a

crowded session. I know it is considered the place of honor. But is it? By that time every one is tired, and if the program lags, as it always does, his time is cut short. A well-known speaker once told me that he had been nearly crowded off entirely, although the association had brought him to their convention at considerable expense. Considered from a purely financial standpoint, an expensive speaker should be placed early in the session. Then let him crowd some local man, if need be, for the latter will be there after he is gone. It is also nice to remember that your guest is probably a stranger in your town and may have difficulty in finding the meeting place. Another thing I appreciate, when going out to speak, is to have full particulars of the program in advance so as to fit my talks into their respective places. When arranging short course programs at the college, I used to not only assign each speaker his subjects, but I often went so far as to suggest outlines. found this necessary to avoid overlapping by different speakers. I remember once going out to speak at a convention on extracted honey production. The one who preceded me on the program spoke on comb honey production. Either of us could have nicely filled in his time with details of the actual season; but neither one had seen a copy of the program to know what else was coming. Each one prepared to outline the year's management leading up to strong colonies, swarm control, etc. Having the first chance, he beat me to it. How much better it would have been had the secretary outlined in some detail what he wanted from each of us.

I

Influence of Apiary Inspection on Conventions.

Somehow we do not have the excitement we used to have at conventions in the good old days. Everything is too well regulated, or else legitimate politics have taken the place of convention politics. I remember that when apiary inspection was new, the man who had worked hard as an agent of his association to secure a disease law, and was appointed inspector under that law, felt that the office was his by an inalienable right, even though it was easily demonstrated that the work was too great for one man, and though he admitted that the rewards of office were quite inadequate to compensate him for the time taken away from his own business. Having his appointment from a majority vote of the convention, he would move heaven and earth to swing that vote his way. Late-season inspection seemed to be done where it would do the most good, and it was even alleged that beekeepers some

times became members of the association without cost to themselves. When the opposing factions were also bringing pressure to bear, the fun grew fast and furious. Those good old days are past, perhaps, and conventions have settled down to the humdrum of bee culture methods and selling problems.

But not without a struggle, for apiary inspection grew into apiary instruction, and the merry fight began over the evil of making more beekeepers. Some even went so far as to fight against increasing the membership of an association, because the influx of new men and women to the convention broke the charmed circle and disturbed the enjoyment of meeting only old friends from year to year. At one time when I happened to be the offender in Ontario, one dear old brother, who has since gone to his reward, announced that beekeeping in Ontario was menaced by three great evils, American foul brood, European foul brood and Morley Pettit. This condition was not peculiar to Ontario, however, inasmuch as the third person of the "evil" trinity is now to be found in nearly every prov ince and state in the person of some other provincial or state apiarist. Although production has increased many fold,

we

are selling for better prices than when I first started beekeeping and retailed best clover extracted honey at nine to ten cents per pound.

The Social Features of Conventions.

It does not seem necessary to urge that the social features of a convention should be kept in mind. Perhaps some other industries carry a fraternal spirit as strong as ours, but I doubt it. The "between" sessions with individuals and groups are often about as enjoyable as the sessions themselves. The only limit to them seems to be the members' power of endurance to do without sleep. One of the most remarkable men in that line was W. Z. Hutchinson, who founded the Beekeepers' Review. He prided himself on knowing personally every beekeeper of any prominence on the continent, and made it a point to sleep with a different one each night at every convention so as to get his best ideas during the hours of confidence stolen from sleep. I was proud to sleep with him once, but now, somehow, I like to slip away to my own room for at least a few hours of rest

before the next day begins.

Conventions have made beekeeping what it is, and the spirit of fraternity which is so strong among beekeepers, springs from a common source, the love of bees. There is no getting away from this sub-foundation of all success in beekeeping. How often one hears older men

relate their early experiences, when they used to wish it were possible to make a living from this fascinating pursuit. Conventions have made this possible. We have even experienced a feeling akin to regret when learning to simplify our methods and eliminate some of our personal contact with the bees. The man who just puts on his supers and lets the brood-chambers take care of themselves

all summer, may make more money (I am not quite sure that he does) but he misses a lot of fun, provided he is a real honest-to-goodness beekeeper. It is not surprising that bee-talk should predominate whenever beemen or women meet. The wonder is that even stress of financial circumstances should so arouse their interest in selling talk as it has. Georgetown, Ontario.

Can we improve our bees? "Yes," some one says, "but we need to control their mating, either on some

island isolated from other bees, or in some barren section where there are no other bees.'' I suppose I have heard these objections to making any effort to improve our bees a hundred times, more or less, and because the best possible way was impracticable, nothing done.

was

These breeders of golden bees did not wait for some practical way to control mating, but started right in breeding from the best they had and in a comparatively few years have achieved a wonderful success. We Americans are in too great a hurry and do not as a rule turn our attention to work that requires time to secure the best results. Horses and coaches must give way to railway cars and automobiles. Letter writing must give way to the telegraph and telephone. And now even these are too slow and we listen in on the radio or fly through the air. Even our food must be "predigested" to save time and trouble.

Some persons seem to think that if we can not change our bees in five or ten years to our ideal, it will hardly pay to

fool with them. But good things come slowly.

Most of Our choice varieties of animals and birds,

fruits, flowers, vegetables, grains and grasses have sprung from lowly forms of inferior types and there is no reason why our bees should not respond as quickly and as completely as other forms of life, if we can only wait.

Great Difference in Temper of Different Colonies.

If we work all day in a yard of bees we shall be likely before night to know something about the difference in the disposition of various colonies. Some are very gentle, while others are very cross, and others are found all the way between these extremes. You can not see this quality of gentleness as you look at a queen or her progeny, but you may have a painful sensation of the lack of it when you try to open a hive where the bees are without it. It is not a serious task, when we find a colony with a vicious disposition, to remove the queen and replace her with one of a more amiable disposition.

Selecting for Honey Gathering Qualities.

Few qualities in bees are more appreciated than their industry. I was talking, a short time ago, with a very intelli gent beekeeper from the northern part of our state. He said that some colonies, with only half the number of bees that others have, make much more honey. I believe we have all had similar experiences. In fact, we have found colonies that appeared to be downright lazy.

I remember a very pronounced case of this kind some years ago. While others were filling their supers, this colony was idling away the time. I stood it as long as I could, until finally I got disgusted with their idle ways. I then removed the

empty supers, opened the hive, shook the bees from their combs of brood and honey and gave them dry combs instead. I then said to them, "Now, go to work or starve." For two days they still loafed after which they woke up and went to work with a will.

Developing Strain That Produces Good Crops in Poor Seasons.

During the past season, while cleaning sections, I have noticed that some of the colonies from most of our yards have given a very fair yield of honey. (I could tell where each super came from, and even the hive, by the letter and number on the super.) Had all done as well, we would have had a fairly good season, but many colonies after gathering a little surplus seemed to get discouraged and gave up work, while others contented themselves with gathering propolis. It looks as though there were a great chance for improvement along this line.

Importance of Stamina and Longevity.

There are other qualities that require our attention. Bees are very much like mankind or mankind very much like bees. Some will stand up under adverse conditions, while others will fail utterly. We have had colonies which were weak in spring and which we fed and nursed through the season, hoping they would do better the following year, only to meet with disappointment. Other colonies, reduced to a mere handful in the spring, will build up with a vigor that is surprising, and perhaps give a large yield of honey. I believe that most old beekeepers will recall some such experience. I remember one colony in particular.

It was just forty-one years ago this season. I had given the colony up as worthless but had neglected to remove the combs. Later I saw some bees flying from it and opened the hive to see what was going on, when I found a very small but very thrifty colony of bees. I gave them a little attention and they built up sufficiently to give me a good surplus. With vigor or stamina is associated longevity, and this is especially noticeable in the spring or late summer and it does more to keep up the strength of our colonies than we are accustomed to think.

There are other qualities worthy of the attention of the careful breeder of bees, especially if he produces comb honey. Method of Procedure for Improvement.

To secure the best results, a moderate sized yard of bees is preferable to a larger one. Two or more strains of the best bees to be had should be used, one strain to produce queens and the other drones. One strain can produce queens this year and drones the next. Of course, there will be some queens mated with drones from an outside yard, but enough will mate with your own drones to give a large number to choose from the following season.

We find, in our own experience, that with several hundred or a thousand colonies to look after, we can not give this subject the attention it richly deserves, and must depend largely upon others to furnish us with the best breeding stock.

I know of no other nature work so fascinating and enjoyable as that of improving our plants, flowers, fruits and animals, including birds and bees. Middlebury, Vt.

I. The City.

There is no more ancient city than Apiatia, or none like it. Although its architecture has been imitated it cannot be copied. The color tones are also its

own.

Its surroundings are those of nature and natural they have remained, for art is but an imitation of nature and can never hope to attain the beauty or utility of its model. These surroundings are hill and dale, glade and forest. Utility is hard and bare, useful for material things but unpleasant to the eye at times; so the maker of the universe embellished glade and forest with flowers. Quite likely fruit and nut could have

been created without the intervention of blossom, but a good deal of pleasure would have been sacrificed by such an omission. Not only are flowers a pleasure to the eye, but the perfume which accompanies bloom is a pleasure to the olfactories. Therefore it cannot be a surprising thing to find nectar hidden therein or life of its own for the interest of observers.

The city of Apiatia had these natural surroundings and it was the sum bonum of the pleasure of the inhabitants to ramble therein and observe the works of nature. But all nature is utilitarian. Something useful is always found beneath the ornamentation and the inhabi

tants of Apiatia found the useful and it became the life work of the community.

The outsides of the edifices were plain and severe. Ornamentation was reserved for the interior. Plain lines give the appearance of strength and solidity, but both nature and art abhor them. Curved lines are those of beauty, and in the city of Apiatia a compromise was made between the two extremes. The corners of the squares were knocked off with the device of a brace, although there was nothing to brace, giving the architecture an hexagonal character. The color scheme, too, was soft. Not raw reds and whites, but browns, creams, ambers and wines, with lights falling on them, adding a glint of gold here and there.

Within are courts and corridors thronged with workers, and the hum of them is continuous like the distant and continuous throbbing of the ocean, or the sound of west winds in the tree tops. Royalty reigns therein and a thousand fans keep the air, perfumed with ambrosia, in zephyr-like circulation. Guards police the canyon-like corridors, built in cerine-like solidity, where dwell the inhabitants of the day and which contain the nurseries of those to come tomorrow. Storehouses bulge with amber and winecolored nutriment, fit alike for active workers and leisurely princes, but for royalty, active or prospective, the regimen must contain something more than mere nutriment-must possess a stimulant to the spirituelle and an incentive to vision, for future prosperity depends upon the qualities of the executive.

Perhaps Apiatia has always been an inspiration, both as to industry and artistic conception. It may be the Moors had it in mind when they built their famous red castle-the Alhambra-their mosaic citadel with its gates of pomegranetes, its hall of ambassadors, its court of fountains, its minarets, and the muezzin, continuously crying out: "There is no God but Allah, there is no conqueror but God."

But the great red castle is gone. Desolate is the "Hall of Ambassadors," and silent the "Hall of Fountains." That edifice was an imitation, built by human hands, and therefore doomed to destruction; but its great prototype, Nature, endures. It hath its seasons, the day when it brings forth flower and fruit, and the night when it rests; but it is a continuous resurrection. So Apiatia endures.

II. Workers.

The city of Apiatia depends for its existence on its workers. This is not as new and revolutionary a thing as such an announcement made today might imply, but as old as the world when applied

to Apiatia. There is a glory in work, even drudgery. It is an achievement. It may be artistic and so carry a charm. It may be materialistic and so have lasting solidity. The latter type of workers look to the earth with its sustenance and treasures; the former to the sky where they discover stars. Both are useful, especially to the government. From the former is obtained the practical, which provides for every day life; and from the latter the imaginative, which provides for the future-for progress and growth, and the faith that progress can be made.

It may be the lowest stratum, but it is the base upon which the superstructure rests. The government of Apiatia is royalty, but it rests on loyalty. It is not hereditary royalty, but expresses a choice of the workers, so it comes pretty near to democracy-a representative government at least, a government of community interests; and has been an object lesson for nobody knows how long. III.-Drones.

In every community there are drones -individuals like lilies, "who work not." In most communities they are self-appointed and exist in a precarious way, unless they have riches thrust upon them. In Apiatia, however, drones are elective and riches are always thrust upon them. In most communities drones are considered a menace, as contributing nothing to the common good-as showing lack of thrift-but in Apiatia they are looked up to as a superior orderprinces, almost divinity, and fed on specially prepared food. They outgrow their fellows, the workers, are sleek, foppish in apparel of brown and gold; they bask in the sun and dream of a day when one of them shall be picked out for valiant, radiant service. Like others bred in

leisure, they gamble on chance as to choice. It may mean death to the chosen, but death is a common destiny and it would be sweet to die in ecstacy.

The big day comes. There is great commotion in Apiatia. Music, like the beating of waves on an ocean beach, or, perhaps, the rushing of wind through pine trees, a violent symphony, to the rythm of which march workers in phalanxes as if guarding something precious. They are guarding something precious.

In the midst of the workers was the most brilliant creature the princes had ever seen. Her mantle was brown, and about her zone was a girdle of gold, about her throat beads of gold, and above her eyes a fillet of gold; from her shoulders descended divided veils, sparkling in the sunlight with myriad gems.

If the princes were dazzled by this radiant creature, she in turn was no less dazzled by them. True to the force put

into the world, when it was chaos, which causes individuals divided by sex to traverse leagues in search of an opposite, she looked at them with curious yet longing gaze.

The

Instantly there was commotion. princes roused out of indulgence, stood at attention for just a second, then rushed at the princess. "All is fair in love and war" is an old maxim and it has been recognized in Apiatia always. They sang as they rushed the song of Adam"only one girl in the world for me. They circled about her and jostled each other. Oh, just for a touch of that tremulous body, just a flash of eye to eye.

What they thought she thought. There was something irresistible about them. She longed for possession. Their waltzlike circling ecstacized her. She must join them. Blind as Eros-blind of Erosshe fluttered her filmy veils. Air as of Araby, perfumed by the scent of innumerable flowers, filled them as of wings, till she sailed away clasped in the embrace of a cavalier. The azure of the sky softened the daylight through which the sun rays darted and glistened forming Kufie characters, which wove themselves into a romance sweeter than ever emanated from the Euphrates, and so they floated, dreamed, became intoxicated, became somnolent, and dropped to earth exhausted, surfeited. From that daze the prince came not back. He cared not for the jealousy of his fellows. He felt nothing of it. He was oblivious. It was Nirvana.

IV. Queen.

The princess came back. A thousand workers stood at attention and salaamed. They closed in behind her and formed a triumphal procession; but a feeling of oppression came over her. Her one joyous day was over. It was true she was a queen and could live in state. It was true she was a queen and could commandcould command and her subjects would obey; but the elevation carried duties. Her place was the highest in the realm, but to be devoted to duty which also means slavery. The pope is a prisoner in the Vatican; the grand lama in Tibet; and the queen of Apiatia in her palace. Forevermore her duty was to her subjeets. It was an onerous duty that employed her hours day and night—waking or sleeping. Youth fled and her body grew obese. The joy of sipping nectar degenerated into a stimulation for life and power. Love of power lost its grip, and she saw in it only an ordinary process of life. A process that had a beginning and consequently must have an end. A time must come when some other princess would have a mad honeymoon flight, then take up her duties, and the present

queen would molder as all queens before her had done; and as the days were born and vanished into darkness, she became ready for the succession.

V.-L'envoi.

At first thought it might be considered unnatural that a queen should grow tired of regality; but such an end might be expected for workers. Labor wearies and many times must be taken as it own reward; and when one drops at his or her task about the only notice is the command issued to fellow workers. "Bury your dead," and the implied comment, There is none noble among workers."

There is is a consolation, however, in all things. It is doubtful if the dwellers of Apiatia have a sacred book wherein are the commands of a personal god, but the commands of nature stored in the hearts of each are equivalent to that of the human book wherein it is written: To everything there is a seasonA time to be born;

A time to die;
A time to kill;
A time to weep;
A time to mourn.

To every community at some time or other there comes a reaction against established things, otherwise there would be no progression. A revolution generally breeds dread, yet progress is made through such upheavals.

A leisure class always excites envy and jealousy with the less prosperous and their ostentation often inflames them to such an extent that a massacre ensues. The princes of Apiatia have always been subject to massacres. During the warm weather they have always been allowed to bask in the sunshine and partake of the ample supply of sustenance; but when winter comes, when sustenance must be measured by the number of mouths, then the unproductive must be sacrificed to the necessities of materialism; and if jealousy sweetens the necessity, then the cry goes forth, "Down with princes. Death to princes. To those who produce belong the fruits."

Apiatia. Where is it?

It is not a nation with a particular section of country assigned for occupation, but is international-something like the dispersed inhabitants of old Judea. Its temples and palaces pervade all nations, and the inhabitants are peacefully assimilated by them-even welcomed. They live in subjugation, yet are not so much slaves as associates. Their brown bodies, which might imply an inferior people are not so considered anywhere. The learned call them Apis mellifica: and those not learned of books -honey bees.

Mechanic Falls, Me.