50 
BEE-CULTURE. 
It is supposed to be necessary to “go to the bees at mid- 
nightof New Year’s, and tell the bees that the old year is 
o-oue.” (I have a good deal of confidence in the success of 
persons who will give them such care.) “It is bad luck to 
quarrel about bees.” “Bees will do no good during war.” 
This seemed very evident during the two first years of our 
war. However, my faith in this saying was much weakened 
when I learned that they were doing excellently in the Western 
States, but perhaps they had not received the intelligence 
there, as it seems they did very poorly there during the lat- 
ter part of the war. “I never saw a king bee.” “They will 
do no good in the valley.” “They will do no good on the 
hills.” A boy coming to my house, hastened to tell me that 
“my bees were going off ; I saw two or three going past the 
barn.” A man stopped in at nine o’clock at night to tell me 
that he thought my bees were swarming, as he heard them 
making a great noise as he came past. A boy in the city 
asked me how I got so many bees in my hive: “Did you catch 
them on the flowers and put them there.” A neighbor wo- 
man who had just got a hive of bees, took me to them about 
the time that drones began to appear, to show me some 
strange bees that were entering her hive ; she said they were 
much larger than her bees ; she supposed they were mine. 
A neighbor of an acquaintance of mine called on him to get 
an Italian drone to put in his hive of native bees, as he 
wished to improve his stock. He said “he knew it would 
have the desired effect, as queens were fond of strange com- 
pany.” They did very well afterwards. 
A prominent school-teacher’s wife asked me if I could 
make bees? To which I honestly replied that I could not. 
“Well,” says she, “I did not know — they used to make them 
over the mountains out of bees-wax, or something of that 
kind, and put them in the sun to hatch.” 
The most of the foregoing proverbs are attributed modostly 
to “It-is-said,” who is a roving character, who, when you go 
to ask him the reasons for his sayings, cannot be found. 
Exaggerated tales and imaginary theories about bees are 
numerous. The amount of foolish or crude notions about 
them suggests to me that bee-keeping has been behind the 
times. l r et there is a generosity manifested by men in deal- 
ing about bees that is not so much shown when dealing with 
other stock. (I do not now speak of those who make it their 
