THE jSMERicsr* mmm journal. 



715 



■■ * -^ * ■*• * ■' 



The lack of knowledge of this mat- 

 tor has been as great a source of 

 trouble to the dealer in his endeavor 

 to convince his customer of the purity 

 of hone3^ as the variety of qualities. 

 The taste of the public as well as that 

 of the individual is cultivated to a cer- 

 tain quality of honey as well as to a 

 certain quality of tea or coflee. 



For instance : you may give the best 

 Java cotFee to a lover of Rio, and he 

 will pronounce it "off" until ho is 

 used to the Java flavor. The same is 

 the case with honey, and is illustrated 

 by the following : Sometime last win- 

 ter, we sent a keg of honey to the 

 Superintendent of some public institu- 

 tion in Tennessee. ,It was a mixture 

 of clover and linden honey, and con- 

 sidered by us one of the finest qualities 

 in the world. When remitting, our 

 friend remarked about as follows : 



■• What you have sent us is certainly 

 a fine article — it is too fine to be nat- 

 ural honey. I shall not believe it to 

 be genuine. The color of genuine 

 honey is brown, and its flavor is not 

 quite as tine as that of the honej- you 

 sent us." 



Modern improvements, such as the 

 inventions of movable frames, comb 

 foundation, and the honey extractor, 

 have produced a s3-stem for bee-keep- 

 ing, and enabled the bee-keeper not 

 onlj- to exceed all former results as to 

 quantity of the product, but also as to 

 quality. He can keep separate almost 

 all the principal qualities of honey 

 from the difl'erent honej'-yielding flow- 

 ers as they develop in their turn and 

 are made use of by bees. The process 

 is simple to the intelligent bee-keeper, 

 who must be acquainted with the 

 honey-flora of his neighborhood, and the 

 time of blooming. 



In the southern part of Ohio, for in- 

 stance, the principal honey yielding 

 flowers are : the fruit blossoms during 

 the latter part of April and the begin- 

 ning of May, the locust blossom dur- 

 ing the latter part of May, and the 

 ■white clover during the month of 

 June. This ends our hone}- season. 

 Buckwheat, golden-rod, smart-weed, 

 and other fall blossoms do not yield 

 much in our latitude, but afl'ord a 

 large additional amount to the bee- 

 keepers a few hundred miles further 

 north. 



The apple-bloom furnishes a very 

 fine honey of a light brown color. The 

 aroma of the apple-blossom cannot be 

 mistaken. When late frosts of spring, 

 during several years of our experience, 

 had killed all peach-bloom, we learned 

 that peach-blossoms yield a better nec- 

 tar, consequentlj' there will be no fine 

 Iruit blossom honey when peach trees 

 are in bloom. 



Locust is, perhaps, the finest of all 

 honeys with the scent and flavor of the | 



locust blossom, and a color of a rich 

 golden yellow. The early season, 

 however, with its inclement weather 

 d-uriug the six or eight days of the 

 locust bloom, prevent a regular 

 harvest. 



The only source we can depend upon 

 in Southern Ohio, the season permit- 

 ting, is the M'hite clover bloom, the 

 quality of its honey is appreciated bj- 

 evcrybodj-, and needs no further de- 

 scription. 



The poplar tree (American tulip) 

 blooms in more northern latitudes, 

 just before the white clover commences 

 to yield, and furnishes a rich, light 

 brown colored honey of very pleasant 

 flavor. If not extracted from the 

 combs before the clover harvest be- 

 gins, then the color of the light clover 

 houey is darkened by its predecessor 

 from the tulip tree. Here, also the 

 linden or basswood tree begins to 

 bloom just about at the time when the 

 white clover ceases to yield, and the 

 first extractings are generally a mix- 

 ture of clover and linden honej", both 

 being of light color, and pleasant 

 flavor, the mixture is appreciated by 

 most parties as tine table honey. 



It is estimated that bees must con- 

 sume 30 to 40 pounds of honey to 

 manufacture one pound of wax. This 

 sweats out, in tiny little scales, be- 

 tween the segments of their bodies, 

 which the bees take, one from the 

 other, for the forming of their combs. 

 By supplying a colony with sheets of 

 pure beeswax, rolled down as thin as 

 natural combs, and with the impres- 

 sion of the cells on each side of the 

 sheet, a great deal of honej' and labor 

 is saved the bees. They show their 

 gratefulness b}- proceeding at once to 

 finish these wax sheets, work out the 

 impressions and form regular cells in 

 which to rear their brood or store 

 their surplus honey as the case may be. 



These sheets of pure beeswax (comb 

 foundation) are fastened under the 

 top-bars of the frames which are sus- 

 pended in the hive ; they are accepted 

 by the bees and finished ; regular 

 hone3'-combs can be taken out of the 

 hive as often as they are filled, emptied 

 of their contents bj- means of the 

 honey extractor, and returned to the 

 hive to be filled up again, .as long as 

 the season lasts, and during every suc- 

 cessive season for years afterwards. 



The movable frame is the invention 

 of Father Langstroth, formerlj* of Ox- 

 ford, but now of Dayton, Ohio. Comb 

 foundation and the honey extractor 

 are German inventions. 



Cincinnati, Ohio. 



cosrvENTioar directory. 



1890. TJTne aiid place of meeting. 



Oct. 29-31.— InternHtional American, at Keokuk, la. 

 C. P. DadaDt. tfec, Hamilton, Uls. 



Oct. 30.— Turltey Hill, at Wilderman's sta.. lUt. 



A. Fehr, Sec, Belleville, Ills. 

 1891. 

 Jan. 1,2.— Michigan State, at Detroit. Mich. 



U. D. Cutting. Sec, Clititon, Mich. 



May 7.— Susquehanna County, at Montrose. Pa, 



U. M. Sceley, Sec, Hartord, Pa. 



St^" In order to have this talile complete. 

 Secretaries are requested to forward full 

 particulars of the time and the place of 

 each future meeting. — The Editor. 



International Bee-Association. 



President— Hon. R. L. Taylor.. Lapeer, Mich, 

 Secretakv— C. P. Dadant Hamilton, Ills, 



National Bee-Keepers' Union. 



President— James Heddon ..Dowagiac, Mich. 

 Sec'v and Manager— T. G. Newman. Chicago. 





%!iM'' 



^lakin;;' a Simple llaiiiniock. 



An item on page 811 of the American 

 Bee Journal for 1889, about a Christmas 

 table, was helpful to us, and we adopted 

 and enjoyed it. The new idea gave great 

 pleasure to the younger ones, and but little 

 trouble to their elders. In return, I would 

 like to give the readers a picture of my 

 hammock. It is not original with me, but 

 is just as good as if it were. It is made of 

 barrel-staves and four pieces of smooth 

 fence -wire each 13 feet long — just a little 

 bridge with the wire suspension at each 

 side, woven over and under each alter- 

 nate stave at the ends. My little eleven- 

 year old son made one in half an hour, with 

 a little of my help. We like them better 

 than the netting hammocks. Hang it 

 near the bee-yard, aud you will be sur- 

 prised at the help you will get watching 

 bees. Mrs. B. J, Livingston. 



Center Chain, Minn, • 



Xliose tVlio Have any honey to 

 dispose of should use the Honey Almanac 

 as a salesman. We have a few left for this 

 year, and offer them at half price. See 

 page 719 of this paper. 



Specimens qt' Asters. 



You will find enclosed two specimens of 

 fall flowers — the one white, the other blue. 

 What are they ; Some say they are asters, 

 while some say they are not. Please reply 

 through the American Bee Journal. 



Somerdale, O. C. E. McCreery. 



[The lighter colored of the two is aster 

 tradcscaiiti, and the other is also an aster 

 called Mexican purple, Cosmos bipinnatus. 

 Both are excellent honey-producers.— Ed.] 



Bee-Keepinar in ^^ebraska. 



Our honey crop in this part of Nebraska 

 is short, very few having taken any honey, 

 though all the bees have enough to live on 

 through the winter. I have 90 colonies, 

 and only about 550 pounds of extracted 

 honey from about 30 colonies : the rest I 

 worked for comb honey, and used mostly 

 drawn combs in the supers, with baits in 

 every case, and I faOed to get but one 28- 

 section crate from the 70 colonies, so I am 

 convinced that for this market it pays 

 much better to produce extracted honey, 

 for I think I can produce 3 pounds of ex- 

 tracted where I can get one pound of comb 



