Jan. 12, 1905. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



23 



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03ur:'5istcr 



Conducted by Emma M. Wilson, Mareugo, 111. 



" Lebkuchen " or Spice-Cake. 



J 



It's German, and called by the Germans "Lebkuchen ", 

 taken from Praktischer Wegweiser. Boil a quart of honey 

 in water to which has been added the rind of a lemon. 

 When cooled to milkwarm, add a quart of rj'e flour and one 

 of wheat flour, besides two ounces of cinnamon and cloves, 

 then a handful of preserved orange-peel cut fine, a heaping 

 tablespoonful of soda, the whole thoroughly mixed. 



Knead this dough well upon the board, roll out as thick 

 as the little finger, cut into cakes, glaze with white of &%%, 

 put almond meats on top, and bake in tins in a tolerably 

 hot oven. While still hot glaze with powdered sugar stirred 

 thick into water, which immediately dries into a glass-white 

 glazing. 



These cakes keep well in tin cans, and are excellent. 



Preventing" Second Swarms. 



I had one colony of bees in the spring of 1904 that had 

 ■wintered, and had two swarms in the summer, with 18 

 pounds of honey. (Mrs ) M. E. Barbour. 



Barron Co., Wis., Dec 19. 



You would probably have had more honey if you had 

 allowed the colony to swarm only once. Of course, it is all 

 right to allow a second swarm if it is increase you desire, 

 but if honey, then one swarm is enough. 



To prevent a second swarm, remove the parent colony 

 to a new location when the first swarm issues, and place the 

 swarm on the old stand. That will prevent further swarm- 

 ing, for all the field-workers for the next day or two will go 

 to the swarm, thus reducing the old colony so that it will 

 have no desire to swarm again. 



Car of Candied Honey in Paper Packages. 



I inclose a clipping from the Portland Oregonian, con- 

 taining a statement in regard to a shipment of candied 

 honey which is prepared in a new lorm. I have an idea 

 that this form of honey is not pure. I would like to have 

 your opinion on the matter. If this honey is not pure it is 

 probably made cheap, and would injure our honey market 

 in Portland. Please answer through the American Bee 

 Journal. 



We had a very favorable season for honey the past sea- 

 son. We have 85 colonies of black bees. Our honey 

 amounted to 7000 pounds, besides the winter supply, and 

 the largest part of it was No. 1 white clover honey. 



Cowlitz Co., Wash., Dec. 22. Mrs. L,. Schmitt. 



The clipping sent by Mrs. Schmitt reads as follows : 



CARLOAD OF CANDIED HONEY. 



What's sweeter than honey? W. H. Pennington, of Malheur Co., 

 Oreg., thinks it is his candied extracted honey, 25,000 pounds of which 

 has just reached this city under the direction of Woodward, Clarke & 

 Co. People are accustomed to buy honey in jars and tins, and, 

 although the article is sweet enough, it sticks and leaves one's fingers 

 sticky. Mr. Pennington's candied extracted honey is sold in solid 

 blocks in packages weighing 2, SV.J, 5 and 10 pounds. It is unlike the 

 yellow, sticky honey made by t)ees. Pennington's honey is a solid 

 block that can be cut with a knife, and served like butter or cheese. 

 It's newly on the market, and is Mr. Pennington's invention. Xu jar 

 is required to hold it, for it is sold in bags made of paraffin paptr, und 

 is easily handled. It is extracted from the comb in the usual way 

 and left to dry in the cool, frosty, dry air of eastern Oregon. Chem- 

 ists pronounce Pennington's honey to be absolutely pure. 



It Jis highly probable that the honey mentioned is all 

 right, and just as probable that the editor of the Oregonian 

 ds not as well informed about matters apicultural as he 

 might be. No wonder any one, from reading what '.he 

 editor says, would be likely to imagine that something else 

 than pure honey was under consideration. "It is unlike 



the yellow, sticky honey made by beea " — that sounds as if 

 it were something not made by bees ; and being Mr. Penn- 

 ington's " invention ", it would be something of his com- 

 pounding. But farther on he says, " It is extracted from 

 the comb in the usual way "; and that settles the matter as 

 to its source, for it would hardly be possible that Mr. Penn- 

 ington would put an artificial afi'air into combs merely for 

 the sake of throwing it out again. 



Moreover, Mr. W. H. Pennington is the owner of SOO 

 colonies of bees, from which this year's crop was 34,000 

 pounds, a large part of which has evidently been put on the 

 market in Aikin paper-bags. That honey is all right, and 

 very likely so is the Oregonian editor— when not talking 



about honey. 



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Grows More Interesting-. 



Mrs. L. Mack, of St. Joseph Co., Mich., writes : " I 

 think the American Bee Journal grows more interesting 

 every week ". 



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Clftcrtl^ouaI?ts 



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The " Old Reliable " seen through New and Unreliable Glasses. 

 By E. E. Hasty, Sta. B Rural, Toledo, Ohio. 



PLAIN SECTIONS VS. SLOTTED OR BEE-WAY. 



This time the experts get at the plain sections. As 

 many as 11 out of 25 have the cheek to confess that they 

 have never tried them. With favor 9 regard them, and 7 

 with disfavor. Only about 3 out of the 9 show anything 

 more than a languid sort of favor ; and only 4 of the oppos- 

 ing 7 oppose with vigor. On the whole, it doesn't look 

 much as though an overwhelming boom for the plain sec- 

 tion was sweeping the country. Repeatedly said that the 

 wa/« advantage is in getting more sections into the same 

 sized box when packing. Then I should reply : " Great cry, 

 and limited quantity of wool ". The opposing arguments 

 seem more important to me. When snugly packed in a 

 case there is serious difficulty in getting hold of one to get 

 it out. As all spaces in the packing case are less, some sec- 

 tions will have to be left out for slight protuberances which 

 would safely go in with the other style of fixtures. Stachel- 

 hausen's experience is that it takes chin exercise to make 

 the prospective buyer believe that they are as large as in- 

 setted sections which are really no bigger— look smaller 

 than they are, to their owner's inconvenience. Page 790, 



SAINFOIN HONEY. 



Our hope of honey from sainfoin in this country is not, 

 according to Mr. C. P. Dadant, very good. Plant itself a 

 failure, for one thing— all except the try, try ^gain. Even 

 in Europe much the greater proportion of territory, if I get 

 the idea correctly, yields scant nectar or none. Just otie 

 small province of the numerous provinces of France is 

 greatly noted for its sainfoin honey. Page 790. 



QUEER BEE-ANTICS AND STAR-GAZING. 



That's a worthy observation on page 791, the worker 

 that cuffed the queen after being three times refused in 

 offers of food — and got cuffed in return and went away. A 

 Chinaman in similar circumstances would not cuff Tsi Ann. 

 Bees seem to have got a pretty good blend of tlje spirit of 

 royalty with the spirit of democracy. 



And Robert West will be making us all want to go to 

 Jamaica and see four times as many stars, and all of them 

 four times as big. Reminds one of the Irishman. Days 

 were longer in Ireland, and indade there were more of them 1 

 Some reality about the stars. From here we can see Sirius, 

 which is No. 1, but not Canopus, which is No. 2. Also the 

 northern circumpolar has several striking groups, but not 

 even one first magnitude star. The southern circumpolar 

 is just the opposite, few striking groups, but six stars of 

 the first magnitude. One of them that I should take an 

 early opportunity to gaze at is Bungula, much more fre- 

 quently called Alpha Centauri, which is our nearest neigh- 

 bor among the stars. The immediate circumpolar is strik- 

 i ingly bare of stars, even more so than the northern one 



