1893 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



881 



timers will make you feel like settling down 

 near them for life. 



Santa Ana and some of the surrounding towns 

 are supplied with pure artesian water; and, all 

 other things being taken into consideration, 

 a home in any one of them would result satis- 

 factorily to the home-seeker. The soil is also 

 adapted to the cultivation of the sugar-beet, 

 and new factories are projected. The pioneer 

 factory at Chino is a paying institution, and 

 the beet-farmer would not exchange his lands 

 for fruit or grain lands. 



Altogether, Orange County is a desirable por- 

 tion of California; and between the sugar and 

 honey industries it ought to be one of the sweet- 

 est. With good soil, good water, genial climate, 

 and a good class of people, what more does a 

 country need to bring prosperity? is the ques- 

 tion presented by the Rambler. 



BEE-CAGE CANDY. 



PLAIN DIRECTIONS HOW TO MAKE, FROM MRS. 

 JENNIE ATCHLEY. 



[The following letter, directed to Mrs. Atch- 

 ley, was forwarded to us by her with her an- 

 swer. We are very glad to give place to the 

 whole.] 



Mrs. Jennie Atchley:— As I have seen your 

 advertisement or address in Gleanings. I take 

 the liberty of writing to you, and inquiring how 

 to make that bee-candy, as I have some colo- 

 nies of bees that have not enough honey to 

 winter on, and should like to feed them in the 

 cellar, with the candy. If you will be kind 

 enough to tell me how it is made I should be 

 ever so much obliged. G. L. Unterkikciier. 



Manchester, Mich., Nov. 6. 



Friend U:iterkircher:—A.s promised. I will 

 give a full description how to make candy, etc. 

 To make a candy to ship queens with we should 

 use nothing except the finest of confectioners" 

 sugar, and thoroughly pulverize all lumps, and 

 use honey that has been boiled or brought to 

 the boilins- point; but be sure not to scorch the 

 honey. Now work the sugar and hnney to- 

 gether tmtil it will stand up of its(>lf: and if 

 you will work it thoroughly it will bo tough, 

 and hold moisture. I use boiled honey to pre- 

 vent the candy from granulating (honey that 

 comes from the solar wax-extractor is good), 

 for we have lost a number of queens on long 

 journeys by the candy granulating, and it is a 

 very nice job to get real good candy every time. 



Now, if you wish to feed your bees only, com- 

 mon powdered sugar will do. Make as above, but 

 any extracted honey will do. If you have your 

 bees in a cellar you can lay a good chunk of 

 candy right over the cluster, and spread it out 

 thin till it is flat, or not more than an inch 

 thick, and lay the cake on the frames over the 

 bees, and they will take it down. 



Then, again, you can use common coffee 

 sugar and no honey, only use a little cream of 

 tartar or a lump of tartaric acid to keep the 

 candy from going back to sugar. You can 

 make the candy hard, and, when it will snap 

 by dropping it in water, you can pour it right 

 into a frame, made ready by laying it on a 

 greased paper on a table. It is best to use a 

 frame that has been wired the same as for 

 foundation, as the wires will hold the candy. 

 If you wish, iill the frame full, and, wjien cool, 

 hang right up to the cluster, and they will take 

 the candy as they need it; and then this last 

 candy will not start brood-rearing, as the for- 

 mer is likely to do, which is not good to stimu- 

 late your bees while in confinement. Then in 



the spring, if you should not. wish to take out 

 the frame that contained the candy, the bees 

 will build a comt) in it, and all will be well. 

 See, A 13 C of Bee Culture for further informa- 

 tion. Jennie Atchley. 

 Beeville, Tex. 



■ ■ 



THOSE OLD BEE-BOOKS. 



HUISH VERSUS HUBER. 



We have now come to the last book which it 

 will be desirable to examine in particular. A 

 few remain, but I shall do little more with them 

 than to give their names. I make this state- 

 ment for the benefit of " The Stinger," who 

 fears the books will be too *' ancient " before I 

 get thi'ough with tliem. I was just contem- 

 plating borrowing those 1004 old ones owned by 

 Mr. T. W. Cowan, but now I guess I'd better not. 



The book in question is called " Huisli on 

 Bees." It was published in London in 1844 and 

 printed by that prince of good printers. H. G. 

 Bohn. York St.. London. It has 4.o0 pages, (3x3; 

 and for clearness of print and general beauty it 

 is a pleasure to a printer's eve. It was written 

 by Rot)t. Huish. F. Z. A., of England, one of the 

 most eminent bee-men of his time. 



In my last I put Huber forth in the light in 

 which he is generally viewed, without commit- 

 ting myself to any of his doctrines. This book, 

 however, is the most powerful opponent of 

 Huber's teachings; and on nearly every page 

 the reader sees that the blind old naturalist is 

 pursued by a critic as remorseless as death, as 

 shrewd as a lawyer, and as unsparing as a tiger. 

 Every weapon in the arsenal— sarcasm, ridicule, 

 contempt, dislike, and sneers — is brought to 

 bear with as much vim and enthusiasm as clubs 

 come down on every opposing head at the 

 traditional Donnybrook Fair. And consider- 

 ing the fact that JIuish wrote about .50 years 

 later than Huber, I can't help feeling that he 

 has the advantage of the latter in most cases. 

 It is to he regretted, however, that the intense 

 antipathy felt in England in those days against 

 France accounts for much of the acerbity dis- 

 played by Huish toward his dead opponent, 

 although the great Englishman was an honor- 

 ary member of the National Institute of France, 

 and seems to have understood French, making 

 many quotations in that language. 



The introduction to the liook is a superb 

 summing-up of the history of apicultui-e: and 

 to sh'.w how Mr. Huish felt toward Huber I 

 make a liberal quotation here. True, it is only 

 a hair of the dog; but it gives, after all, a good 

 general idea of the animal: 



At the close of tlu^ eifjliteenth century. Mr. Huber, 

 a blind naturalist, appeared, who directed liis ser- 

 vant, or liis servant directed liim in tliose resenrclies, 

 for the supposed verity of wliich a surreptitious 

 fame lias been awarded'liim. and which lias yilaced 

 him on the pinnacle of apiarian science, an emi- 

 nence on whieli lie has been undeservedly elevated 

 by a host of comineiitators, encyclopedists, editors, 

 and compilers, who have been led away by the 

 apparent orig-inality of his pretended discoveries, 

 but who never deemed It necessary to devote any 

 portion of their time or ability in the irivestifration 

 of the principles of that theory, of the truth of 

 which tbey expressed theii' unqualified assent. If, 

 in the course of the ensuing work, we may have 

 laid ourselves open to the chiii-Ke of having- applied 

 tlie lash of ri licule too severely upon this falsely 

 celeluated naturalist, we can only answer, in ex- 

 tenuation of tliat transtrression, that we have lieen 

 encouraged t,o the commission of it by tlie thoroug-h 

 conviction, arising from an exjierience of aliove 

 forty years, that the majority of the vaunted dis- 

 coveries of Huber are the result of fiction and delu- 

 sion, founded on olisolete theories and antiquated 

 prejudices. The mati who will assert, that, from 

 his own evidence, he has heard the queen-bee speak 



