July 26, 1906 



American Dec Journal 



used it. Floats for water mostly pet water-logged and 

 sink after a few days' use.. Even while they float, 

 the upper surface is so communicative of wet that bee 

 cold days suffer. Page 501. 



German Full-Depth-Cell Comb Foundation 



Prof. Cook on page 502 is not quite definite enough to 

 satisfy me. It's one thing to make a little foundation with 

 cells full-depth just to show what can be done and quite 

 another thing to produce it commercially cheap enough for 

 use. Whether or not Otto Schultz has such wonderful 

 foundation for sale (page 502) don't enable me to "sabe." 



Keeping Choice Bees from Getting Mixed by 

 Banishing Drone-Comb (?) 



I've howled several times, and 'spects I must howl many 

 times more, against the doctrine Dr. Miller doses New York 

 with on page 489. This child wants to keep some choice 

 bees from getting mixed, and is deluded with the vain hope 

 that banishing drone-comb from undesirable colonies w.ll 

 suffice. Awfully insufficient. Practically, you can't keep a 

 rousing colony of bees from rearing some dronesif they want 

 'era. And the few they do succeed in getting will do more mis- 

 chief — meet more queens — than leu times the number of ordi- 

 narily-reared drones would do, on account of being pampered 

 and treated at home much as the queen is treated. This is the 

 straight truth (as it seems to me) on a rather important 

 subject. I think that apiarian children usually accomplish 

 just the opposite of what they intend in their efforts to sup- 

 press certain drones — did exactly that myself when I was a 

 child. 



Returning Swarms-Orange Honey 



C. W. Dayton's article on page 503 has more cuds than 

 one for us to ruminate. His style of returning a swarm i? 

 particularly worthy of thought. (1) Take away their queen. 

 (2) Keep them prisoners awhile. (Wish he had named the 

 approximate number of hours.) (3) Let them fly home 

 gradually. Extracting time sometimes is robbing time" as 

 well. To keep robbers from pouncing upon dauby emptied 

 combs he has them strongly perfumed with carbolic acid. 

 (Vapor only, I understand.) Fumes gradually disappear 

 and do no harm to the colony to which the combs ar given 

 But it keeps them from making fools of themselves, and 

 ceasing to guard entrances, under the impression that a 

 boundless supply of plunder has dropped down. A rather 

 happy case of killing two flocks of birds with one stone. 

 That orange honey from Riverside should be water-white, 

 and orange honey from Chatsworth, not very far away, 

 should be dark — well, we'll eat a grain of salt on the 

 strength of that. Both gathered from something else than 

 orange, I don't know. 



St* 



on vent ion 



t! Proceedings 



NATIONAL AT CHICAGO 



Report of the 36th Annual Convention of the 



National Bee-Keepers' Association, held In 



Chicago, 111., Dec. 19, 20 and 21, 1905 



'Continued from page 622.) 



Dr. Eaton, of Chicago, then addressed the convention as 

 follows, on, 



DIETETIC AND HYGIENIC RELATIONS OF HONEY 



The paper that I have prepared is perhaps of more value 

 or interest, or was prepared more for the general public than 

 for bee-keepers, because I suppose all of you are wise enough 



to use plenty of your own product; in that respect being 

 different from the dairy farmers of Holland, who sell their 

 fine, high-priced butter, and import oleomargarine for their 

 own use. I hope it will have some interest for bee-keepers. 



Food-stuffs are divided into three great classes, protein, 

 fat and carbohydrates. Honey belongs to the carbohydrates. 

 On a strictly scientific basis standards have been prepared 

 showing the amount of each of these food-stuffs a given 

 animal doing a given work should consume. Using Atwater's 

 standards, we find that if honey supplied all the fuel except 

 that derived from protein, a man could eat two and eight- 

 tenths pounds, or in round numbers, 3 pounds of honey per 

 day. This is using strictly the amount of food necessary to 

 maintain man in perfect health as determined by scientific 

 experiment. As a matter of fact, it is probable that a smaller 

 amount of protein in connection with carbohydrates will 

 suffice for body maintenance. 



A late investigation by H. Labbe, shows that a healthy 

 man may maintain nitrogen equilibrium on from I to 14 

 grams of nitrogen per day — an amount much less than re- 

 quired in Atwater's standards. Luigi Cornaro, a Venetian, 

 nobleman, lived to a ripe old age, subsisting during the last 

 50 years of his life on less than 12 ounces of solid food a 

 day, and a part of the time on but one egg and a bottle of 

 wine a day. Edison, the inventor, recommends food reduc- 

 tion, and claims to have subsisted for a time on 12 ounces 

 of food a day. 



If less protein were employed in the diet, more honey 

 could be used. Of course, it might not be practical to replace 

 all fats and carbohydrates by sugars for an indefinite period, 

 as nature has provided means for the digestion of fats and 

 starches as well as sugars. However, this is undoubtedly 

 true as regards the substitution of sugars for fats and 

 starches : 



(1). That sugars are more quickly assimilated than 

 any other food, and the energy derived therefrom is more 

 immediately available. For this reason sugar in the form of 

 candy is employed in army dietaries, and especially in emer- 

 gency rations. Queen Victoria's present of chocolate candy 

 to the British soldiers in the South African War was more 

 than a demonstration of her affection and gratitude ; it was 

 an illustration of applying the discoveries of science to prac- 

 tical use. Honey might be used much more freely than at 

 present in soldiers' rations. 



(2). The digestion of sugars is performed at less ex- 

 penditure of energy than other foods; in fact, some sugars 

 are immediately and in natural form taken into the blood. 

 Glycogen, the emergency food of the body, manufactured and 

 stored by the liver, is itself a sugar. Sucrose merely re- 

 quires splitting into dextrose and levulose. Commercial glu- 

 cose and honey is practically predigested. Milk-sugar is so 

 easily digested as to be nature's food for the young. 



(3). Sugars increase the flow of saliva and other di- 

 gestive ferments, or more properly speaking, "enzymes," and 

 thus stimulate appetite and aid the digestion of all food. 

 It was once thought that the rapid assimilation and muscular 

 activity shown on ieeding sugar was due to this stimulation, 

 but experiments substituting dulcin, saccharin and other 

 sweet substances devoid of food value for sugar, proved 

 that such was not the case. The influence of sugar on the 

 digestion of other foods is, however, a strong argument for 

 the generous use of sugars in the dietary. 



(4). Sugar as pure sucrose or as honey is a most con- 

 centrated food. Sugar contains practically no water, min- 

 eral or other non-digestible impurities, and will keep in 

 perfect condition in any climate. 



(5). Sugar is even an economical food. The cheaper 

 varieties of candy, such as stick candy and those so freely 

 advertised at 15 cents a pound, and honey at almost any 

 market price, may displace many carbohydrates and fats at 

 an actual monetary saving. Butler fat, olive and other oils 

 are more expensive, and so are the fats in high-priced meats 

 and poultry. Many vegetables, especially out of season, al- 

 though greatly inferior to sugar in food value, commanding 

 more than 15 cents a pound, however, can replace even the 

 cheaper varieties of starches at an economic saving. 



It has been argued against the use of candies, honey 

 and other sugars that the;, ci digestive disturbances; that 



they are deficient in iron, lime ind other inorganic salts neces- 

 sary to' nutrition, and that they injure the teeth. The first objec- 

 tion may be true in some insl tices with particular individ- 

 uals, and undoubtedly not too concentrated solutions of sugar 



