The man who wrote that “poem” must have thought himself funny; to The Stinger he was a—I don’t think I shall say fool this time, but I hope the next time he tries his hand at rhyming, he will give us something with more sense in it. No bee has yet driven a boy into an untimely grave; the boy of these times cannot be killed so easily as the writer of the above lines would seem to imply.
However, The Stinger would say to all boys bent on teasing the bees: Keep away from the dear little insects until after they are fed, or they might hurt you.
In casually looking through the November number of the Review, I saw the name of Mr. H. A. Burch mentioned along with that of James Heddon. I remember the time when the name of Mr. Burch figured quite prominently in the pages of our bee-papers. It was he, I believe, who used to furnish the delightful series of “Walks and Talks” for the earlier volumes of the old Bee-Keepers’ Magazine.
These “Walks and Talks,” with some other articles that appeared in the Magazine, gave it a tone that I do not find in any of the bee-publications of this later day, I am sorry to say. It seems, that although we have some very good writers on apiculture pure and simple, still we have none of those classic writers of a number of years ago. My taste may be somewhat vitiated, and I am unable to recognize the beauty of style of the leaders in apicultural literature of the present time.
If I remember correctly, it was the same James Heddon that I just referred to, that found fault with the writings of “those literary fellows.” Yet it is this same critic who has secured no less a writer than the Mr. Burch I have mentioned above, to as *sist him in building up his (Heddon’s) newspaper. While complimenting Mr. H. on his good taste in securing such an eminent writer as Mr. Burch, I must say that he was a little too severe on a class of writers who did much to make apiculture what it is to-day.