1889 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



163 



being of a bright yellow instead of white. 

 In traveling on the cars I have frequently 

 witnessed these great masses of bloom, and 

 at times it fired me with enthusiasm to get 

 some bees and set them close on the margin 

 of these swampy wastes. 1 did it once at 

 the foot of a lake near us. The bloom was 

 not as full as you have described, but the 

 bees built comb and stored honey right 

 away, when those that were left at home 

 were consuming stores and doing nothing. 

 Now, then, who knows where there is a big 

 patch of Spanish needle i and will you make 

 preparations to move your bees near it, 

 when the time of bloom comes V 



PERTAINING TO BEE CULTURE. 



fUE old artificial-honey dodge has come 

 up again ; but as the author does not 

 put any date on his circular, we can't 

 tell whether it is old or new. The 

 circular commences : " A work of ten 

 years just completed ! A fortune for you — 

 will you take it ? World's wonders ; or, 

 how to obtain riches ! " There are thirty 

 or forty secrets advertised for getting rich. 

 The only one which concerns us principally, 

 however, is the following : 



Artificial, Honey.— Equal to bees' honey, and 

 often mistaken by the best judges to be genuine. 

 It is palatable and luxurious; costs 8 cents a pound 

 to make, and will sell for 16 cents per pound, while 

 the bees' honey sells from 25 to 35 cents. Agents 

 make money fast by selling the recipe to boarding- 

 houses, stores, and private families at $1.00 each. 

 In average territory you can easily sell ten recipes 

 a day for $1.00 each, $10 clear profit. One agent 

 writes: " I average a recipe at every sixth house." 



" Luxurious," no doubt, and costs only 8 

 cents a pound to make. It happens, how- 

 ever, that good honey has been sold in con- 

 siderable quantities until quite recently at 8 

 cents per pound ; but bees' honey does not 

 sell, nor has it sold for from 25 to 35 cents a 

 pound, for years. The swindling sheet re- 

 ferred to contains on one side in big letters, 

 the address of L. W. Lincoln & Co., 89 Ab- 

 erdeen St., Chicago. I hardly need tell our 

 readers that this is only a rehash that has 

 cropped out every now and then for at least 

 30 years. When I was in my teens 1 sent a 

 dollar in answer to a similar advertisement, 

 and obtained a recipe for making artificial 

 honey, and another one for silver plating, 

 and something else thrown in. All such 

 offers of valuable recipes for a certain sum 

 of money we may safely pronounce hum- 

 bugs and swindles. All recipes of any 

 value may be obtained in our recipe-books ; 

 and a dollar nowadays pays for a pretty 

 good-sized recipe-book. L. W. Lincoln & 

 Co., aside from offering recipes, offer to sell 

 their agents county rights at the very low 

 price of only a dollar for a county. What 

 right have they to give rights to certain 

 counties, pray tell ? A search through 

 Dun & Co. fails to find any L. W. Lincoln 

 & Co. in Chicago at all. No doubt, how- 

 ever, somebody is on the watch for the dol- 

 lars when they come in for the secrets or 

 county rights. 



FALSE STATEMENTS IN REGARD TO THE HON- 

 EY BUSINESS OF OUR COUNTRY. 



As aprotection to our bee-keeping population, we propose in 

 this department to publish the names of newspapers that per- 

 sist in publishing false statements in regard to the purity of 

 honey which we as bee-keepers put on the market. 



fERMIT me to call your attention to the in- 

 closed article, which I clip from an Eastern 

 paper. E. H. Bartlett. 



Mt. Vernon, O., Jan. 3. 



I will explain to our readers that we 

 wrote to friend B. at once, to give us the 

 name of the Eastern paper containing the 

 clipping. As he has not done it, or, at least, 

 we have not received it at the present writ- 

 ing, Feb. 18, we give the clipping below : 



BOGUS HONEY. 



During the year 1865, or thereabout, I was walk- 

 ing on the streets in Baltimore, Md., and my atten- 

 tion was called to what appeared to be a beautiful 

 specimen of Vermont honey, packed in boxes, and 

 of the most beautiful clear liquid in the cells of 

 white-looking comb. It attracted the attention of 

 every one at the time, as the nicest honey that had 

 ever been in Baltimore. But some time afterward 

 it fell into the hands of an analytical chemist, who 

 found out that the comb was made of paraffine, and 

 the liquid of glucose syrup (made out of corn 

 starch). The paraffine was made in imitation of 

 the honey-comb, by some mode of pressure, by 

 models prepared for the purpose, and the liquid 

 glucose syrup had been made to fill the cells. Par- 

 affine is now prepared from the refuse products of 

 petroleum, when it is being refined, and the market 

 is controlled, absolutely, by the "Standard Oil 

 Trust," who can well afford to let it go on the " free 

 list," as there is much more made in this country 

 than anywhere else. This substance is like the 

 most beautiful white wax, and makes candles like 

 the purest spermaceti. I commend it to the atten- 

 tion of the committee having in charge the matter 

 of " adulteration of food," etc., as I believe the in- 

 genuity, sharpness, and invention, quite equal, if 

 not superior, to that presented in the wooden nut- 

 meg and the maple hams made in Connecticut. 



Respectfully, Paul Pry. 



I suppose I hardly need tell our readers 

 that we are prepared to pay "Paul Pry", or 

 any other man who will show us the above- 

 described operation going on, $1000. The 

 whole story about the analytical chemist is 

 false from beginning to end ; and if any of 

 our readers can help us to hunt up the au- 

 thor of these falsehoods, we will hold him 

 up to the gaze of every man ; and we ask 

 every friend who has seen the above in any 

 paper, to carry or send the editor a copy of 

 this issue of Gleanings. We will furnish 

 you as many numbers as you want. If the 

 editor who has given place to the above will 

 not recant, we want the privilege of holding 

 him up to the gaze of every truth-loving 

 man or woman. 



Here is another : 



Here is another crank. What shall we do to stop 

 this nonsense? There ought to be a law to protect 

 bee-keepers. M. S. Roop. 



Council Bluffs, Iowa, Feb. 11, 1889. 



A NEW SWINDLE. 



The Democrat says a new swindle is said to have 

 been discovered at Oskaloosa, by a woman coming 

 in a drug-store and buying a half-ounce of "attar 

 of roses "—a butyraceous oil of delicious fragrance, 

 which separates itself from the rose-water during 

 the distillation of dried petals of roses. A reporter 

 heard this order, and his curiosity became strong 

 as to why she should want so much of this expen- 

 sive oil— retailing at from $10 to $15 an ounce. Aft- 

 er much investigation he found that she used it in 



