164 



May, 1915. 



American Vee Journal 



ented Oct. 6, 185i!, by the Rev. L, L. 

 Langstroth. In 1856, Roswell C. Otis, 

 who lived near Kenosha, Wis , being 

 interested in bees, and an official of the 

 Wisconsin State Fair, oflfered a pre- 

 mium of $10 to any one e.xhiiiting the 

 best bee-hive during the State P'air for 

 that year. Some one, whose name and 

 address I have forgotten, brought a 

 Langstroth. hive, and it was awarded 

 said premium. A short time threafter 

 Mr. Otis made Mr. Langstroth a special 

 visit regarding his in-ention, and 

 negotiated with him for the purchase 

 of his patent for the United States, 

 Mr. Langstroth reserving for himself a 

 small amount of territory. 



At first Mr. Langstroth did not wish 

 to sell all the territory to Mr. ( )tis, as 

 P. J. Mahan, of Phildelphia, had been 

 acting as an agent for Mr. Langstroth, 

 and had been negotiating for more or 

 less territory in the southern States. 

 This matter was finally adjusted be- 

 tween Mr. Langstroth and Mr. Otis by 

 the latter agreeing to visit Mr. Mahin 

 and sell him the territory he might de- 

 sire. This was done soon thereafter. 

 Mr. Otis sold to Mr. Mahan all, or 

 nearly all, of the southern States, and 

 secured from him his promissory note, 

 endorsed by a wealthy man as security, 

 and made payable at a specified bank 

 in l^hiladelphia at maturity. 



Mr. Otis then returned to the home 

 of Mr. Langstroth to exchange the 

 Mahan note for the note or notes he 

 had given to Mr. Langstroth. The ex- 

 change was made, and in due time Mr. 

 Langstroth sent the Mahan note to 

 the specified bank for his money, but 

 Mr. Langstroth neglected to notify 

 said bank to protest the note in case it 

 was not paid when due. The bank did 

 not protest the note and this released 

 the indorser, who was a relative of 

 Mahan. The outcome was that the 

 Mahan note was not collectable, and 

 Mr. Langstroth lost the money. 



The facts as enumerated above were 

 detailed to me personally by both Mr. 

 Otis and Mr. Langstroth, as many bee- 

 keepers since that transaction had ac- 

 cused Mr. Otis of having robbed Mr. 

 Langstroth of his patent, or out of the 

 purchase price. This was why Father 

 Langtroth was a poor man financially 

 or in very limited circumstances. No 

 one in the United States had perhaps a 

 better opportunity to know what the 

 facts were than myself. 

 St. Charles, 111. 



The Value of Testing Queens 



liV t. K. liARl ilDl.UMKW. 



Till" methods as practiced by queen- 

 breeders of testing the purity of 

 the mating of Italian queens by 

 the markings of their offspring is no 

 proof of the purity of the mating. 



'I'he report on the results of a series 

 of e.xperiments, covering the past four 

 years, under the direction of Prof. 

 Wilmon Newell, of the Texas Experi- 

 ment Station, has definitely proven 

 this point. (For this article see "Sci- 

 ence " for Feb. .5, 191.5 ) These experi- 

 ments were carrie i out on the cross- 

 ing of the Carniolans and Italians, and 

 Prof. Newell's results demonstrate that 

 when an Italian queen is mated to a 

 Carniolan drone the resulting workers 



are apparently Italian, and when a Car- 

 niolan queen is mated to an Italian 

 drone the workers are again Italian. 

 This is exactly the result that we might 

 expect, if the bands of the Italian bee 

 are a dominant character, under Men- 

 del's law. In regard to the Carniolan 

 and Italian cross this has been proven 

 by Prof. Newell's experiments. 



The writer the past year has carried 

 on some e.xperiments in the crossing 

 of black queens to the Italian drones, 

 and in each case the black queens so 

 mated gave offspring that were the 

 typical 3-banded workers of the Ital- 

 ians. The latter part of the season 

 was so poor here that experiments 

 started could not be completed, and the 

 crossing of black drones and Italian 

 queens has not been tested, but in the 

 writer's mind there is not the least 

 doubt that the result will be the same. 

 In the face of these facts, what is the 

 value of the present methods of queen 

 testing for the purity of the mating ? 



As a result of these experiments, 

 however, there has been discovered a 

 test that will be of great value to the 

 queen-breeder, for by it he may be cer- 

 tain of the purity of the matings of his 

 breeding queens. A mismated queen 

 will always give pure drones of her 

 own race, due to the development of 

 drones from parthenogenetic eggs, but 

 a daughter queen of such a mismated 

 queen will givedrones of each race. As 

 a test of the purity of the mating of a 

 breeding qu-en, the daughter queens 

 must be the ones used. If the daughter 

 queens, of a queen chosen for breed- 

 ing purposes, give drone offspring of a 

 race other than the race for which the 

 purity is tested, such a queen has been 

 mismated, and should be discarded for 

 breeding purposes. The mismating of 

 the daughter would have no effect 

 upon the above rule. But in judging 

 the races of drones the breeder must 

 depend upon other characters than 

 color alone. 



Another fact is that pure Italian 

 queens mated to pure Italian drones 

 will give as offspring varied banded 

 workers. I have one queen now that 

 during the early summer of last year 

 gave all her workers of the typical 3- 

 banded bees, late in the summer and 

 fall the workers were 2 and 1 banded, 

 and some of them had to be examined 

 closely to identify any color at all, and 

 now again this same queen which is 

 laying is giving the typical three- 

 banded bees again (I have been rear- 

 ing these bees indoors in the green- 

 house this winter.) The causes of such 

 variations must be solved by future 

 experiments. No doubt due to this 

 type of variations many purely mated 

 queens have been discarded, but such 

 queens should not be used as breeders 

 while they may be excellent honey 

 producers. 



Iowa State College, March, 11)15. 



Glucose and Karo 



UY A. K. IIU.MNKV. 



DICAR SIR: — Having read your arti- 

 cle in the American Bee Journal 

 on advertising and karo, I think 

 an advertisement appearing in our 

 local paper will interest you. The first 

 advertisement appeared Dec. 28, 1914, 



others to appear each Thursday. As 

 the public was invited to ask questions, 

 I asked the following about karo : 



What is the percentage of glucose in 

 karo ? 



What is glucose ? 



Is glucose healthful ? 



How does the food value of karo 

 compare with pure bees' extracted 

 honey ? 



As my family uses about 8 gallons of 

 extracted honey per year, would it be 

 profitable and healthful to use karo 

 instead ? 



My questions have not been an- 

 swered. There seems to be a hole in 

 the sauce-pan somewhere. Perhaps 

 you can suggest something which will 

 help advertise honey, if this form of 

 advertising is to be used through the 

 country. George E. Morris. 



South Barre, Vt. 



Replying to your questions: I think 

 you will find the proportions of cane 

 sugar and glucose on the kci/o cans. 

 We do here. I think it is about 10 per- 

 cent cane sugar, just enough to make 

 it sweet. Glucose alone is a tasteless 

 mess. 



Pure or natural, "glucose " is, chemi- 

 cally, a sugar with the formula of 

 C(, H12O6 'Ihat is, molecules of car- 

 bon, 12 of hydrogen, and 6 of oxygen. 

 Cane sugar has a formula of Ci;H220ii. 

 However, the "glucos ■" you allude to 

 is the artificial, which is made by treat- 

 ing starch with weak sulphuric acid 

 and subsequently purifying it as much 

 as possible with lime, to remove any 

 free acid there may be in the mess. 



Is this glucose healthful ? I do not 

 think it is. In digestion the sulphuric 

 acid must be liberated, and I cannot 

 imagine that the constant digestion 

 of even a minute quantity of the acid 

 can do any one any good. In the case 

 of children it might do great harm. 



How does the karo compare with 

 pure extracted honey as a food ? Well, 

 honey is solid food, and predigested at 

 that ; that is, being a /«;<■ glucose, it is 

 entirely absorbed. There is no poison 

 left behind to irritate. Pure km-o (arti- 

 ficial g'ucose) has no food value if we 

 leave out the cane sugar which is put in 

 to make it usable. 



You ask: "Would it be profitable 

 and healthful to use karo instead of 

 honey on my table ?" No. 

 Buck Grove, Iowa. 



Displays and Retailing Honey 



BY S. H. BURTON. 



AT a recent apple show I was on the 

 program to give an address and 

 demonstration on "Beekeeping 

 for the Orchardist." We exhibited 

 hives, frames, supers, and other para- 

 phernalia in the flat, showing the man- 

 ner of putting them together and other fl 

 subjects relating to amateur beekeep- 

 ing. With this exhibit we also showed ' 

 the finished product in section honey 

 and in shallow e.xtractiiig frames. An 

 especial interest was shown in the 

 shallow extracting frames with their 

 smooth sides of solid honey built clear 

 out to the end and bottom bars. 



Many remarked that they had never 

 seen honey exhibited in this form, and 

 these frames, holding 'A',i pounds net of 

 honey, met with a ready sale at 50 cents 



