36 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Jan. 19, 1905. 



more likely, juices from various fruits. In any event, 

 when nectar passes to the bee's honey-stomach, it is so 

 changed that we may well call it " honey ", as it is put into 

 the comb. 



I have fed pure cane-sugar to bees and have had the 

 resulting honey sampled by experts, and they not only pro- 

 nounced it honey, but the best they had ever eaten. This 

 kind of honey though would always be too expensive to put 

 on the markets. I notice in the last Bee Journal it is sug- 

 gested that honey -dew honey is not honey because it is not 

 collected from flowers. I have known such honey to be of 

 rare excellence. Indeed, I believe that not a little of the 

 very best honey often sold as basswood or clover comes 

 from houey-dew. I believe that the secretion of nearly all 

 our aphids will produce a honey of superior flavor and ex- 

 cellence. This is no mere guess, but the result of actual 

 observation for a series of years. A. J. Cook. 



Under "Food Definitions and Standards ", a circular 

 recently sent out by the Bureau of Chemistry of the United 

 States Department of Agriculture, there were " schedules 

 prepared by the Committee on Food Standards, Association 

 of Oflficial Agricultural Chemists". They referred to 

 "sugars and related substances". Of course honey was 

 included, and the following were suggested as the defini- 

 tions and standard : 



1. Honey is the nectar of flowers and saccharine exuda- 

 tions of plants gathered and stored in the comb by bees. 



2. Comb Honey is honey still in the comb. 



3. Extracted honey is honey which has been separated 

 from the comb. 



Standard honey is honey which is laevo-rotatory to 

 polarized light, contains not more than twenty-five (25) 

 percent of water, not more than fifteen one-hundredths 

 (O.IS) percent of ash, nor more than eight (8) percent of 

 sucrose. 



These suggested definitions and standard of honey 

 were sent out in order to get the opinions of various experts 

 before adopting them, and so were " subject to revision ". 

 We are inclined to think that the " definitions " given are 

 fairly good. As to the " standard ", we are not chemist 

 enough to say. 



Perhaps others of our readers besides Prof. Cook, who 

 have made a study of this subject, would like to express 

 themselves. If so, our columns are open. 



irtiscelloneous 

 Hctps > 3 terns 



"^ 



J 



OUP Advertisers, we believe, are a lot of most honor- 

 able and reliable firms. We are glad to recommend them to 

 our readers. We also believe they are all reliable in their 

 dealings, else they could not get into the advertising col- 

 umns of the American Bee Journal. 



When writing to any of them, we would like to urge 

 you'' to mention having seen their advertisement in the 

 American Bee Journal. This would help both the adver- 

 tiser and us. The more business they get from having 

 their' advertisements in the American Bee Journal the better 

 satisfied they will be with it, and the more they will adver- 

 tise in it hereafter. 



Scarcely any periodical published to-day could exist if 

 it depended entirely upon its subscription price. So the 

 advertisers are a great help. This journal is no exception 

 to the rule in this regard. 



We want the American Bee Journal to be a benefit to 

 its advertisers as well as to its regular subscribers. Their 

 interests arejmutual. We would like to bring them nearer 

 together, so .that each will understand the other better. 



In and through it all, the American Bee Journal desires 



to be helpful in every possible way to those who either read 

 it or advertise in it. All we want is the permission to do 

 our part. 



Not Quite as Gentle.— in the letter from Fred Bechly, 

 of Poweshiek Co., Iowa, on page 14, he is made to say that 

 he finds the golden Italian bees quite as gentle as the three- 

 banded. It should have read " not quite as gentle ". 



Temperanee Life Insurance Company.— Your at- 

 tention is called to the advertisement of the Total Absti- 

 nence Department of the Security Mutual Life Insurance 

 Company and the National Total Abstinence League. This 

 department has had an experience of nearly four years and 

 a half. The mortality ratio proves, beyond doubt, that 

 abstainers are desirable insurance risks. 



The Apiary of J. M. Haynes is pictured on the first 

 page this week. Concerning himself and his apiary, Mr. 

 Haynes wrote as follows when sending the photograph : 



I am 5S years old, and have been a farmer all of my 

 life. I have 391 acres of land. As my health failed so that 

 I couldn't do heavy work on the farm, I went into the bee- 

 business. I have 90 colonies under a shed the year around. 



The bee-shed is 6 feet wide. The front is 8 feet high, 

 sided down half way. The hives are set at the front, so I 

 do the bee-work behind them under the shed. The shed 

 runs 64 feet north, 68 feet west, and 64 feet south. I use the 

 Langstroth lOframe hive, with 28 sections in the super. I 

 don't extract any. I let the bees do the work, and I sell the 

 honey. 



It was a poor year here for honey the past year. It is 

 worth 19 cents a pound now. J. M. Haynbs. 



The Defunct Honey-Producers' Association, referred 

 to in an item on page 30, is thus commented upon by H. L. 

 Weems, of Kern Co., Calif.: 



Editor American Bkk Journal : — With only the 

 friendliest and kindliest feeling for all concerned, I can 

 not silently see what seems to me, in the clipping from the 

 Kingsburg (Calif.) Recorder of Dec. 14, a gross injustice to 

 the manager of the defunct Central California Honey-Pro- 

 ducers' Association. 



I was a stockholder in that organization, and suffered 

 as great pecuniary loss as any member in it. Therefore, I 

 believe I am as much entitled to discuss the mistakes of its 

 management as anyone. It is true there was lack of con- 

 fidence. Not in the manager particularly, but among all 

 the stockholders. With but few exceptions each was sus- 

 picious and distrustful of his neighbor almost from the very 

 beginning of the organization. Each locality was jealous 

 of every other locality. Each had its own plan for perfect- 

 ing the organization, and all other plans were radically 

 wrong. There was no spirit of concession or compromise. 

 So that it was impossible to perfect an organization wholly 

 satisfactory even to a majority of the stockholders. 



Every meeting was an occasion for prolonged, and, in 

 certain instances, acrimonious debate. Every one was 

 honest and sincere in the belief that his view was the only 

 correct one, but suspected the honest motive of his neigh- 

 bor. On this account it was impossible to secure the 

 adoption of a code of by-laws. 



But through all these stormy scenes there was not one 

 who commanded greater respect and confidence than the 

 president and manager of the Association. This is evi- 

 denced by the fact that he was elected and re-elected, and 

 his ofl'er to resign afterwards declined. It was through his 

 efforts and sacrifice of time, money and personal interest, 

 more than any other, that the organization lived as long as 

 it did. 



It was he who made the interest of every bee-keeper his 

 own personal concern, and sought to reconcile every con- 

 flicting interest that arose. It was he who came to the sup- 

 port of the editor of The Recorder, when, as publisher of a 

 bee-paper at Tulare, afterwards the Western Bee Journal, 

 he was fighting against odds for a place among publishers 

 of bee-literature. The support given at this time was loyal 

 to the last degree. It was loyalty itself. The new bee- 

 paper's friends were his friends ; its foes, his foes. 



The Central California Honey-Producers' Association 



