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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Oct. 8, 



sumption of cane-sugar, which was all unknown in the long 

 ago. It seems to me that a little study of the subject may 

 explain this, if it be true, and may give us two valuable hints 

 — the one, to eat more honey ; the other, to take special pains 

 to give children all the honey that they wish, and at every 

 raeal-time, in the hope to lessen the amount of cane-sugar 

 that they will eat. They like and crave sugar, because they 

 need it to nourish them, and so given plenty of sugar in the 

 honey, the need will be met, and the hunger for candy and 

 cane-sugar will be less keen. 



The digestion of food is simply to render it osmotic, or 

 capable of being taken through anorganic membrane, capable 

 of being absorbed. We eat starch. It is non-osmotic, and 

 would lie in the stomach and intestines indefinitely, except 

 that by digestion it is changed to a glucose like sugar, which 

 is very osmotic, and so easily absorbed from the aliment-canal 

 into the blood. Cane-sugar, though somewhat osmotic, is not 

 readily absorbed, nor is it readily assimilated, even though it 

 pass into the blood. Thus cane-sugar must be digested or 

 changed to a glucose like sugar. 



Bees gather nectar from the flowers, and as they sip it, 

 or draw it, from the flowers, they mingle with it a kind of 



acureUiry Dr. A. B. Mason. 



saliva or ferment, from their upper head glands, and the large 

 glands of the thora.x, and thus transform it to honey, which 

 contains, almost exclusively, a reducing sugar, and not cane- 

 sugar. Thus bees do to nectar what we do to cane-sugar — 

 they transform it to a more osmotic and more assimilable 

 glucose like sugar. We call this in our case digestion of the 

 cane-sugar, and It is just the same in case the bees do it. If 

 any one prefers he may call it "transformation." In any 

 case, it makes honey a safer food than cane-sugar, and we do 

 well to eat it more generally ; and it is especially desirable as 

 food for children. 



Children should be given all the honey at each meal-time 

 that they will eat. It is safer ; will largely do away with the 

 inordinate longing for candy and other sweets, and in lessen- 

 ing the desire will doubtless diminish the amount of cane- 

 sugar eaten. Then if cane-sugar does work mischief with 

 health, the harm may be prevented. There can be no doubt 

 but that in eating honey our digestive machinery is saved 



work that it would have to perform if we ate cane-sugar; and 

 incase it is over-worked and feeble, this may be Just the 

 respite that will save from a break-bown. 



Again, if cane-sugar is absorbed without change, it will 

 be removed by the kidneys, and may result in their break- 

 down ; and so physicians may be correct in asserting that the 

 large consumption of cane-sugar by the ItUh century man, is 

 harmful to the great eliminators — the kidneys — and so a 

 menace to health and long life. 



It may be urged in reply to the above, that honey is a 

 poison to many. This is not the sugar of the honey, but some 

 other element, very likely the formic acid, or perhaps the 

 extract from the flowers. It seems most likely that the 

 deleterious element is the formic acid added to the sweet by 

 the bee. This keeps the honey from fermentation, and is not 

 harmful to many; only occasionally a person is unable to 

 eat it. Claremont, Calif. 



The Use of Drawn Combs — Some Drawbacks. 



BV REV. EMERSON T. ABBOTT. 



Much has been said of this of late, and some of the writers 

 seem to think it a new thing. Perhaps it is, if a thing may be 

 called new which has been tried and rejected, and then after 

 years has been taken up again and pushed to the front. How- 

 ever, this has nothing to do with the real merits of the case. 



I know by experience that bees will store honey more 

 rapidly, and larger quantities of it, if they are given drawn 

 combs, but the larger quantity will be secured at the sacriflce 

 of quality. I am thoroughly convinced that bee-keepers will 

 find that they have made a mistake, if they adopt the practice 

 of using drawn combs. If honey is to be considered a luxury 

 — as many claim it always will be — then quality is of more 

 importance than quantity. 



There are two drawbacks to the use of drawn combs, 

 which, in my opinion, can never be overcome. One of these 

 is the tendency of the honey to sour when it is put into the 

 combs so rapidly. I tried drawn combs two seasons when the 

 bees were working almost exclusively on the basswood, and in 

 both cases I had trouble to keep the honey from granulating 

 in the cells. Comb honey will seldom granulate unless it is 

 improperly cured, or is exposed to moisture after it is taken 

 from the hives. For some reason the bees do not cure the 

 honey as thoroughly when stored in drawn combs as they do 

 when they build the combs as they store the honey. I'm free 

 to say that I see no way by which this difficulty can be over- 

 come at present. 



The other, and perhaps more serious, objection to the use 

 of drawn combs is, that one can never secure as delicate and 

 friable comb in this way as he can when the bees build the 

 comb as they store the honey. I have never seen any combs 

 that had been drawn out over winter and then filled with 

 honey the next season, but what were tougher and harder 

 than they would have been if they had been filled with honey 

 at the time they were made, or as they were being drawn out. 

 By placing such honey on the market one is sure to injure his 

 comb-honey business, especially if he has been producing a 

 fine quality of honey and catering to the best trade for fancy 

 prices. His customers are very apt to conclude that he has 

 learned the trick of making " artificial honey." Bee-keepers 

 have enough to contend with now along the line without add- 

 ing another difficulty in the shape of drawn combs. 



I have just had my attention called to a Bulletin issued by 

 the Connecticut Experiment Station, on the workings of the 

 " pure food law " in that State, in which it is stated that out 

 of 12 samples of comb honey examined by the State chemist, 

 six were filled with sugar syrup which had been fed to the 

 bees. Well, this may be so and it may not, but, to_tell the 

 truth, I am very much inclined to think that the chemist made 



