1901 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



707 



and one other one in the same apiary. These 

 red-clover bees showed their largest gains 

 when red clover was in bloom ; and as long as 

 any of it was out they would more than hold 

 their own. If there was absolutely nothing 

 else that they could gather from the fields, 

 then they showed no unusual activity at the 

 entrance. But in support of what Mr. Hill 

 says, I would state that the bees of our old 

 original red-clover queen of 20 years ago — 

 the one that distinguished herself so greatly — 

 were the worst robbers we ever had. They 

 could not onlj' beat any thing else in the yard 

 during a genuine honey flow, but if any sweets 

 were to be obtained by pilfering they were the 

 chief leaders. I have seen a regular bee-line 

 from a robbed colony to the hive of this red- 

 clover queen. This is a point well worth rais- 

 ing ; and in estimating the value of a queen 

 we need to consider whether the bees are hon- 

 est at all times or not — Ed.] 



^ICKIJWGS 



)t/^OM OUN NEIGHBORS FIELDS. ^Ji, 

 ~ ^ BrXSTCisoc^."" ^ 



Welcome, finst month with frost, 



That breaks this torrid heat ; 

 That brings again the needed rain 



The har\'est to complete. 



Mr. Albert Gale, of Sydney, Australia, sends 

 us the proof of an article written by him for 

 the Australian Agricultural Gazette, wherein 

 he contends that common corn does not yield 

 honey, and that bees have nothing to do with 

 it on account of its sweetness. As the con- 

 cluding paragraph is a brief resume of the 

 whole subject I give it. This is to be read in 

 connection with what Dr. Miller says in 

 Straws in this issue. 



I have visited all parts of this State on matters con- 

 nected with bee life. I have seen very many samples 

 of so-called maize or corn honey, and these samples 

 never agree the one with the other, either in aroma, 

 flavor, or color. If those were bona fide samples of 

 corn honey, there should have been uniformity in the 

 points referred to, but such was not the case. Corn 

 honey seems to be a thing of modem invention. I 

 lived for years on the I,ower Clarence, prior to the 

 advent of sugar culture there, when it was perhaps 

 second only to the Hawkesbury as a corn-producing 

 district. I, with others, kept a number of bees, and 

 in no case did the faintest suspicion enter my mind 

 that I was harvesting corn honey, because I knew the 

 grasses yield nothing of the kind. Neither did the 

 bee-ktepers around me hint at corn honey. There, in 

 those days, I never heard the words used. We may 

 as well expect to get honey from ferns or mosses as 

 from the grasses, or expect a hen that is without ova- 

 ries to lay eggs as to expect honey from a plant that 

 has no nectaries. Bees can not gather honey from 

 maize, because the flowers have no glands wherewith 

 to secrete it. 



BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 

 In the August issue Mr. Hutchinson gives 

 three views which to me, at least, are very in- 

 teresting, and I know they will be to all. The 

 first is a view of his new residence where the 

 Review is made, and two showing inside 

 views of his office and type-room. It is prob- 



ably the neatest and daintiest composing- 

 room in the country. The pictures are ac- 

 companied by a brief sketch of Mr. Hutchin- 

 son's career as a bee-keeper from first to last. 

 He has just been making a trip through Can- 

 ada, and at the residence of Jacob Alpaugh he 

 found a device for keeping out fli^s which I 

 am sure will interest the women folks as well 

 as the rest of us. He says: 



At each upper corner of each window-screen the 

 wire cloth was pried up ^ of an inch by pushing in 

 two little blocks of wood. Flies get into a house when 

 the doors are opened Sooner or later a fly goes to 

 the window, runs up to the top, scurries along first to 

 one corner or the other, and, if he finds an opening, 

 out he pops, never to find his way in again by the 

 same route. What would we think of a honey-house 

 with crowds of bees hanging around the door that 

 was opened dozens of times a day, and no opportunity 

 for the bees to escape over the tops of the win- 

 dows? We know that it would be full of bees all of 

 the time. A dwelling with screens on the doors and 

 windows is an exact parallel. Put escapes at the tops 

 of the windows, and there is no necessity for sticky 

 fly-paper. 



ROCKY MOUNTAIN BEE-JOURNAL. 



Under the title of " Honey without Bees," 

 Mr. Morehouse has the following. He treats 

 the matter without gloves, and in a manner 

 that is refreshing. He says: 



" HONEY WITHOUT BEES." 



Such is the bombastic title of an advertisement of 

 the Sanitas Nut Food Co., of Battle Creek, Michigan, 

 that appeared in a recent number of the American 

 Mother. Here is a sample of the wisdom of this 

 bumptious ad. writer: 



" Marvelous have been the discoveries in electricity 

 and the uses of steam and the utilization of the vari- 

 ous forces of nature ; but a discovery which is really 

 more far-reaching in its results, and perhaps capable 

 of immediately benefiting a large number of persons, 

 is a process worked out by an eminent physician by 

 years of laboratory research whereby it is possible to 

 make honey directly from wheat and other cereals, 

 without the aid of chemicals of any sort, and by a pro- 

 cess essentially identical with that by which honey is 

 manufactured by plants ready to be collected and 

 stored by the cunning little feet of the honey-bee." 



Of course, such a pyrotechnic display of idiocy will 

 only cause the bee-keeper to smile ; but at the same 

 time the assumption that genuine honev can be pro- 

 duced by artificial processes is capable of doing great 

 harm by the suspicion it will create against the pure 

 product. Won't some of our Michigan friends please 

 hunt that fellow up and tell him that bees do not 

 " collect and store honey with their feet " ? We quote 

 further: 



" Malt honey, or meltose, is genuine honey— not an 

 imitation or a substitnte, but the real thing derived 

 from the original source — the plant, but without the 

 assistance of bees." 



Bee-keepers will have no contention with these peo- 

 ple if they will only be content to call their spurious 

 concoction " meltose," and let it go at that. But to 

 advertise it as "genuine honey — not an i:nitation or a 

 substitute," is making for it a dishonest claim, and 

 perpetrating a base fraud upon the public, that ought 

 to render them liable to prosecution. 



Be it remembered that no chemist's or physician's 

 laboratory ever has, or ever will, produce a drop of 

 "genuine honey." 



It is to be hoped the Sanitas Food Co. will 

 call that " bumptious ad. writer " to order. 



J. IV., Mo. — Your three acres of buckwheat 

 will help to supply 30ur six colonies with the 

 necessarv stores for fall and winter ; but un- 

 less the flow is extra good it probably would 

 not give enough honey, and sometimes buck- 

 wheat fails entirely. 



