1885 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE, 



amusing and instructive. From him I got the idea 

 of the probable advantages of a reversible frame. 

 In April, 18V2, 1 sold out in Iowa, and came to Cal- 

 ifornia, and lived near Lathrop that summer; but 

 during the summer of 1873 and 18T4 I lived on the 

 west side of the Great San .loaquin River. I then 

 had about 60 colonies of bees; and as the earliest 

 and best honey was made in mountains, I took them 

 up into the Hospital canyon during the months of 

 February and March, and set them near the house 

 of my respected co-laborer, G. W. Hoxie, who also 

 had a few bees; then in June I would take them 

 back to the river again. 



Well, my management, which was altogether new 

 to Mr. Hoxie, soon aroused his enthusiasm for bees, 

 and he was soon ready to try any and every kind of 

 experiment with me, and among them was the re- 

 versible frame, instead of the hive, as Mr. Price 

 had done. Our first plan was to fasten a heavy 

 wire to the end bar of the frame, with staples, pre- 

 cisely as described in Gleanings, 1884, page 155, 

 and then bend one end back under the bottom-bar, 

 and the other straight out for a supporting-arm. 

 But as this was too unsteady, and, if they filled 

 one side with honey and not the other, it would 

 pull it out of true, we soon abandoned it. We 

 then tried strap iron an inch wide, fastened in the { 

 center of the end-bar, just as described on page l.'it; 

 of same number of Gleaninos, and bent it out at j 

 the top of the frame, just as we did the wire for a 

 frame-support. This did better; but as the frame i 

 would sometimes tip when top heavy, we i)unched 

 a hole through the strap iron, about an inch fi-om 

 the top, and drove a small headless nail through 

 this hole in the end of the frame, which held it true | 

 while in the hive. When the frame was lifted'out, 

 the strap iron had spring enough to slip off this [ 

 headless nail, and then turned down, and slipped i 

 over the nail at the other end, which reversed your 

 frame, and was then ready for the hive again. 



This all worked nicely, and the way it would 

 cause the queens to breed was astonishing; but 

 pretty soon they would commence sticking glue be- 

 tween the strap iron and the end of the frame, and oh 

 what a time we would have to clean ofl' the propolis ! 

 But as honey was cheap, and labor high, as I re- 

 marked on page lti2, present Vol., we abandoned it, 

 although I still have several hi\es with reversible 

 frames, but of a different style. 



Mr. Heddon is the only man I have seen who gave 

 the true effect of i-eversing the frame, so far as the 

 brood-nest is concerned; viz., in the spring, when 

 the queen is enlarging her brood-nest, it facilitates 

 it rapidly; but when they are crowding her with 

 honey, it diminishes it just as rapidly, for they 

 don't seem to want to take the honey out from 

 below the bi-ood; and just as fast as the young bees 

 hatch out at the top they fill it with honey. 



Now, friend Root, if you or any of your readers 

 have any doubt as to what I have written, they can 

 write, inclosing stamps, to the Rev. Geo. W. Hoxie, 

 Applegato, Josephine Co., Oregon. J. F. Fr.onv. 



Lemore, Tulare Co., Cal. 



Friend F., a great many of us remember 

 J. M. Price's revolvible-reversible bee-hive; 

 and I felt pretty certain when Mr. Howes 

 claimed to be the first to use such an ar- 

 )'an<?eii)t'nt, something; would come up to 

 mIkiw lie was luistakeu. No one doubts your 

 veracity, friend V. You have l)cei) too "long 

 before tJie bee-keeping fraternity. 



MORE ABOUT THE MANUFACTURED 

 COMB HONEY. 



fllE Grocer's Criterion^ of Chicago, un- 

 der date of March 16, has an article 

 headed, "■ When will Humbugging 

 Cease V ■" and makes a rehash of the 

 article we give from the Philadelphia 

 Times, p. 2S8. The Grocers'' Price Current of 

 March 14 also contains the following edito- 

 rial : 



Three glass boxes of fine comb honey were on ex- 

 hibition in a wholesale grocery, Monday. " That is 

 very fine as far as looks go," said the proprietor, 

 " but we only have it on exhibition. It mei-ely rep- 

 resents Yankee skill. That comb and that honey 

 nev'er saw bees. Thej" were manufactured by 

 human hands. The comb is made of paratHne, or 

 beeswax; and the honey, which Is also false, is 

 blown in by machinery. We have another kind of 

 honey, which is put up in glass cups, with a small 

 piece of comb in the center. This honey is general- 

 ly made from cane sugar, glucose, or syrup." 



It is the old story over again, and these 

 grocers' papers ought to be ashamed of 

 themselves. This last item quoted is abom- 

 inable. Before I can believe that any 

 wholesale grocer ever had any such honey 

 on exhibition, or ever made any such speech. 

 I should want the name and place, so that 

 the man can 1)0 limited out, and the matter 

 proven bexond (|uestion. If it is really true, 

 that the whole tliiug is not a complete false- 

 hood, niiule by some reporter who wanted to 

 get up a sensation. I should say that the 

 proprietor himself was deceived— that he 

 had got some genuine honey that somebody 

 persuaded him to believe was manufactured. 

 It has never been done, and can not be done. 

 Do our grocers" papers delight iu having 

 tlie world believe that every tiling is a 

 fraudV Are tiiey judging honey-dealers 

 and honey-i)roducers by the way the gro- 

 cery busin'ess is carried onV lam informed 

 that an item has jnst come out. giving the 

 name of a butcher-shop in I'hiladelphia 

 where dog meat was sold as veal. Suppose 

 we come out and declare there is no real 

 veal— it is all dog meat. Tiiese stories 

 about the adulterati(»n of honey and otluer 

 commodities, in spite of all our befi-journals 

 can do, such as have been quoted, are 

 almost as vmreasonable and in(H)nsistent ; 

 and in spite (<f all our bee-journals can do. 

 these editorials about comb honey being 

 intide of parartine and glucose by Yankee 

 ingenuity will i)robably be copied from 

 paper to pai)er. ix'isuading men that the 

 world is all corrupt, all after the almighty 

 dollar, that true religion and true Christian- 

 ity are extinct, and that we are all going to 

 tile "dogs." 



MANIFACTinED COMH HONEV; STII.l. MOHE AltOlT 

 IT. 



Jan. 5th I received a letter from my brother, who 

 lives in Denver, Col. (he used to be in the grocery 

 business, so he handled honey some). In this letter 

 he writes about the fine California honey he has just 

 been buying. He says, " W^e can always be sure 

 that honey which comes from California is pure, as 

 they have nothing cheaper to adulterate it with, 

 while honey which comes from Chicago you can bo 

 pretty certain is adultei-fttcd with ghioose. A sreiv- 



