189(5. 



TEE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



125 



great quantities to the city folks, 

 and I have never heard of any one be- 

 ing poisoned by them. 



Like Novice, I, too, am somewhat 

 skeptical about poisonous houey. I 

 would like to see some of the so-called 

 poisonous honey sent to a chemist for 

 a chemical analysis. I have kuown 

 horses to be made yery sick by being 

 turned into a nice field of clover, and 

 have heard of them even dying from 

 the same cause, but that would not 

 warrant any one in saying that green 

 clover was poisonous. The danger was 

 in the eating to excess of food to which 

 they were not accustomed. 



As a matter af fact, there is more or 

 less poison in all honey, as in nearly 

 everything else we eat. The mite of 

 poison that the Author of Nature has 

 compounded with the various things 

 we eat, is as necessary and indispensi- 

 ble to our well being as any of their 

 other properties. All honey contains 

 more or less A'pis virum, which, as a 

 drug, is a powerful and deadly poison. 

 If we consider the very small amount 

 of this poison that is injected into the 

 body by the sting of a bee, atid note 

 the effect on those that are not used 

 to being stung, we may have an idea 

 how powertul this poison really is. 



When 1 first began keeping bees, a 

 sting within two or three inches of the 

 eye was sufficient to nearly close it, 

 and the effect would last for a day or 

 two, but now I am so inculcated with 

 this poison that it has little or no ef- 

 fect. In those days, too, if I ate hon- 

 ey with any degree of excess, a violent 

 pain in my stomach was sure to fol- 

 low. This, too, passed gradually away 

 on becoming used to honey. Now, if 

 I had not been interested in bees, and 

 had bought houey of uncertain source. 



and had been seized with violent 

 cramps in the stomach shortly after 

 eating it, I might well have been ex- 

 cused for saying and thinking that the 

 honey was poisonous. It is owing to 

 the presence of Apis vlrum in honey 

 that so many people are benefited by 

 its use. 



The Apis vinivi makes honey really 

 a medicine for several diseases. If 

 more honey was used there would be 

 less backache and kidney trouble ; so 

 says Dr. J. M. Wallace, late of Cleve- 

 land, Ohio, but now of this city, for 

 whom I have extracted considerable 

 Apis virum. He says it is one of the 

 most potent of drugs in the treatment 

 of kidney diseases and Bright's dis- 

 ease, and many others. He says that 

 the virtue of Apis virum is becoming 

 better known and appreciated by the 

 medical fraternity, day by day, and 

 that it will be used in much larger 

 quantities in the future than hereto- 

 fore. 



I collected and sold considerable 

 Apis virum last season, and have two 

 orders standing now to be filled as soon 

 as possible. I intend to try to work 

 up an extensive trade in Apis virum, 

 I have invented a device for extract- 

 ing it from the bees without injuring 

 them, and by which I can extract as 

 much in one hour as a small army can 

 do with tweezers. If the readers of 

 the Bee Journal are interested, and 

 want to know more about this depart- 

 ment of bee culture, 1 will describe it 

 more fully some other time. 



Franklin, Pa. 



"How TO Manage Bees,'" a 50c 

 book, and the American Bee-Keep- 

 ER a year for only 60c. 



