1895 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



271 



judged them to be larg-ely of Syrian blood. But the 

 most noted characteristic exhibited by at least one 

 of tlie two colonies was an inclination to rob. If 

 there was any attack to be attempted ou a colony, 

 or any chance to pry into a case of honey, about 

 one-half the would-be thieves out of a large apiary 

 were from one or both of these colonies. It is to 

 be hoped that this peculiarity may stand them in 

 stead in the gathering- of nectar when an opportu- 

 nity occurs. 



I can personally vouch for the truth of Mr. 

 Taylor's statements; for while I was in his 

 apiary last summer they exhibited several of 

 the characteristics he has pointed out. 



THOSE GIANT BEES OF IXDIA. 



Perhafs our readers will remember seeing 

 in our columns an advertisement of "Giant 

 Bees." We accepted the card for two insertions, 

 and in the mean time wrote to the advertiser, 

 asking him to send samples of the bees, as it is 

 not our custom to accept an advertisement of 

 a novelty unless we know what it is. We re- 

 ceived no response to our first request, and 

 finally wrote again, and still the request was 

 ignored. We dropped the advertisement, and 

 finally the following card came to hand: 



I have been led into the Giant-Bee business 

 througli my ignorance, and am out $14 cash. I 

 should like to liave you discontinue my advertise- 

 ment. I have received a good many letters and 

 postal cards asking for descriptions, samples, etc., 

 but no orders or money. If I receive any it will be 

 returned at once. I have answered none of them 

 yet, and am very much ashamed of having been 

 mixed up in this matter. C. D. Holt. 



Murray, Ky., March 12. 



Inasmuch as Mr. Holt claims, in the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal, that the drones of the 

 "Giant " bees will fertilize queens in confine- 

 ment — yes, several of them — even in a queen- 

 cage, it is evident he could not be fully inform- 

 ed in regard to the habits of bees or of the 

 experiments that have been made in the past. 

 We should not have inserted his advertisement 

 in the first place; and it is due to our readers 

 and Mr. Holt's patrons that his card should be 

 published. 



I do not mean to give the impression that Mr. 

 Holt intended to be dishonest; but it is a little 

 singular that he refused to send samples of the 

 bees or reply to those who wrote. If he really 

 has the bees, and inasmuch as he has adver- 

 tised them, it seems to us he ought to be willing 

 to send at least the editors of bee-journals dead 

 specimens, even if it is difficult for him to get 

 live ones at this time of the year. The $14 that 

 he refers to is probably the total cost of adver- 

 tising in all the bee-journals. 



WAX ADULTERATIONS. AND SIMPLE METHODS 

 FOR DETECTING THE .SAME. 



Since our last issue we have been carrying 

 on quite a series of experiments, taking wax of 

 known purity, wax adulterated with paraffine, 



and wax mixed with ceresin, and carefully 

 noting the results in each case. 



I procured a lot of test-tubes, such as are used 

 by chemists, and told the foreman of our foun- 

 dation department to put a small quantity of 

 each of the samples into each tube. These, 

 together with a thermometer, were to be placed 

 in a bath of water, the temperature of the 

 water lobe gradually raised, when he was to 

 be careful to observe the melting-point of the 

 contents of each tube. The different tubes 

 were numbered, and the results are shown in 

 the following table: 



No. 1, white wax, commenced melting at 156° F.; 

 entirely liquid at 160. 



No. 3, half wax and half ceresin; commenced 

 mtlting at 160; entirely liquid at 166. 



No. 3, red wax, probably Southern; commenced 

 melting at 153; entirely liquid at 158. 



No. 4, recently bought wax, commenced melting 

 at 153; entirely liquid at 159. 



No. 5, ceresin only, commenced melting at 163; 

 entirely liquid at 173. 



No. 6, half wax and half parafBne; commenced 

 melting at 140; entirely liquid at 148. 



I will explain that No. 3, the red wax, is a 

 product from the South or from Cuba, the real 

 color of which is a brownish red, and at first it 

 appears to be suspicious; but, as I shall show 

 later on, it is probably all right. Nos. 1, 3, and 

 4 are probably pure wax. The slight difference 

 in the melting-points is due to the amount of 

 dirt, or whether the wax had been recently 

 remelted often or not. 



Now, then, referring to the table you will see 

 that the pure wax begins to melt at from 153 to 

 156. and becomes a perfect liquid at from 158 to 

 160. You will observe that No. 6 (wax that we 

 adulterated ourselves) half paraffine and half 

 wax, commenced to melt at 140, and became 

 liquid at 148. No. 2, half wax and half ceresin, 

 commenced to melt at 160, and became liquid 

 at 166. No. 5, pure ceresin, began to melt at 

 163, and became liquid at 173. We therefore 

 observe that the melting-point of ceresin is 

 much higher than that of wax, and that par- 

 afBne is correspondingly lower. No. 6, half 

 paraffine and half wax, shows the melting- 

 point just where we should expect it. No. 2, 

 half wax and half ceresin, shows figures that 

 are- half way between the pure wax and pure 

 ceresin. You see. therefore, that something 

 can be told by the melting-point of doubtful 

 pieces of wax. I wish to remark right here, 

 however, that the text-books put the fusing- 

 pointofwax anywhere from 145 to 1.50. This, 

 doubtless, applies to wax as it comes from the 

 hives, and which has not been rendered pre- 

 viously. It is observable that, the more wax is 

 melted over, the higher the fusing-point, and 

 the tougher it becomes. 



Now, then, I want to give you a simpler and 

 easier test, and one that may be, I think, fairly 

 reliable. In our last issue we quoted from 



