to make him wish to find 
out for himself the rewards of mountain 
climbing. 
OUR FRIENDS, THE BEES 
Bye le Room AND Re Roo: 
Growing bees for pleasure or profit is one of those American industries whose 
magnitude 1s entirely unsuspected by the average citizen. According to a recent 
report there are approximately 800,000 persons keeping bees in the United States, 
and the annual output of honey and beeswax is estimated as worth $22,000,000. One 
reason that bee-keeping is so popular im this country is that American ingenuity 
has invented many devices which simplify the work and enable the owner at all 
times readily to ascertain the health of lis bee colony (see pictures, pages 6So- 
083). The following article and photographs are from “The A BC and X Y Z 
of Bee Culture,” by A. I. Root and E. R. Root. The Root family, of Medina, 
Ohio, are practical apiarists, who have been studying and keeping bees for 40 
years and who have originated many of the methods and apparatus that are used 
by thousands of bee-lovers in all parts of the world. Their book, which may be 
justly called “a cyclopedia of everything pertaining to the care of the honey-bee,’ 
contains the results of their long experience and of the observations ‘of tens of 
thousands of correspondents. It is one of the most fascinating volumes published 
in along time. The illustrations, of which there are several hundred, are par- 
ticularly good. 
E CONFESS we do not like 
the term ‘anger,’ when ap- 
plied to bees, and it almost 
makes us angry when we hear people 
speak of their being “mad,” as if they 
were always in a towering rage and de- 
light to inflict severe pain on everything 
and everybody coming near them. Bees 
are, on the contrary, the pleasantest, 
most sociable, genial, and good-natured 
little fellows one meets in all animated 
creation, when one understands them. 
Why, we can tear their beautiful comb 
all to bits right before their very eyes: 
and without a particle of resentment, 
but with all the patience in the world. 
they will at once set to work to repair 
it, and that, too, without a word of re- 
monstrance. If you pinch them they will 
sting; and anybody who has energy 
enough to take care of himself would 
do as much had he the weapon. 
We as yet know comparatively very 
little of bees, and the more we learn 
