96 



GLEANINGS IN BEE nULTURE. 



Feb. 



have directed. Fourth. They are always handy, 

 and no bees are in the way to bother while filling. 

 Fifth. No float is required, as is the case with many 

 of the feedei'S. Reader, make one or two for trial, 

 during your leisure hours, and see if you do not 

 agree with all I say. G. M. Doolittle. 



Borodino, N. Y., Jan., 1887. 



Friend D., you have given us some impor- 

 tant suggestions in regard to the tise of 

 what has been called a division-board feed- 

 er; but why not cut into a solid piece of 

 board with a circular saw, instead of having 

 so much trouble to nail it up. and wax and 

 paint it V The solid piece of board would 

 probably hardly hold Ave pounds of honey ; 

 but it seems to me it would be much cheap- 

 er and more substantial. There are two or 

 three patterns in our museum that have 

 l)een sent in at different times. One great 

 objection to these feeders with us was the 

 running-over while filling; but this matter 

 you have very ingeniously remedied. 



HOAV LONG HAS EXTRACTED HONEY 

 BEEN ON THE MARKET ? 



FRIEND DADANT'S COMMENTS IN REGARD TO THE 

 STATEMENTS ON PAGE 31, .JAN. 1. 



fKIEND Heddon, are you not making yourself 

 older than you really are? Did you say 28 

 years since we have been producing extracted 

 honey? and " during all this time friend D. 

 and his class .... etc."? lam trying to 

 believe that it is a typographical error, and that 

 you meant 18 years. But even that won't do, as I 

 will show. 



Friend Heddon, you have a historical record in 

 the old A. B. J. that you ought to refer to once in a 

 while. Let me give a few reminiscences: 



In 186.5, 22 years ago, the honey-extractor was in- 

 vented. 



In 1868 it was first described in the A. B. J., Vol. 3, 

 page 189. 



In 18T0, A. B. .7., Vol. 6, page 118, friend Heddon 

 reported .523 lbs. of hox honey from 6 colonies, and 

 stated that he had as yet no " empt.ying machine." 

 So it is just sixteen years, not 28, since Heddon has 

 been using the " extractor," and producing and in- 

 troducing extracted honey. 



But Mr. Heddon did as we did, and as you did, Mr. 

 Editor; he began by extracting unripe honey. Then 

 came adulteration, which we fought together for 

 6 or 8 years. Now, adulteration is about scared ofl", 

 both by our denouncing and by low prices. The 

 principal adulterators even went so far as to pub- 

 lish circulars to announce that tho> had stopped the 

 practice. But honej' has been ct'c)/ plentiful for only 

 about three years; and, as I said before, it Is iiat 

 even now as cheap at retail as the wholesale prices 

 would justify. In sugar.- and syrups, there is but a 

 fraction of a cent between the wholesale and the 

 retail price. 



Friend H. talks about " all this introducing!" In- 

 deed, a little progress has been made. It took about 

 ten years for us to obtain of the Boards of Trade 

 the special quotaiion of " extracted " honey, which 

 was going, and is still going, in many places, as 

 "strained" honey. Why tell us that extracted 

 honey will never be a staple, when its introduction 

 is so new that not one person in a hundred knows 

 the difference between strained and extracted? 



The people who like honey better than syrup 

 " only because if, costs more," are the same ones who 

 want strawberries in January and fresh oysters in 

 July. Luckily we do not rely on this class for the 

 sale of our extracted honey, for they will buy only 

 the whitest comb honey, even if it is horsemint hon- 

 ey, taste being no object. 



Friend Heddon says that the specialist alone will 

 continue bee-keeping, and the small ones will drop 

 out in the near future. Does not this prospect 

 scare you, friend Root? More than two-thirds of 

 your readers are either farmers, doctors, clergy- 

 men, etc., not specialists, and you arc going to lose 

 them I In answer, let me cite the woi-ds of Mr. G. 

 H. Beard, a well-to-do farmer of Winchester, Mo , a 

 bee-keeper, not specialist : 



" I find more difficulty in selling honey than in 

 raising it, or wintering my bees; but with all that, 

 it is my honey that pays the expenses of my 

 farm in these hard times." 



To sum up: Honey is good, better than syrups. 

 It can be produced as cheaply as cheap syrups, and 

 must become a staple, sooner or later. We are too 

 eager, too anxious, when we expect a radical change 

 to take place in so short a time as that which has 

 elapsed since we have found that we could produce 

 it largely. Let us not become discouraged; let us 

 sell loiv, and around home, and create a market for 

 coming years. C. P. Dadant. 



Hamilton, 111. 



Perhaps, friend D., I should beg pardon 

 for not having noticed the part referring to 

 28 years. I recall to mind now, thinking it 

 could not be so long a time, but I did not 

 know wliere to find the figures readily. I 

 believe I produced the first ton of extracted 

 honey put upon the American market. Mr. 

 Langstroth had made a rude extractor, and 

 tested the sale of the new liquid honey by 

 putting several jars full on the market. I 

 believe a record of all this was given in the 

 A. B. /., although I have not taken the time 

 to look it up. If I have made no mistake, 

 the honey-extractor was described in a bee- 

 journal started in New York just a little be- 

 fore the A . B. J. resumed— somewhere about 

 20 years ago. The matter is of no practical 

 moment, only it may be interesting to know 

 just how long we have been teaching the 

 people to use liquid honey, and I think 

 friend Dadant's CMOsing paragraph is pretty 

 near the truth. 



HONEY FROM THE "WILLOWS, ETC. 



HONEY-DEW ON THE BANKS OF THE MISSOURI. 



JT may be interesting to you to know what the 

 bees are doing on the banks of the Missouri at 

 Bluftton, Mo. We commenced with 6 colonies, 

 two of which were in Simplicity hives, the 

 other four being in box \\\\\ .«. They com- 

 menced gathering pollen from ih" willows. The 

 latter cover the islands here in the Missoini River, 

 and are about the tiist thing lo Mooni liere. On 

 this they built up quite rsipidly, and by the time 

 fruit bloomed they were guile stmii}'-. when we 

 transferred those in the box hive into Simplicities. 

 It was our first attempt; but by following instruc- 

 tions in the ABC of Bee Culture we got through 

 with it pretty well. 



Bees commenced swarming earlier than usual, 

 and did not seem to know when to quit. One could 



