TH® mmimmicmn be® j&vRismi.. 



9 



has been given to our own ideas in try- 

 ing to get the very last cent out of it 

 possible. 



Too cheap receptacles have been 

 used, to a great extent, in placing ex- 

 tracted honey upon tlic market in very 

 bad condition. Glass tumblers, hold- 

 ing one pound, are the best receptacles 

 f(jr extracted honey. Those glasses 

 having a large mouth will allow the 

 use of the contents in either the liquid 

 or candied form. The glasses also 

 show just what the honey is, and the 

 variety of honey ■n-ill present a nice 

 appearance in them. 



Owing to the convenience in which 

 it can be handled, the cheapness with 

 which it can be produced, and the fact 

 that it is the only pure article strictl}' 

 by itself — no intermingling of beeswax 

 — places it at the front as the most de- 

 sirable honey for consumption. Comb 

 honey is undoubtedlj'a thingof beauty; 

 hence we believe that extracted honey 

 can be produced in its best possible 

 shape at one-half the cost of comb 

 honey. 



It is an impossibility to adulterate 

 honey so as to deceive. It has been 

 said that "the American people love 

 to be humbugged." You can fool the 

 bee, but you cannot fool the people 

 with adulteration of extracted honey. 

 When the extractor is used, we can 

 keep each variety of honey separate, 

 and by itself in the majority of cases ; 

 hence I may say that, in my opinion, 

 to make bee-keeping a grand success, 

 is not to confine j'ourself wholly to 

 comb honey production. The extrac- 

 tor is here, and here to stay. 



Xenia, Ohio. 



SEASON OF 1889. 



Oolden-Rod — The Bee-Keepers' 

 Union — Bee-Literature. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 



BY J. B. SYPHRIT. 



I commenced last spring with 19 

 colonies, and increased them to 38, by 

 natural swarming. They are all in 

 good condition. I put them into win- 

 ter quarters on Nov. 28. I obtained 

 1,400 pounds of comb honey, and bOO 

 pounds of extracted, mostly clover. 

 The fall crop was cut very short, but 

 I got some buckwheat and smart-weed 

 honey. 



I winter my bees in a cellar 18x32 

 feet, and 8 feet high, with a tile run- 

 ning diagonally, with ventilators of 4- 

 ineh tile in the windows. All of our 

 vegetables are kept in the same cellar ; 

 we go in and out from the outside, and 

 the light does not seem to distiu-b the 

 bees. 



I put nothing on the top of the brood- 

 frames, but leave the hive-caps on ; 



this gives a good chance to fin^d next 

 spring, to stimulate for breeding. I 

 have wintered them in this way for a 

 number of years, with good results. I 

 use the 10-franie Langstroth hive. 



Regarding the golden-rod, I have 

 watched it with a vigilant eye for sev- 

 eral years, and have never seen a bee 

 on it. I consider it, as a honey-plant, 

 about the same as I do the potato-blos- 

 som. Sweet clover kept blooming for 

 two weeks after our first frost. Nectar 

 in white and Alsike clover was abun- 

 dant the past season in southeastern 

 Iowa. We have had a great number 

 of basswood trees in this part of Iowa, 

 but the woo<lman's axe is clearing 

 them out by the thousands every year. 



The principal part of ray honey was 

 obtained from Alsike clover. Comb 

 honey has been selling in our home 

 market as low as 8 cents per pound. I 

 have sold none for less than 10 cents. 

 Those bee-keepers who live along the 

 Mississippi bottoms, obtain a very dark 

 hone3', but it seems to sell as well as 

 the finest clover honey among home 

 consumers. The weather has been 

 very mild, with plentj' of rain up to 

 the present. 



THE bee-keepers' UNION. 



In viewing the list of members and 

 last report of the Manager of the Na- 

 tional Bee-Keepers' Union, I was struck 

 with amazement when I beheld so 

 small a fraction (about one out of every 

 thousand) of the bee-keepers belong- 

 ing to the Union. The light in which 

 I view the Union is this : There is not 

 one bee-keeper in the 300,000 but has 

 received more individual benefit from 

 the decision in the Clark case, than it 

 cost annually to be a member. Every 

 individual taking the Aiierican Bee 

 Journal should be a member of the 

 Union ; and every man and woman 

 that keep bees, should be a reader of 

 the American Bee Journal. I could 

 no more think of keeping bees without 

 bee-literature, than I would think of 

 farming without horses. 



READING bee-literature. 



I often accost a man that keeps bees, 

 thus : " See here ; your bees are in a 

 very bad condition. They are in old, 

 rickety boxes ; they are full of moths ; 

 they are too weak to accumulate nec- 

 tar, and have many other faults. Now, 

 see here ; there is a weekly paper pub- 

 lished that costs only f 1.00 a year. I 

 will show it to you, and if yon will 

 take it, it will teach you how to handle 

 bees, how to keep them in good con- 

 dition, and how to make them a source 

 of pleasure and profit to you." The 

 reply is invariabl}' embodied in this : 

 "Well, I expect that is very nice, if I 

 could have my bees as nice and clean 

 as yours. I am keeping a few bees for 



my own use, and it will not p.aj- me." 

 When I tell them that one colony cared 

 for in the juopcr time and manner is 

 of more value than twenty old, cracked 

 boxes full of moths, they say, " Well, 

 if I could handle them as you can, I 

 would not mind taking it." But it is 

 all in vain to try to get them to see 

 that the bee-])apcrs will teach them all 

 this. 



Newport, Iowa. 



HONEY. 



Not Di;;e$>te<I IVeclar — Report 

 for 1889. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 



BV J. A. MARSH. 



The American Bee Journal is a 

 most welcome visitor, and is read be- 

 fore any other of many periodicals. 

 Many of its contributors are able and 

 reliable, but one of the most able and 

 respected has been very careless and 

 unfortunate in the use of a word. 

 When Prof. Cook calls honey "digested 

 nectar," I hope that he will take back 

 the "digested" part of it as grace- 

 fully and as hastily as his motions will 

 allow. The bees have no intricate 

 patent ; it is an open-kettle process, as 

 old as Adam, and as simple as boiling 

 maple-sap. 



POOR season, golden-rod, etc. 



This has been the third poor season 

 in this locality. May was dry, and 

 bees found about enough honey until 

 June 15 to meet daily wants ; then it 

 rained for 15 or 20 days, and, con- 

 trary to other bee-keepers, I have to 

 say that my bees gathered honey 

 while it rained, faster than at any 

 other time ; also, that gathered in the 

 wet spell was the most beautiful 

 honey ; the sections were free from 

 propolis, and the comb was light and 

 white ; while the honey gathered after- 

 wards, was dark comb, heav}", and the 

 sections daubed until they would break 

 rather than part. 



" Gill over the ground " is my best 

 honej'-producer, coming earlier and 

 lasting longer than white clover, which 

 comes second, while golden-i'od 

 amounts to nothing, as I never saw 

 bees visit it, although I watched it 

 daily in the hope that it would prove 

 of some benefit ; yet I think it a fit em- 

 blem of our glorious country, and I 

 would cast my vote for it, if it was not 

 for the "corner" that Mr. Prang seems 

 to have on that privilege. 



I started in the winter of 1888 with 

 3 colonies ; a small svvarm came to me 

 on Feb. 15, 1889, which I hived and 

 fed, although there were not more 

 than a quart of bees, and they lost 



