36 



IRE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



If we hive a swarm in a single 

 story with queen excluder and a case 

 of empty sections, we will always get 

 burr-combs — plenty of them ; so, also, 

 if we put on a queen excluder and a 

 case of empty sections on the two- 

 story hive at the beginning of the 

 honey flow. But if we, in hiving in a 

 single-story, take a case of sections in 

 which the bees are well at work, or 

 partly finished, we will get few burr- 

 combs, and generally none at all. 



(To be continued) . 



The 1891 Outlook. 



BY JAS. HEDDON. 



Perhaps nothing would be of more 

 interest to your readers than to hear 

 from one of the many popular honey 

 producing regions of the north-west- 

 ern states, in regard to the probable 

 honey crop the coming season. These 

 reports certainly post us in regard to 

 what we may expect, concerning the 

 amount of next year's production, and 

 consequent shading in prices. We 

 have had almost no winter at all here, 

 so far. About four weeks ago, the 

 bees were flying and no snow on the 

 ground. It is now quite .cold, the 

 mercury is only a little above zero, 

 and it has previously hardly been low- 

 er than just below the freezing point, 

 and that too only a few days. 



Bees in the cellar, where the con- 

 finement is as absolute as though the 

 winter was ever so rigorous, and where 

 the temperature is about the same as 

 it would be were it ever so cold with- 

 out, and very quiet and apparently 

 wintering well. Of course there is 

 time enough to lose many of our col- 

 onies by dysentary yet, and to have 

 plenty of very cold weather, but we 

 hardly expect It, especially of any 

 long duration after this date. 



There are, however, very many col- 

 onies of bees in the hands of farmers, 

 and bee-keepers who do not make the 

 business a specialty, which went into 

 winter quarters without stores enough 

 to keep them through, and from star- 

 vation, and that alone, I expect very 

 many colonies will perish in southern 

 Michigan before the flowers bloom 

 again. 



So far as the past has had any influ- 

 ence upon the honey yielding plants 

 for 1891, everything is fairly favora- 

 able. 



ADULTERATED HONEY. 



At our late Slate Convention at De- 

 troit, some of the members living not 

 far from that city, and having been 

 out examining the honey market, 

 brought in several jars of adulterated 

 honey ; a long and earnest discussion 

 and hard work ensued regarding the 

 best methods of preventing city pack- 

 ers from putting up that kind of goods 

 in the future. We have quite strin- 

 gent laws in this State, but they are 

 all of the dead letter order, and, be- 

 sides this, it is very hard, as Professor 

 Cook says, to chemically determine 

 whether honey is pure or not. He 

 says great mistakes are liable to occur 

 with the best of chemists, and conse- 

 quently great injustice follows. 



We all remember how the Washing- 

 ton chemists pronounced all of Chas. 

 F. Muth's honey adulterated. They 

 guessed this because Mr. Muth was a 

 resident of the big city of Cincinnati. 

 They depended more upon this cir- 

 cumstance than upon the action of 

 their chemicals, no doubt. Finally 

 we fixed it this way : The Bee-Keep- 

 er's Union, which has done so much to 

 pi'otect the interests of bee-keepers in 

 this country, will soon take out n r>o+ 



