bees. Its voice has been steady against 

 adulteration, in all its forms. It has 

 advised that even comb foundation should 

 not be used in comb honey — and even 

 if it was used for starters, that it should 

 be only of a narrow strip, of about two 

 cells in width, because nothing should 

 be used that would in any way compro- 

 mise the sale of that delicious article of 

 food. Notwithstanding this advice, 

 some have used half a sheet in surplus 

 boxes, and others have filled the sections 

 full of it ! It may be that this latter 

 has something to do with the confisca- 

 tion of that comb honey in Liverpool — 

 we hope not, but fear that it is so. 



"The Coming War." — Under this 

 heading, Mr. C. J. Quinby, in the " Bee- 

 Keepers' Magazine'' for December, criti- 

 cises our remarks on page 369, where 

 we referred to Novice's statement that 

 glucose was better than honey for feed- 

 ing bees, &c. Mr. Quinby states that 

 he uses glucose for feeding bees, and 

 defends the adulteration of honey with 

 glucose, as well as approves the "oleo- 

 margarine" butter fraud, and then says : 



"Petitions and acts of Congress will not 

 prevent people from buying glucose honey 

 if they cannot detect it from the simon-pure, 

 and can buy it at half-price." 



He then defiantly asks : 



" Now, what are you going to do about it ? 

 Glucose honey will be cheap and in great 

 demand." 



The British authorities seem to have 

 decided what to do about it ! Glucose 

 honey is not in great demand there ; 

 neither will it be in the United States 

 if Congress does its duty — passing a law 

 similar to the British statute against 

 adulteration ! 



" What are you going to do about it ?" 

 Why, sir, we are going to leave no stone 

 unturned in our endeavor to stop the 

 nefarious business of adulteration ! We 

 are going to wage an aggressive war on 

 those who are murdering the bees by 

 feeding them glucose, and poisoning our 

 fellow men by adulterating their honey 

 with the same abominable trash ! We 

 are going to secure the conviction of 

 these adulterators when Congress has 



made the law prayed for — and to^this 

 end we pledge our means, our life, and 

 our sacred honor ! Aye, and when this 

 is accomplished, we may do as Mr. Q. so 

 tauntingly remarks- — Put the seal of the 

 National Convention on all the honey 

 produced, and mark it — Pure ! ! 



Untested Queens. — The excellent 

 article read by Prof. Cook before the 

 Michigan Convention, on the production 

 and sale of untested Queens, found on 

 page 34, and the candid article by Mr. 

 James Heddon, on page 13 of this issue 

 of the Bee Journal, will be read with 

 interest. The so-called " Dollar Queen" 

 traffic has produced an abundance of 

 poor, puny, and half-developed bees all 

 over the country, and caused many to 

 prefer the black bees to those produced 

 by such sickly apologies for Italian 

 queens ! We do not wonder at sensible 

 men coming to such conclusions. Sev- 

 eral queen-breeders have within the past 

 year told us that the race was degenera- 

 ting, on account of this nefarious "dollar 

 queen" traffic, but they had to cater to 

 it or sell but few queens. One of these 

 breeders of queens expressed himself in 

 the following language, to which we in- 

 vite especial attention : 



"In order to improve the stock there 

 should be a careful selection of the best 

 queens and drones to rear from. But with 

 the 'dollar queen' business this is not done. 

 If a colony be made queenless, it will start 

 some 15 or 20 queen-cells ; but only 3 to 5 of 

 these are ever designed by the bees to be 

 developed into queens. But the 'dollar 

 queen' business requires that as many of 

 these cells be developed as possible, in order 

 to make it pay. The three that are first 

 capped are yellow, and will usually dupli- 

 cate, the mother, but nearly all the rest are 

 really worthless ; they are dear at three for 

 a quarter of a dollar ! I have sent out as 

 good dollar queens as any man, but I must 

 have sent out many that were entirely worth- 

 less. I destroyed 300 of such that I think 

 some breeders would have sent out. Rarely 

 more than three, and never more than five, 

 of the queen-cells started at one time will 

 produce queens that are good for breeding 

 purposes. The first of the three queen-cells 

 first capped over, is better worth ten dollars 

 than the last of the whole lot is worth ten 

 cents. For the deterioration in the stock, 

 the dollar queen system is to blame. Good 

 queens cannot be bred and sold at one dollar, 

 without loss." 



For various reasons we shall not here 



o-ive the name of the breeder ; that be- 



