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(Entered as second-class matter Jaly 30, 1907, at the Post-Offloe at Chicago, 111., under Act of March 3, 1979.) 



Published Monthly at $1.00 a Year, by George W. York & Company, 117 North Jefferson Street, 



GEORGE W. YORK, Editor. 



DR. C. C. MILLER. Associate Editor. 



CHICAGO, ILL, JANUARY, 1912 



Vol. LII-No. 1 



Incorrect Braiidiug of Honey 



Every now and then some one is 

 anxious about the matter of labeling 

 his honey. He seems to think there is 

 something complicated and hard to 

 understand about complying with the 

 requirements of the pure-food law. It 

 is exceedingly simple. There is no 

 law against selling a mixture that is 

 half honey and half glucose, or for that 

 matter that is all glucose or all sor- 

 ghum molasses. But //" such mixture 

 be labeled /loiiey there is likely to be 

 trouble if the product is shipped from 

 one State to another, so as to come 

 under the United States pure-food law, 

 or if it be sold in any State with pure- 

 food laws corresponding with the 

 United States laws. The only point to 

 keep in mind is that the label must tell 

 the truth. The law does not compel 

 a label, but if a label be used, it must 

 tell the truth. Also, it must tell the 

 truth about the weight if it tells any- 

 thing about the weight. Even if the 

 weight falls a very trifle short of that 

 printed on the label, the seller is crimi- 

 nally liable. 



Here is a concrete instance in which 

 a shortage of about a fourth of an 

 ounce in a half-pound package brought 

 a fine. The following has been issued 

 by the United States Department of 

 Agriculture : 



Misbranding of Honey. 



On May 13. iqii. the United States Attor- 

 nej' for the Southern District of Iowa, act- 

 ing upon the report by the Secretary of Ag- 

 riculture, filed information in ttie District 

 Court of the United States for said district 

 against Albert A. Deiser & Co., a corpora- 

 tion, alleging shipment by it. in violation of 

 the Food and Drugs Act. on June 15, igio. 

 and Nov. 14. 1810. from the State of Iowa into 

 the State of Nebraska, of a quantity of 

 honey which was misbranded. The product 

 was labeled: " Mrs. Morrison's Brand Pure 

 ■■ Food Products Honey Net Weight 8 ounces. 



2 Prepared by A. A. Deiser & Company. Des 



55 Moines. Iowa. " 



p>i^ Examination made by the Bureau of Chem- 

 istry of the United States Department of 



•^ Agriculture, of two packages of this product 



•^ taken from the shipment of June 15. 1910. 



09 



showed an average shortage of 4.86 percent 

 in weight. An examination of six packages 

 by said Fiureau from the shipment of Nov. 

 14. loio, showed an everage shortage in weight 

 of 3.45 percent. Misbrandingwas alleged for 

 the reason that the weight of the product 

 was not plainly and correctly stated on the 

 outside of the package. 



On May 22, loii, the defendant pleaded 

 guilty, and was ftnded $10 and costs. 



W. M. Hays, 

 Acthis Secretarv of Affriculture. 



Washington. D. C, Sept. 18. igii. 



Salt and Vinegar in Syrup 



When feeding syrup for winter. Edi- 

 tor Herrod advises in the British Bee 

 Journal : 



Salt and vinegar should be added to the 

 syrup; the majority of bee-keepers neglect 

 to put in these two ingredients, either be- 

 cause it is too much trouble or they imagine 

 they are of no use. Salt is necessary for 

 bees just as much as it is for human beings, 

 and if they can not obtain it in any other 

 wav, they will get it from objectionable 

 sources, such as the liquid from manure 

 heaps. Vinegar prevents granulation, and 

 when the syrup is boiled in no case should 

 it be omitted. 



Putting salt in syrup will probably 

 be new to most bee-keepers on this 

 side, but coming from such good au- 

 thority the advice is worth considering. 



Honey Gatliered by a Colony 



How much honey does a colony of 

 bees gather? If a written answer to 

 that question were required from a 

 large number of bee-keepers, no doubt 

 the answers would vary greatly. It is 

 not unlikely that quite a number of an- 

 swers would nm something like this: 



" A colony of bees must gather dur- 

 ing the season enough honey to carry 

 it through the winter, and the balance 

 goes to the bee-keeper as surplus. It 

 takes about 30 pounds for winter, and 

 if the bee-keeper gets a surplus of 100 

 pounds then the colony must gather 

 altogether 130 pounds." 



It does not occur to the one who 

 makes such an answer that bees must 



have something to live on through the 

 summer as well as through the winter, 

 and that while actively at work they 

 will need a good deal more to support 

 them than while in a condition almost 

 dormant. The amount of honey con- 

 sumed by a colony of bees in the 

 course of a year has been variously 

 estimated at from 200 to 400 pounds. 

 According to that, if a colony gives a 

 surplus of 100 pounds, the total amount 

 of its gathering for the season must be 

 somewhere from 200 to 500 pounds. 



In any case, the amount of work 

 done by a colony of bees each season 

 is probably a good deal more than it 

 gets credit for. In a season when no 

 surplus is taken, it is not fair to say, 

 " The bees have done nothing this 

 year." If they have gathered enough 

 for their own stores, they have still 

 done by far the larger part of what 

 they would do in the most prosperous 

 year. ^^^_^____^ 



Size of Virgin and Laying Queen 



Every now and then some one ex- 

 presses the belief that a virgin queen 

 may go through a perforation of an 

 excluder through which she can not 

 pass after she becomes a laying queen. 

 Certainly the laying queen looks larger, 

 and she is larger, than she was during 

 her virginity. But the increase in size 

 is in the abdomen, not in the thorax. 

 The thorax, the part next to the head, 

 is the same in size after she begins to 

 lay as it was when she was a virgin. 

 The abdomen— the hinder part — con- 

 tains the eggs, and it increases greatly 

 in size when the queen is in full laying, 

 shrinking in size again when she stops 

 laving. 



The thorax is hard and unyielding; 

 the abdomen is soft and yielding. If a 

 slot in a queen-excluder is large enougji 

 to allow the thorax to pass, there is no 

 trouble about the abdomen getting 

 through. No matter how large the 

 abdomen, its yielding softness allows it 

 to flatten out and pass through. So if 

 tlie passage of a queen through an ex- 

 cluder depends upon the size of the 

 thorax, and if the thorax of a queen 

 remains the same in size that it was 

 when she was a virgin, it follows 

 clearly that an excluder which allows 

 a virgin to pass will still allow her to 



