186 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



are too far from the fire box for that— and 

 the trouble from clogging is forever at rest. 

 A piece of soft leather is glued over the in- 

 side of the valve. The piece of leather is 

 so large that its edges extend out perhaps an 

 inch or more beyond the edges of the valve, 

 where they are glued to the inside of the 

 board forming that side of the bellows, thus 

 preventing any leakage of air around the 

 valve. Of course, a hole is made in the 

 leather where it comes over the blast - hole 

 in the valve. 



It is really surprising to see the ease 

 with which a fire can be started, and kept 

 going, and to see what a strong blast of 

 smoke can be sent out. Then to think that 

 it is always going to work this way— 

 that there is to be no fussing, tinkering and 

 cleauing. Perhaps I am inclined to exagger- 

 ate this point, but to me it seems a great 

 comfort. This is the first article that I really 

 felt as though I should like to make for sale. 

 Of course, I shall not do it, but I wish that 

 Mr. Crane would make them, or that Mr. 

 Bingham would make some arrangements 

 whereby he could add this feature to his 

 smoker. If he would do this, he would have 

 the most perfect smoker ever made: for, be 

 it ki own, Mr. Bingham has lately added two 

 quite important improvements to his smok- 

 er. He has added a bent nozzle that enables 

 the operator to throw a stream of ?moke 



BINGHAM"s PEKl'ECT, SAFETY SMOKEK. 

 (Patented,) 



duwmvards without running the risk of 

 throwing sparks, or fire brands, or ashes 

 among the bees. The other improvement 

 is a coiled wire by which to r»move the noz- 

 zle when it is hot. For about a month, I 

 have had a Bingham smoker with these im- 

 provements, and they are improvements, de- 

 cidedJy. I tried to put the Biugham nozzle 

 on the Crane smoker, but the Bingham noz- 

 zle was s\xch 9. little bit smaller that it was 



provoking. If I could have succeeded, I 

 should have had what I consider a perfect 

 smoker. 



The man with a few colonies of bees can 

 get along with almost any smoker, but the 

 man whose business is that of bee keeping 

 could afford to pay ,|5.00 for a good, big. 

 Crane smoker with a Bingham nozzle, rather 

 than to do without it; an 1 it could be sold 

 at a fair profit for half that sum. If the 

 right man should take up their manufacture, 

 I know that there would be a mutual advan- 

 tage — to himself and to bee-keepers. 



DETECTING ADULTERATION OF HONEY. — SOME 



INTERESTING COBBESPONDENCE 



FKOM PKOF. WILEY. 



The government chemist. Prof. H, W. 

 Wiley, has issued a Bulletin showing that 

 out of r)00 samples of extracted honey sub- 

 jected to analysis, 203 were found adulterated. 

 Leading firms, like Thurber, Whyland Co., 

 and C. F. Muth & son were among those 

 guaranteeing the purity of honey pronoun- 

 ced impure. A large proportion of the sam- 

 ples were California honey. It seems un- 

 reasonable to believe that honey is adulter- 

 ated in California when we remember that 

 honey is cheaper than glucose in that local- 

 ity. We all know that such men as Mr. 

 Muth do not adulterate honey. From read- 

 ing the discussions that have appeared in 

 the journals upon this subject, it is my opin- 

 ion that the chemists have done their work 

 honestly, but have worked from a false ba- 

 sis — that of supposing that the component 

 parts of honey are always nearly the same 

 and combined in the same proportions. It 

 looks very much like the "venerable false- 

 hood " over again, of the bees "consuming 

 twenty pounds of honey in the secretion of 

 one pound of wax. " Honey varies greatly 

 in character, owing to the different sources 

 from which it is gathered. To the credit of 

 the chemists be it said, they admit that they 

 are puzzled to know what adulterant is used 

 in California honey. Good authorities be- 

 lieve that the proportion of cane sugar in 

 honey varies greatly, accordingly as the nec- 

 tar is gathered more or less rapidly. If 

 gathered rapidly, there is less opportunity 

 for the secretions of the bees to change the 

 cane sugar to glucose. If this is true, chem- 

 ists who analyze honey ought to know to 

 how great an extent these proportions may 

 vary. All who have honey stored very rap- 



