®®e«®®e®®®e«®«e««®®®®€P««^e^ &&&@&e^&&&&&&&&&&®&&&i 





r ^ >Ht_u AMERICA ^ 



Eniered at the Post-Offlce at Chicago as Second-Class Mail-Matter. 

 Publislied ^Veekly at 81. OO a Vear by George W. Vork & Co., 3:t4 Ikearborn St. 



QBORae W. YORK, Editor. 



CHICAGO, ILL,, MAY 5, 1904. 



Vol, XLIV— No, 18, 





Editorial Comments 



} 



"Who is 'Mrs. BeFthe?'" 



We understand that a woman by the name of " Berthe,'' of Min- 

 nesota, has lieen appointed superintendent of the apiarian department 

 of the World's Fair at St. Louis. If anybody knows who she is, or 

 what she has ever done in and for the bee-keeping world, we would be 

 pleased to hear about it. 



In the meantime we are compelled to let the question stand, 

 " Who is Mrs. Berthe?" The only suitable answer this writer has on 

 hand at present is one that seems to be mortgaged by Dr. Miller, 

 namely, " I don't know !" 



Adulterated Honey in California. 



Mr. Geo. W. Bereaw, of Orange Co., Calif., sends us the following 

 item taken from the Los Angeles Times of April 20: 



Thirty-five times Inspector Drummond, of the city health depart- 

 ment, bought mixtures of glucose and sugar when he assayed to buy 

 extracted honey. While honey is cheap in this most favored of 

 all honey-producing sections of the country, the manufacturers of the 

 adulterated mixture, in which a small quantity of honey was used, 

 must have been able to put it on the market at a much lower price or 

 it would not so commonly be found on the shelves of the retail grocer. 



M. W. Worster, salesman for the Southern Syrup Company, was 

 yesterday convicted before Justice Austin of having sold one of the 

 samples taken by the inspector, and was fined ^25. 



While Mr. Drummond has bought adulterated samples from other 

 manufacturers, he says that most of the dealers are selling the article 

 put on the market by the concern that Worster represents. It is the 

 intention of the health department to keep after those who sell the 

 sham article until it is driven out of the market. Other complaints 

 are expected to follow. 



We are glad to know that city health inspectors are getting after 

 the sellers of adulterated food products, especially impure houey. 

 Every such precaution and conviction will help the sale of pure 

 honey, and thus aid bee-keepers. We hope the good work will be 

 kept up until fraudulent foods will be driven entirely out of the 

 markets. 



Uncontrollable " Lizzie " and Her " Controllables." 



The younger members of the American Bee Journal family will 

 probably not understand the above heading, but the older ones will. 

 Years ago, under the name of " Mrs. Lizzie Cotton," a hive was widely 

 advertised by which wonderful things were claimed to be done, aud a 

 good many dollars were harvested for which little returns were 

 secured. 



Now appears in the Union (iospel News an article of more thau a 

 column advertising the Cotion Controllable Hive, no doubt a free 

 advertisement which the periodical has admitted under the guise of 

 information regarding bees. In addition there is now the "Cotton 

 Improved Bee.'' The writer of the article is a Boston man, Eben 

 Bumstead, with " Supt." (whatever that may mean) attached to his 

 name, who, last spring, secured a colony of Mrs. Lizzie Cotton's 

 " Improved Bees in a Controllable Hive," and obtained from it 40 

 pounds of honey, while a city dealer, who had 40 colonies of bees in 



patented hives, got only .=> pounds to the hive. He does not take pains 

 to mention that hundreds of others olitained two to five times as great 

 yields as his, in hives that were not Cotton hives. 



Some of the items make rather amusing reading for bee-keepers. 

 With regard to the fear of stings, " a little experience by being stung 

 and applying salt and water will overcome the fear." "The writer 

 has found the Cotton Improved Bee to be perfectly safe and harmless 

 when rightly managed.'' But he did not acd that all other bees were 

 the same. "However a sting once in a season is a natural remedy for 

 certain ills." That " once in a season " is good. 



He gives a description of the Cotton Controllable Hive, which 

 in every particular appeals to the tastes and desires of its tenants ; for 

 instance, it has " extra compartments on each side and on roof." The 

 " tastes and desires " of the Cotton Improved Bee must be such that 

 it is just pining to get off in a compartment on the side, and espe- 

 cially " on roof." 



The strange thing is that with such superior qualities and such 

 extensive advertising in the past, this hive is not known to the bee- 

 keeping fraternity to be used to-day by a single practical bee-keeper 

 in the country, and the likelinood is that not many would use the hive 

 as a gift. The explanation that these hives are not better known, as 

 Mr. Bumstead gives it, is " because there is no patent on them. The 

 trade must rely upon patented hives on which they can exercise 

 a monopoly, but the Cotton Controllable Hive can be made by any 

 one." If Mr. Bumstead knows anything about the trade, he must 

 know that such a statement is a gigantic falsehood. The great bulk 

 of hives sold by the trade is unpantented and unpatentable. Perhaps 

 not more than one firm in the entire trade has any interest in a pat- 

 ented hive. 



Notwithstanding the lack of a patent on this wonderful hive, a 

 little " nigger in tht fence " may be seen when Mr. Bumstead suggests 

 "the reader who is interested may write, and we will furnish what 

 information we can without charge.'' 



It is to be hoped that the Union Gospel News will lose no time in 

 cautioning its readers not to lose money by investing in Cotton hives 

 or bees. 



Level Head on New Bee-Papers. 



Editor Morehouse, of the Rock,\ Mountain Bee Journal, had this 

 to say in an editorial in reference to starting new bee-papers : 



"The man who starts a bee-journal these days days must be a 

 practical printer, and be able to do most of the mechanical, as well as 

 the mental work himself, or else spend a fair-sized fortune before re- 

 turns begin to balance expenditures. Even then he must be satisfied 

 with meager profits for a long time to come." 



It has been quite a while since we have said anything on this sub- 

 ject. We had about concluded that it is pretty nearly a waste of time 

 and space to say more on new bee-papers. We have seen so many 

 start and stop during the past 20 years that, really, it does seem that 

 any one who thinks he must start a new bee-paper these days has very 

 poor judgment, to say the very least. 



Of all the new papers that have been launched on the tempestu- 

 ous sea of American apicultural journalism during the last two decades, 

 only three or four of them are tu-duy worthy of notice. And perhaps 

 only one or two of those three nr tour have any circulation worth 

 mentioning. No doubt, if it were not for a profitable bee-supply 

 business back of several of the smaller American bee-papers to-day, 

 they would cease to exist. It is seldom any more that a bee paper is 



