152 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



March 5, 



<^.'. OLDEST BCE PAPER 



'•''' " -IKAt|1ERICA 







^mjm^^m^^ 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



GEORGE W. YORK & COMPANY, 



Editors and Proprietors, 

 56 FUtb Avenue, - CHICAGO. ILT^. 



REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS : 



G. M. Doolittle, of New York. Prof. A. J. Cook, of California. 



Dr. C. C. IMiller, of Illinois. Dr. J. I', H. Brown, of Georgia. 



J. H. Martin, of California. Kev. E. T. Abbott, of Missouri. 



Chas. Dadant & Son, of Illinois. 



$1.00 a Year— Sample Copy Sent Free. 

 (Entered at the Post-Office at ChlcaKo as Second-Class Mail-Matter.) 



Vol. nm CHICAGO, ill, mar 5, 1896. No, 10. 



Selling- Bog:ii<« Honey — Mr. J. C. Stewart, of Hopkins, 

 Mo., writes us that there are two young men traveling in Iowa, 

 claiming to live in Osceola and Davenport, selling honey in pails. 

 They buy sugar, melt it, and stir in some comb honey. They have 

 sold in Creston and farther west, to Mr. Stewart's knowledge. He 

 says bee-keepers may publish the two frauds, using his name, if 

 they wish. Pass it along. 



Xliat Mi!«soiii-i Agricultural Report.— We referred 

 to this Report on page 121, and intimated that Rev. E. T. Abbott 

 had something to do with the apicultural part of it. Since then 

 we have learned that Mr. Abbott prepared all of the matter in it 

 about bees ready for the press, besides writing all the introduction 

 and comments on the apiarian essays. He also wrote the essay on 

 page 313, on " Poultry on the Farm." but for some unaccountable 

 reason he was not given credit for any of it. When a man fur- 

 nishes 34 pages of such matter— all of which it took no little time 

 to prepare, and that without pay— it would seem that he should 

 have some credit for it. Missouri bee-keepers are under obligation 

 to Mr. Abbott for his efforts to advance the interests of bee-culiure 

 in their good State. 



< • » 



Xlie Benton Itee-ltook Mr. M. M. Baldridge, of St. 



Charles, 111., says of this book, recently issued by the U. S. Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture : 



In many respects it is a good book for general distribution, 

 but it should be sent out free by the Agricultural Department, and 

 there should be as many copies printed as the demand calls for, no 

 matter whether it be 5,000 or 500,000. I shall do what I can to 

 have this done. I shall remind the Representative of my Con- 

 gressional District that I want a free copy, and that I know of a 

 host of others who would also like to get one, too. It is a disgrace 

 that the Agricultural Department should be permitted or com- 

 pelled to charge for any of the publications emanating therefrom. 



M. M. Baldridge. 



In the same envelope with the above, Mr. B. enclosed the fol- 

 lowing item, taken from the Chicago Tribune, thinking it might 

 afford a little amusement for our readers; 



■ MAT GATHER HONEY ALL THE NIGHT. 



Morion tile Butt of the Wits in the Rouse. 



Washington, D. C, Feb. 15.— [Special.]— Members of Congress 

 are having lots of fun nowadays with Secretary Morton. When- 

 ever business is dull in either House or Senate somebody is sure to 

 start the racket over the Secretary's defiance of the law in the 

 matter of the distribution of seeds. The Department of Agricul- 

 ture has been made a target for all the wits in the House, for it 



contains a number of scientific departments which are not gener- 

 ally supposed to be of a vast amount of benefit to practical farm- 

 ers, and when Secretary Morton abolished the seed distribution he 

 took the rooms that were occupied by that bureau for the divisions 

 of ethnology, ornithology and mammalogy. When the House 

 struck its favorite subject to-day Mr. Quigg made a few pertinent 

 remarks about the Department having gone into the publishing 

 business, and instanced a book on the honey-bee, which he said 

 contained nothing new. 



This started up Col. Hepburn, of Iowa, who, with a serious 

 face, inquired whether any of the members of the committee could 

 inform the House if it were true, as had been rumored, that the 

 Department of Agriculture was making important experiments to 

 see whether or not it would be possible to cross the honey-bee with 

 the lightning-bug, so that the busy bee would be able to flit from 

 flower to flower and store away honey as well after dark as in the 

 broad glare of the sun. 



We believe it would be a good idea if each Congressman could 

 be presented with a copy of Mr. Benton's book, and read it care- 

 fully! While there may be "nothing new " in it for the expert 

 bee-keeper, the average Congressman would be surprised at the 

 wonders it would reveal to him. 



Jln«ljs;'ing Honey. — It is probably a mistake to suppose 

 that a man who is well informed otherwise on the subject of bee- 

 keeping is necessarily a good judge of honey. No matter how suc- 

 cessful a man may be, if he has for years kept his colonies by the 

 hundred and marketed his honey by tons, if his surplus crop has 

 always been from only one source he is no judge of honey obtained 

 from other sources. Not a great while ago a man who is consid- 

 ered quite an authority in bee-keeping was handed a sample of 

 beautiful sweet clover honey, known to be pure. On being asked 

 what he thought of it, he tasted it and replied he thought the 

 larger part of it might be glucose. It was simply a flavor with 

 which he was not familiar, and he was not competent to judge. 

 Very likely the best judges as to kinds and qualities of honey are 

 the men who have handled it for years from many different 

 sources, such as the veteran Chas. P. Muth. A dealer who han- 

 dles comb honey exclusively would not be as good a judge as one 

 who handles principally extracted honey. Comb honey goes 

 mostly on its looks, extracted by its taste. 



Altall» Honey Candying:. — The following, which we 

 take from a privat letter dated Feb. 4, touches on the subject of 

 the candying of alfalfa honey; 



In a recent article in Gleanings, a Mr. Fish made the statement 

 that " Utah comb honey candies quickly " — which of course means 

 Colorado honey, too. I venture to say that if alfalfa comb honey 

 is treated rightly, it will candy little sooner than white clover 

 honey. 



The first year I kept bees, 60 pounds of comb honey were kept 

 upstairs in the house, and it did not candy at all, though it was 

 not all used up until late the following spring. I have had unfin- 

 ished sections which were about two-thirds candied in April or 

 May. But they were kept in a box resting on the ground. Of 

 course, comb honey is not always treated rightly in any State. I 

 have seen four or five hundred pounds in a commission house 

 which was partially candied in January. But to say alfalfa comb 

 honey candies quickly is misleading. 



We had supposed that alfalfa honey — particularly the ex- 

 tracted — would candy or granulate much more quickly than most 

 other honey. At least we thought that had been our experience, 

 but we shall be glad to know that we were mistaken. It may be 

 that if the same care is taken with alfalfa comb honey, it will 

 candy no sooner than other comb honey. We should be glad to 

 have an expression on this matter from any one who feels com- 

 petent to speak thereon. We would not desire to injure the sale of 

 alfalfa honey by saying that it candies more quickly than other 

 honeys, if such is not the fact. Alfalfa is one of our favorite 

 honeys, and we would like to get at all the truth regarding it. 



Xlie Amalgamation of the North American Bee-Keep- 

 ers' Association, and the National Bee-Keepers' Union seems to be 

 '■ hanging fire." So far, about all the communications we have 

 received concerning it have been against the amalgamation idea. 

 Those who are in favor of it seem to keep very still about it. Pos- 

 sibly many do not care a tinker's dime, one way or the other. If 

 such be the case, we feel it must be on account of not understand- 

 ing the objects to be gained by amalgamation. 



So far as we are personally concerned, it makes but little dif- 

 ference whether there is any amalgamation or not, but we do be- 



