GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. L 



bees for love and pleasure, the great majority 

 kept them for pi'ofit; therefore the maintain- 

 ing of a good marliet was of prime importance. 

 While he could not do any thing in the way of 

 helping the matter of production, he could 

 assist in finding a market; that is, he could 

 prevent, to some extent, competition, by point- 

 ing out the adulterated fabrications on the 

 market, and warning consumers against their 

 use. If bee-keepers knew how much they had 

 been cheated by having these mixtures come in 

 competition with their pure goods, they would 

 be surprised. Three years ago he and his asso- 

 ciates had purchased in the open market a 

 variety of samples of liquid honpy. and found 

 45 per cent of them glucosed. Glucose was the 

 principal adulterant, and the detection of this 

 article in honey was absolutely certain. Some 

 kinds of plant-lice honey, and certain fabrica- 

 tions made up of sugar fed to bees, might not 

 in all cases be recognized; but the chemists 

 were working on this problem, and would have 

 the matter settled soon. He did not regard 

 sugar syrup fed to bees, and afterward taken as 

 honey, as a pure article. He for one would call 

 it adulterated. In conclusion, he begged to 

 assure the bee-keepers that his scientific breth- 

 ren would keep pace with the work. He for 

 one would leave no stone unturned to detect 

 every possible adulteration which could be 

 practiced, and thus give to the bee-keepers a 

 pure and open market. 



Some little discussion followed the address of 

 Prof. Wiley, in which the matter of Mr. Muth's 

 honey being classed by the chemists as adul- 

 terated was brought up. Mr. Muth himself 

 did not have much faith in the analyses of 

 chemists. He had been in the honey business 

 many years, and felt confident that he had 

 never sold nor put up under his labels any thing 

 but the pure honey. It was shown, however, 

 that the samples of honey reputed to have 

 come from Mr. Muth, and which was pronounc- 

 ed by the chemists adulterated, had a spurious 

 label; and some held the view that, as Mr. 

 Muth had established a reputation for honest 

 goods, unprincipled glucose-mixers had coun- 

 terfeited his label. The feeling in the conven- 

 tion seemed to be strong that, whatever the 

 chemical analysis might show, Mr. Muth him- 

 self would put up and sell only the pure honey; 

 and that, if the analysis were correct. Mr. Muth 

 himself had been imposed on by unprincipled 

 parties who had copied his label and name. 



At this point the president did a very unex- 

 pected thing; but all is well that ends well. He 

 said that, as Mr. Newman, formerly of the Amer- 

 ican Bee Journal, and Prof. Wiley also, were 

 present, between whom differences had formerly 

 existed.it was a grand time to effect a reconcili- 

 ation in open convention; and thereupon he in- 

 troduced Mr. Newman to Prof. Wiley. They 

 shook hands amid the enthusiastic applause of 

 the whole convention. Although antagonistic 

 feelings may have existed between bee-keepers 

 and Prof. Wiley, the last vestiges of them. I am 

 happy to believe, had almost wholly vanished 

 at this time. The professor feels that he made 

 a mistake in starting the comb-honey canard, 

 and gave expression to that sentiment at the 

 meeting in Washington. The members of this 

 convention, after having heard him. I think, 

 begin to understand him a little better; and 

 that, so far from being their arch-enemy, he is 

 disposed to do all in his power to give every 

 assistance possible, with all that his position 

 signifies. 



We next listened to a paper read by Sec. Pen- 

 ton, from Samuel Simmins, of Mapassa Villa, 

 England, on the subject of "Swarming, and the 

 Prevention of Swarms." First of all. the writ- 

 er said, it is a natural instinct, whereby young 



queens are secured, and new homes are formed^ 

 While locality had something to do, also, with 

 the desire for swarming, he considered the 

 general neglect of the apiarist in having poor 

 and crooked combs, where cells could be easily 

 started, had moie to do with it. Th<> usual 

 plan for prevention, where comb honey was the 

 object, was to put on the sections before the 

 swarming season had been reached; but this 

 was only partially successful. When runoidng 

 for extracted honey, the problem was far more 

 simple, providing there were plenty of empty 

 combs, and an extra set of brood-chambers; 

 but, after all. prevention was not always se- 

 cured by such unlimited space. One trouble 

 was, that bee-keepers kept queens that were 

 too old. Young queens should be given, and 

 that during the fall, and not during the time 

 that nature usually gives them at the time of 

 natural increase, and when the bees can least 

 aft'ord to make the change. The plan that he 

 advocated principally In connection with hav- 

 ing young queens, was, to put an empty brood- 

 chamber under the usual brood - chamber, 

 before the latter became crowded. The frames 

 in the lower chamber had only 14-inch guides, 

 and surplus apartment was worked as usual 

 above the brood-chamber. Anticipating that 

 some would urge that they could not get the 

 bees to work above with so much room below, 

 he said he had never found the least difficulty. 



Quite a little discussion followed the reading 

 of this paper. H. R. Board man asked the ques- 

 tion whether it were really desirable to pre- 

 vent swarming. In his opinion, it was not. 

 The new swarms would gather enough more 

 honey to make up for the slight annoyance, and 

 the loss of time consequent upon getting ready,^ 

 and starting a new home. He gave quite a 

 number of instances to show that the new 

 swarm would run away ahead of the parent 

 colony. For instance, one old colony he had on 

 the scales, gathered 5 lbs, a day before it cast a. 

 swarm, against 12 lbs. a day for the new swarm 

 later on. Pres. Miller, to bring the matter be- 

 fore the convention, asked those to rise who 

 believed that, for best results in comh honey, it 

 was desirable to prevent swarming. Thirty- 

 one rose to their feet. 



When the converse of the question was stat- 

 ed, 53 arose. Then Pres. Miller asked those to 

 rise who believed that, for the best results in 

 extracted honey, it was desirable to prevent 

 swarming. Two members signilied that it was 

 desirable, against 49 who thought not. 



R. C. Aikin, of Colorado, favored some system 

 to prevent swarming in the production of comb 

 honey. He said that, in a term of five years, he 

 would produce more comb honey, by running 

 on the non-swarming plan, on the principle of 

 dequeening. than the best man we could pick 

 out in the convention, who would allow his bees 

 to swarm. He would control swarms every 

 time if he could, because, during the operation 

 of swarming, valuable time was lost; but in 

 going on the non-swarming plan we must know 

 how to make the bees work. 



C. F. Muth stated that the reason why the 

 new swarm did better was because the old bees 

 were the ones that gathered the honey, and 

 that, as a rule, they went off with the swarm. 

 It was urged, however, by others in the conven- 

 tion, that the whole question as to the desira- 

 bility of preventing or allowing swarms depend- 

 ed largely on locality — one furnishing long- 

 continued or one with short, heavy honey-flows. 

 The plan that had worked the best in one local- 

 ity would not necessarily do for another. 



Mr. Alpaugh, of Canada, was then asked to 

 give his method of preventing swarming. He 

 smiled somewhat doubtfully, and said that, for 

 comb honey, he did not know that he had any> 



