The beginning of the new year is a general time of settling accounts and making resolutions for the future.  The head of many a family is overcast with gloom as he ascertains the true state of his affairs, and perceives how little he has to show from the past year of toil.  His family may have been industrious in a general way, and yet been consumers only, and not producers.  We knew a farmer’s family where there were three daughters just budding into womanhood.  On inquiring of the mother what she had to sell to clothe her daughters with, she answered, Not a thing.  Have you no butter, eggs, fowls, honey, or bees-wax to sell from this good farm?  No, nothing.  These girls were not idle!  Oh no.  They pounded the organ, and the result was music as sweet as filing a saw; crocheted, darned lace, and helped mother.  When their father went to town they asked him to bring them a pair of shoes, a bustle, or a necktie, with no thought or care.  And all the while the neighbors said “he was hard run.”

There are few farmers’ families that are so situated that they can not care for a few colonies of bees.  They not only need the sweets they gather, but these industrious insects help to fertilize the bloom of their orchards and meadows.  Nature has appointed this insect, and it alone, to do this work for her.

Honey can be used in many ways as a substitute for sugar—­in canning fruit, making cookies, and for other culinary purposes.

We would advise all those contemplating bee-keeping to start on a small scale, if they have had no previous training.  Two colonies are plenty, and then let their knowledge increase in the same ratio as do their bees.  The next thing in order, after purchasing bees, should be a good standard work on apiculture; and study it well.  A person should be full of theory, and then they are ready for practice.  Those who are energetic, willing to work, intelligent and willing, eager to learn, observing, persevering, and attentive to their work, will rarely ever fail in apiculture.

We have heard farmers say that bees will not flourish with the same care given to other farm stock, and that they have not time to attend to them.  We would recommend to all such to try the experiment of procuring a colony or two of beautiful Italians, in some good movable frame hive, and present them to the family, with abundance of bee literature, and see if they are not taken care of, especially if the almighty dollar puts in an appearance.

MRS. L. HARRISON.

THE NEW BEES.

Prof.  Cook, at the late Michigan Convention of Bee-keepers, spoke in this wise on the topic of the New Bees: