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aBORQB W. YORK, Editor 



CHICAGO, ILL, JUNE 15, 1905 



Vol, XLV— No. 24 



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(f bitorial Hotcs ^ (Eommcnts 



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Honey Definition and Standards 



Prof. E. N. Eaton, analyst of the Illinois 

 State Food Commission, has sent us the fol- 

 lowing, with the request that we submit it to 

 bee-keepers for their opinions, the same to be 

 sent to this office, when we will refer them to 

 him: 



Suggested Definition and Standards 

 for Honey 



ANIMAL PRODUCTS 

 Sugars 

 Commercial Honet — 



Commercial honey is nectar of flowers or 

 similar saccharine secretions or exudations 

 gathered from natural sources by the honey- 

 bee, transformed and stored in a comb com- 

 posed exclusively of bee's wax. 



Cumb Jfuneji is honey in the comb. 



E-ctrai-ted Huneij is honey removed from 

 the comb. 



COMMON STANDARD — 



Should be ripe, unfermented, free from ob- 

 jectionable odor and flavor, and, if extracted 

 honey, should weigh at least llj-.^ pounds per 

 gallon. 

 CHEMICAL STANDARD — Percent 



Water — maximum 20 



Sucrose (cane-sugar) — max 7 



Prof. Eaton is endeavoring to assist in 

 establishing a code of definitions and stand- 

 ards of food products for the guidance of the 

 various State Food Commissions, and will 

 appreciate any aid that bee-keepers can give 

 him on the subject of honey. 



» Keeping Qualities of Honey 

 Extracted honey is sometimes spoken of as 

 a thing that may be kept an indefinite num- 

 ber of years without deterioration— unless 

 granulation be considered deterioration. But 

 those who have tried keeping it a number of 

 years are well aware that it undergoes 

 changes easily recognizable — changes that are 

 not for the better— it is reasonable to suppose 

 that some deterioration takes place in a much 

 shorter time, even it that change be not so 



I easily recognized. 

 The change that takes place is both in color 

 and in body. At the Colorado State conven- 

 tion, as reported in Irrigation, H. Rauchfuss 

 showed a sample of comb honey 3 years old 

 that was in a fine state of preservation, but 

 " it was getting darker in color with each 



comb was darkening." He also showed a 14 

 year old sample of extracted honey gathered 

 from cleome " which was almost wholly 

 liquid, but was very much darkened with age. 

 The samples of extracted had all candied 

 promptly after being extracted, but after a 

 time would again liquefy wholly or in part, 

 about once in a year or two years passing 

 from one to the other condition and back 

 again. 



" The later granulations are never so firm 

 as the first, and usually the liquefyings are 

 not complete either, it gradually changes to a 

 semi-liquid condition seldom all becoming 

 liquid, and as it candies again it is more truly 

 a granulation, the granules being mixed with 

 liquid parts. All samples of aged honeys 

 show a decided tendency to become darker 

 with age." 



Mr. R. C. Aikin said: " I have a sample of 

 white clover extracted honey 30 years old. It 

 has showed the same peculiarities as that by 

 Mr. Rauchfuss. It remained liquid the better 

 part of a year, but gradually candied. I do 

 not remember how long it was candied, but 

 think it was about the second year that it be- 

 gan to liquefy standing on a shelf in a com- 

 paratively warm place not far from a stove, 

 until it was almost entirely liquid except some 

 granules. After this it candied as described 

 by Mr. Rauchfuss, not a true condition, but a 

 liquid full of granules. It has since become 

 almost entirely liquid, remaining for the past 

 15 or 20 years a liquid with a cake of crystal- 

 lized honey in it together with some granules 

 throughout the mass. It is now about as 

 dark as dark sorghum molasses, such as we 

 used to make 20 or 30 years ago." 



Stewart's Foul -Brood Treatment 



The Bee-Keepers' Review gives a plan of 

 treatment obtained from W. H. H. Stewart, 

 as follows : 



Mr. Stewart's plan is simply that of giving 

 the colony a new location, and allowing the 

 returning bees to enter any colonies that they 

 choose — probably lho.se standing near the old 

 stand. The diseaseil colony is moved in the 

 evening, after the bees have stopped flying. 

 Even if the moving does disturb the bees, or 

 cause them to fill themselves with honey, none 

 fly from the hive, and by morning all has be- 

 come quiet, and all bees leaving the hive will 

 be empty and in a normal condition. When 

 such bees return wi;a a load, they go back to 

 the old location, and join some neighboring 

 colony. They are not lost. Other things be- 



ing equal, a bee is worth as much in one col- 

 ony as in another. 



In S or 10 days the hive is again moved to a 

 new location, and left there several days, 

 when it is picked up and carried into the shop. 

 As the bees hatch out, and become old enough 

 to fly, they leave the hive, fly to the window, 

 go out through an escape, and probably join 

 some colony in the apiary. 



The combs eventually become free of bees 

 or healthy brood, when they may be rendered 

 into wax after extracting the honey. All 

 this has been accomplished without any risky 

 shaking off of the bees, or even so much as 

 the opening of a liiae. Can anything be more 

 simple or easy of accomplishment? 



This is somewhat after the Baldridge plan, 

 which allows the bees of a diseased colony to 

 escape in front of a neighboring colony 

 through an escape. In the Baldridge plan of 

 curing foul brood the trouble of putting 

 on the escape stands against the two re- 

 movals in the Stewart plan, but the Baldridge 

 plan has the advantage that no robbers can 

 enter the infected hive, while with the Stewart 

 plan the colony, weakened by removal, and 

 especially by the second removal, would most 

 surely be at times attacked by robbers. To 

 be sure, an escape could be used with the 

 Stewart plan, but then it would have no 

 advantage over the other. 



Celluloid for Queen-Excluders 



In the British Bee .Journal Mr. Reid is re- 

 ported as saying that he had used nothing 

 else but celluloid for queen-excluders, and 

 that they continued sound and could be 

 depended upon. 



Oisinfectlni; Combs With Formalin 



At the Ontario convention, as reported in 

 the Canadian Bee Journal, Mr. Sibbald said: 



" A year ago I thought of curing by the 

 formalin method, and went to considerable 

 trouble to get everything in good shape, ac- 

 cording to the directions as I understood 

 them. I fumigated a number of combs, and I 

 think I turned on the formalin gas for about 

 two hours, and I used it pretty strong, be- 

 cause I could hardly take out the combs the 

 next day, but the disease developed after I 

 gave the combs back to the bees. I thought 

 perhaps I didn't give them enough formalin, 

 and so I kept the lamp going all night; not 

 only was the box full of gas, but the room 

 also. I left thein for two weeks in that box, 

 covered up ti^jht, and when I came to take 

 them out I could hardly ijear to reach down 

 into the bos, th" formalin was so strong. I 

 gave the como ugain to the bees, and the dis- 

 ease developed again." 



Prof. Harrison, while admitting that Mr. 

 Sibbald had been very thorough in his work. 



