242 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



for a week or ten days, the colony is 

 practically useless for the clover honey 

 harvest. Again, early in the season, 

 unless it is very early, the colony is 

 populous, combs full of brood, and 

 everything is booming. The bee-keep- 

 er is busy, or ought to be, and it is not 

 "good business" to be tearing up, and 

 disturbing, and throvping out of 

 equilibrium, a colony just on the eve 

 of a honey harvest. 



Queens reared after the honey sea- 

 son is over are every whit as good as 

 any queens, if the breeder under- 

 stands his business, and attends to it. 

 It is just possible that they may be 

 less inclined to swarm. The hurry of 

 the season is over, and the bee-keeper 

 has more time to attend to the business 

 of introducing queens. If there is a 

 failure to introduce, there will be no 

 consequent loss of a honey crop. Still 

 further, the queen that is introduced, 

 being a young queen, will lay later in 

 the season than will an old queen, 

 and, as a result, the colony will go 

 into winter with a larger proportion of 

 young bees. And now for the last and 

 best point: The queen will be young 

 and vigorous the next spring, and 

 will push her colony ahead in a way 

 that is seldom seen with an old queen. 



If 3'ou have never tried it, do it this 

 fall. Introduce some really good, 

 young queens that have just begun to 

 lay, and see how the colonies will win- 

 ter, come through the spring, and 

 boom ahead of all others. 



»>-fc'*.»li.»»T>ar'^ 



THE ARTIFICIAL COMB HONEY CANARD 

 STILL DOING ITS DEADLY WORK. 



It is doubtful if one man ever work- 

 ed more damage to the bee-keeping 

 industry than did Prof. Wiley when he 

 committed his "scientific pleasantry," 

 years ago in the Popular Science 

 Monthly. Of course, there was a tar- 

 dy and reluctant correction, but truth 

 never seems to be able to travel fast 



enough to overtake falsehood. Being 

 of a sensational nature, and coming 

 from a supposedly reliable source, the 

 United States chemist, it was copied 

 far and wide, and believed. Many 

 times was it repeated, but few, if any, 

 were the papers that published a cor- 

 rection. Even now, a correction is se- 

 cured only after all possible pressure 

 is brought to bear upon them. 



In this connection, it affords me 

 pleasure to say that Prof. Wiley deep- 

 ly regrets his indulgence in this "sci- 

 entific pleasantry," and is really a 

 friend to bee-keepers, and doing all 

 that he can for their benefit, but this 

 does not undo the mischief he has done; 

 in fact, Ernest Root writes me that 

 nine-tenths of the general public be- 

 lieve that comb honey can be, and is, 

 made artificially; and, if it were not 

 for this belief, comb honey would sell 

 for a much higher price. We bee- 

 keepers must go outside of our own 

 class to realize this. For instance, 

 commercial travellers have a most ex- 

 cellent opportunity to know the gener- 

 al belief of the public, and Ernest 

 Root writes me that it is wonderful to 

 know the number of these men who 

 visit Medina and are surprised toknow 

 that there is no such thing as artificial 

 comb hone}\ When asked if they don't 

 eat honey, say they don't care to eat 

 manufactured comb filled with glucose. 



I recently mentioned in the Review 

 that this old story of manufactured 

 comb honey had appeared in that 

 usually reliable paper, the Ladies' 

 Home Journal, and urged my readers 

 to write to its editor and ask him to 

 correct it. I also wrote to him myself. 

 The editors of the other journals pur- 

 sued a similar course, and we now 

 have assurances that a correction will 

 appear as soon as it is possible to make 

 it, which may not be until October, as 

 the great circulation of the Journal 

 necessitates the preparation and print- 

 ing of the paper a longtime in advance 

 of the date of its appearance. 



