824 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Nov. 30, 1905 



efforts set forth the facts plainly, the people will make a cote 

 of it, and in time there will be a heavily increased demand for 

 honey all over our country. 



" But," says one, " Bohrer believes that extracted honey 

 is the cheapest and most wholesome." Bur, people won't buy 

 it through fear of being imposed upon by the artificial-honey 

 vendor. To head off this danger let every bee-keeper use his 

 or her influence for a pure food law, for without it the sale of 

 honey will be held down in the future as it has been in the 

 past, and as it is now being held down. It won't only be so 

 in the case of extracted honey, but^n the case of section 

 comb honey as well. 



In addition to all this, let us through our agricultural and 

 local country papers tell the public, and repeatour statements 

 if need be, that artificial honey-comb has never been manu- 

 factured, and that the probability is that it never can be. 

 Sheets of beeswax with the bottoms or cell-foundations stamped 

 upon each side is the most advanced step ever taken by man 

 in the manufacture of honey-comb, the cell-walls being so 

 thin and delicate that even if molded the mold could not be 

 removed from the cells without breaking them down. 



Let us drop the term "artificial comb honey " in our 

 efforts to educate the people upon this subject, it having no 

 legitimate place in the discussion of the real falsehood to be 

 exposed. The term "artificial honey" was manufactured 

 many years before " artificial comb " was ever talked of. so 

 that the latter is the real question at issue. Let us stick to it. 

 I am not unmindful of the fact that comb honey in the form 

 of so-called "formed sections" is regarded the most attractive 

 form in which honey is produced, but I shall again insist that 

 it is not the cheapest or the most wholesome, and consequently 

 not the best. Let us get the people to know what the best 

 form is, and, in time we may hope, with the support of a 

 strong, pure food law, to see the honey-market problem solved. 



I am also free to admit that honey, in order to be accept- 

 able among some of our people, must please the eye ; and 

 some say that in the comb and section it is the most attrac- 

 tive. Let such as can not admire or like honey in any other 

 shape have it in the comb. But at "the same time let us tell 

 the whole truth, and inform everybody that in the extracted 

 form it is by all odds the cheapest, just as palatable, more 

 wholesome, and it will sell in larger quantities than in any 

 other shape. 



Mr. A. I. Root placed the honey-section before the public. 

 Every one saw at a glance that it presented honey in the 

 neatest, most cleanly, and most attractive form, andlargelv 

 drove from the market bulk-comb honey, the comb of which 

 often contained cocoons and pollen. Yet, as Mr. Johnson says, 

 sections sometimes contain the above-named undesirable and 

 objectionable articles. Lyons, Kans. 



Purity vs. Good Working Qualities in Bees 



BT G. M. DOOLITTLE 



IS it needful to have any of the races of bees in their abso- 

 lute purity to secure the best results in honey ? Please an- 

 swer this in the American Bee Journal, as very many of the 

 readers will be interested in the matter." 



Thus writes a correspondent. Were I to answer this in 

 the briefest possible space I should say No, making it very 

 emphatic. But I take it that the correspondent wishes to 

 know the whys and wherefores of such a decision, when so 

 much has been said in the past in our bee-papers and else- 

 where regarding a standard of purity, it being made to appear 

 that the higher this standard the better the working qualities. 

 In the first place, I know of no race of bees in this coun- 

 try to-day that are absolutely /!>?<>r, unless I except the black 

 or German race of bees ; and these have become so mixed with 

 bees of foreign importation that in most places they have 

 ceased to be identical with the bees of our fathers. The best 

 that can be said of any of the foreign bees, so far as they have 

 come under my observation (and I have had nearly all of 

 them ; those from whom I had them claiming that those sent 

 were certainly pure) is, that they are a thoroughbred, for 

 there is not one of these claimed pure races but what will 

 " sport " to an extent sufficient to condemn all claims for 

 purity. So it is not necessary to have bees in their " absolute 

 purity "to secure the best results in honey, for an absolute 

 purity can not be obtained in this country, unless, perchance, 

 it is the black bee, and we have for years been claiming that 

 the thoroughbred bees of foreign importation, added to which 

 has come the intellectual breeding of American genius, are 

 much better for honey than the black bees of our fathers. 



The breeding of American genius has been along the line 

 of better bees as regSLrds good grualiiies, especially the quality 



of superior honey-gathering, and the good yields of the pres- 

 ent time as coppared with a score of years ago, tells how suc- 

 cessful they have been. Allow me to illustrate something of 

 this matter from my own experience : 



One year during the latter part of May, while changing 

 one colony from the hive it was in to another hive of more re- 

 cent make, I noticed a fine looking orange-colored queen 

 with the workers quite evenly marked, and of the same pecu- 

 liar orange color. A neighbor who kept bees happened along 

 at the time and remarked that he would prefer a darker-col- 

 ored queen for good business at honey-gathering, and I agreed 

 with him in this decision. No further notice was taken of 

 this colony till about .June 25, when the bees were nearly 

 through swarming. This one had not swarmed, but had 60 

 pounds of section honey nearly ready to come off. On July 3- 

 they gave a fine swarm, which was hived in a new hive. 

 Although the parent colony had none of its queen-cells cut, it 

 never offered to swarm again, and the result at the end of the 

 season was 195 pounds of section honey from the parent, and 

 114 from the swarm, or 309 pounds from the old colony, all 

 told. 



The queen reared in the old hive proved to be as good as 

 the mother, and both colonies wintered with the loss of very 

 few bees, and consumed very little honey when in winter 

 quarters. Then in spring they built up in good shape for the 

 season's work, and showed the same disposition not to swarm 

 till late, each of the two colonies giving nearly one-third more 

 section honey than the average of the rest in the apiary. 

 From this on I reared nearly all my queens from the old one 

 as long as she lived, and found that the majority of them 

 proved as good as did the one reared the first year; they lay- 

 ing the most prolifically just at the right time to bring their 

 bees on the stage of action in the greatest numbers at a time 

 to take advantage of the honey harvest when on, and these 

 bees were great honey-gatherers. These bees were used as 

 the base for breeding, and were really of no known pedigree 

 of stock. 



In order to obtain, if possible, something better still, I 

 began procuring queens from persons who reported good 

 honey-yields, believing that with these good yields must come 

 good wintering qualities, etc., as no good honey-gathering 

 could possibly come from bees which were deficient in the 

 other things needed as a basis for the thing sought after. 

 Some of the queens bought did not come up to my expecta- 

 tions, and were superseded as soon as proven. Others proved 

 good, some even better, along certain lines, than what I had, 

 and were used to advance the apiary up to a higher standard 

 as to honey-gathering, I never asking regarding the purity of 

 the stock, as the best honey-producers were what I was after. 



By this method of crossing I have bred up a strain of bees 

 which please me as to their honey-gathering qualities, 

 although for yellow bands and golden-all-overs there are 

 doubtless bees more pleasing to the eye. And I am still striv- 

 ing to advance these bees further along the honey-gathering 

 line, and I am on the lookout each year to see where anything 

 can be purchased that gives a prospect of furthering this ob- 

 ject. And there are many others in the United States and 

 Canada who are working just as faithfully to secure the best 

 bees for honey-gathering as I have been. 



Through this disposition to work for the improvement of 

 stock along the honey-gathering line, on the part of the best 

 apiarists of North America, I believe the day is not far dis- 

 tant, if it has not already come, when the bees of America 

 will be conceded to be the best bees in the world, with no espe- 

 cial claim to their purity, or of their race or variety, nor from 

 what country their ancestors came. Borodino, N. Y. 



(£onxx>ntion 

 Proccebings 



Report of the Texas Conveutlou 



J' 



BT LOUIS H. SCHOLL, SEC. 



(Continued from page 810) 



The Production of Bulk-Comb Honey. 



Mr. Aten has produced bulk-comb honey a long time. 

 He had to have his cans made especially for the purpose in 

 Austin, with a 4 inch screw-cap opening in the regular 60- 

 pound can. The comb had to be cut very small, which made 



