1896 



GLEANINCiS IN BEE CULTURE. 



133 



an inside view of ibing-s as enabled him to give us 

 the authentic fact wlieu he said that half Califor- 

 nia's product left tlie State in an adulterated condi- 

 tion. 



Is this the only sample of California honey 

 he ever saw— a sanaple from some one who had 

 no better? Does he judge all our honey by a 

 single bottle, or a 60 pound can? We have a 

 honey-producing country larger than any one 

 of half the States in the Union. We have all 

 climates the world can produce, from the arctic 

 winter of the mountains to the seductive cli- 

 mate of Italy or the balmy fragrance of "Cey- 

 lon's isle." Climate! yes, we can furnish any 

 climate wanted. All we need do is to reach up 

 to a pigeonhole above the desk, and haul out 

 any climate we please. We have no cyclones 

 to scatter our apiaries to the four winds of 

 heaven; no lightning to speak of ; no thunder, 

 except that of Skylark as it rolls across the 

 continent. 



Is such a land, teeming with the greatest 

 assortment of honey-plants the world can pro- 

 duce, to be judged and condemned by a single 

 sample of dark honey? Suppose I were to ob- 

 tain a sample of the "bug-juice" you some- 

 times get at Richards, O., and li6lcl it up to the 

 gazing world as a sample of Ohio honey, and 

 cry aloud that it all needed a "good article of 

 glucose to make it salable;" could you think 

 I should be doing justice to Ohio? Bro. Hasty, 

 you have been too /la.s-tiy in your remarks. Did 

 you ever see comb honey as white as the driven 

 snow? That was black-sage honey, and was 

 produced on California soil. Did you ever see 

 extracted as clear and beautiful as any water 

 from a living spring? That was also black- 

 sage honey, and was the product of California 

 soil. We stand on the top of our woodpile and 

 crow over our honey. We challenge mankind 

 to produce such a quantity and such a quality 

 on any territory of the same size, the world 

 over. Bro. Hasty, I am mad at you — real mad. 

 You will try to adulterate that honey, all I can 

 do. I have got Bro. Dayton down, and you 

 try to pull me off, contrary to the Queensbury 

 rules. But you just hold him for me till I knock 

 the stilts from under your own figures. You 

 people buy glucose for l}^ cents, then figure on 

 bulldozing the railroad to carry it over the 

 continent for '.^ cent — a far lower rate than 

 they would carry cobble stones. Hasty, you 

 ought to be ashamed of yourself, to try to wreck 

 a railroad in this reckless manner. Very well, 

 we will take your own tigures. 



Glucose, Ik cents; freight, }4 cent; drayage 

 at both ends of the line, handling, and mixing, 

 X cent more; cases and cans, "j of a cent; in 

 all, 3'4 cents per pound for glucose to mix with 

 honey at .3 cents. What a splendid speculation I 

 At the time friend Dayton's article appeared, 

 hundreds of tons of honey were actually being 

 sold— from Los Angeles to Monterey — for '^ cts. 

 per pound, and it is no higher yet. 



Now, friend Hasty, if you have any "inside 

 views " or " authentic facts " that would enable 

 you to lake honey at -i cents, and mix it with 

 glucose at SJci", and make money on it— why, 

 just prance them out. 



I don't see why the editor of the American 



Bee Journal does not send me such questions 



to answer as the following, which appears in 



the question- box for 1896: 



Query 1. Please tell about how often you "go 

 into " or take frames out of each hive in the course 

 of tiie year.— Ky. 



Well, it depends on how many hives you have. 

 I don't want to be too hard on you. If you 

 have only one hive, I would not " go into" it 

 more than about fifty times a day. If you have 

 ten hives, don't "go into" them more than ten 

 times a day. But if you have 100 hives, I 

 would not "go into" them more than three 

 times a day— just to see how the queens are 

 laying, and to see that they do not lay their 

 eggs upside down. If they do, you must take a 

 pointed quill, made something like a pen, and 

 turn them all over. There is no use in having 

 bees hatched out tail end foremost. Such bees 

 always go the wrong way for honey. Now, 

 mind your eye. don't you "go into" them any 

 oftener than I have specified. A colony of bees 

 is not a " monkey show," where you can " go in 

 free" as often as you please. 



There are so few things in this world that I 

 don't know all about, that, when I do meet 

 with something that I do not fully understand, 

 I am utterly confounded and surprised that I 

 should have missed it. The following questions 

 are asked Dr. Miller, in American Bee Journal, 

 page 745: 



1. How much sulphuric acid should I apply to a 

 gallon crock full of old combs to take the wax out 

 of the cocoons ? 



'Z. Is it injurious to a tin vessel ? 



3. How is it applied to ola combs V L. H. L. 



Aitswerx.—l. I'm not familiar with the matter 

 from experience, but 1 think aljout a small table- 

 spoonful to a gallon of water. 



3. Yes. 



3. 1 think the wax is stirred in the water, and 

 allowed plenty of time to do its work, then the wax 

 is melted and separated as usual. 



From answer 3 it would appear that Doctor 

 M. means to stir the combs in cold water with 

 the acid. Now, that is just what stumps me. 

 I never tried a scheme of that kind, and do not 

 believe that the acid could do any work, so far 

 as purifying the wax is concerned, no odds how 

 long the combs were left in the solution. Re- 

 finers use sulphuric acid to cut the dirt and 

 color out of crude oil, and then cut the oil out 

 with caustic soda. But oil is a liquid; and if 

 you want acid to cut the dirt out of wax you 

 must turn that into a liquid. This can he done 

 only by heat. The doctor conveys the idea that 

 the work of the acid is done while the old 

 combs are lying in the solution of cold water 

 and acid. This is the one thing, the only thing, 

 that I didn't know. This is what surprised and 

 astonished me — astounded me so much that I 



