GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



131 



deviating to the left, is always strong enough to 

 counterbalance the deviation to the right, of the 

 natural grape sugar; or, in a word, every pure hon- 

 ey is eii her without action on the polarized light, 

 or deviates slightly to the left, never to the right. 

 These experiments were confirmed by others, in 

 which from 5 to 20 per cent of manufactured glu- 

 cose, after having been stored by bees in the combs, 

 was mixed with pure honey, and which, every time, 

 turned the light to the right. Chas. Dadant. 



Hamilton, 111., Jan 23. 



Thanks, friend D. While L do not pro- 

 pose to take part in this discussion, there is 

 one point on which I am prepared to give 

 testimony. I often feel a little bit troubled 

 on this point, when I see honey recommend- 

 ed so vehemently for food and also for medi- 

 cine. Of late years it is not very good food 

 for me, and. generally speaking, rather poor 

 medicine. I never could quite understand 

 it, either. I am very fond of sweets, and 

 can eat maple syrup for supper, with per- 

 fect impunity ; yes, I can take two or three 

 spoonfuls of granulated sugar in my hot 

 lemonade, just before going to bed ; aud in- 

 stead of disturbing my sleep, it does quite 

 the contrary. Now, there is something 

 about honey that is entirely different. If I 

 eat honey at all it must be in the morning or 

 at noon ; and even then it is quite apt to 

 give me the headache. Whenever I eat it 

 for supper there is trouble, and I have tried 

 it hundreds of times. It is the worst arti- 

 cle of food for me to digest that I have ever 

 got hold of ; and I can not discover that 

 there is very much difference in the kind of 

 honey. While maple sugar or maple syrup 

 Is harmless, honey is almost poison, if taken 

 in the same quantities. My testimony 

 would be, then, that honey is neither digest- 

 ed, nor very easily digestible. Perhaps, 

 however, this has no bearing on the ques- 

 tion. I have seldom mentioned this matter, 

 because others seem to be differently af- 

 fected, and also because it did not seem 

 very consistent for a honey-man, and the 

 editor of a bee - journal, to be putting in 

 •testimony against the use of honey. 



THICK TOP-BARS. 



MR. J. B. HALL MAKES A CORRECTION. 



Mr. Ernest R. Root:— Your postal, also copy of 

 •Gleanings for Jan. 1, came duly to hand. Please 

 accept my thanks. I am glad that you had such a 

 good time at Brantford. But I think there was so 

 much to be seen around the Falls that you must 

 have become somewhat mixed in what you saw 

 ■and heard in Brantford. An example on p. 17: In 

 speaking of J. B. Hall you speak of his Scitch ac- 

 cent. Allow me to whisper in your ear, that the 

 •old fellow iiiver saw Scotland, and he does not know 

 a particle of that blood in his veins. The nearest 

 approach to his being Scotch is in the fact that his 

 wife was the production of a match of a Dutch- 

 Yankee woman and a Scotch-Canuck man, and I 

 think the presence of that amount of Scotch blood 

 in Hall's wife would not atfect his speech much. 

 He came to North America in 1856, and settled in 

 the largest and best part of it; namely, Canada; and 

 at the time (I will say this for your benefit, as at 

 that time you were not born), allow me to state, the 



great English-speaking peoples in North America, 

 both south and north of that " big wall " you speak 

 of, lived as happy neighbors, and traded with each 

 other freely, your own people selling us all of the 

 following goods: Cotton goods of all kinds; farm- 

 ing implements; machinery of all kinds; ready- 

 made clothing; hats, boots, salt, salt pork, cheese, 

 etc., and you bought from us all of the following 

 (that was A No. 1): Lumber, wood, grain of all 

 kinds, with the exception of maize (corn), horses, 

 cattle, sheep, swine, and all of our grand fish you 

 wished, for the taking (although your men persist- 

 ed in breaking our Sabbath laws), the product of 

 the mine, iron, lead, copper, silver, gold, nickel, 

 plumbago, phosphates, etc. In fact, your people 

 used to buy all our raw products, and send them 

 back to us after manufacturing. You were our 

 "middlemen." This has all been changed by the 

 madness of some of your politicians, who clamored 

 that the reciprocity trade should be annulled, and 

 that those insolent fellows at the north should be 

 kept there to freeze. 



At this time, I, with most of my countrymen 

 north of the " wall " you mention, felt hurt, and 

 thought it a bad job for us; but it was a blessing in 

 disguise; for Canada has progressed as she could 

 not have done had the old state of trade continued, 

 and the sixty millions of people south of the line 

 managed the five millions north of the line. 



To return to p. 17: I would say that the frame I 

 use has a top-bar 20U x 1 deep x 1 plump inch wide. 

 I use 8 frames in my hive, 11^ inches wide. Thus 

 you will see a bee-space 1% is maintained. In fact, 

 all parts of the hive have this j\ space between, to 

 do away with brace-combs in any part of the hive. 

 It was no blunder or chance that made the space 

 1I5, but from experience and observation in han- 

 dling bees. The last lot of Quinby frames I made 

 was in 1881, number 3200. The top-bar was 20='.{ x 1 

 X 1 inch plump wide; end-bar, ll^i x 1 x >4 ; bottom- 

 bar, 18 '<,.x''4xi4. I think you are a little hard on the 

 old man, in attributing his doings about the apiary 

 to accident and blundering; and I sincerely wish 

 and hope that you will not make any worse blun- 

 dering than I have done in frames and hives. 



J. B. Hall. 



Woodstock, Ont., Can., Jan. 30, 1890. 



Very good, friend Hall. If the fact of my 

 mixing up Niagara Falls with thick top- 

 bars caused me to report your statements 

 so crookedly as to induce you to write for 

 print (even by way of correction) I do not 

 feel so very sorrj^, after all, as it takes more 

 than money to induce you to write. And 

 now our readers have a correct statement of 

 the facts. The expression, " blundering on 

 to a discovery," was rather unfortunate ; 

 but as I understood you while talking with 

 you between the sessions, you said that you 

 at first did not intend to do away with 

 brace-combs by adopting thick top-bars — 

 your main idea being at first to do away 

 with sagging; but the fact that this happy 

 rt-siilt (no burr-combs) was brought about 

 by careful experiment and not by "•acci- 

 dent '' or mere " blundering,'" is more to 

 your credit. I believe, friend Hall, you 

 were the first to bring this important mat- 

 ter into public notice ; for it seems that 

 quite a number, after reading the report of 

 your thick bars and no burr-combs, began 

 experimenting ; and now you see they are 



