1871.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



199 



cane sugar element, then treat it with alcohol. 

 The result was beautiful aciculav or needle 

 shaped crystals — a candy retaining- all the flavor 

 of the honey, in the comb. The uses of honey in 

 pharmacy, in domestic use and in the arts, were 

 not sufficient to consume the quantities offered 

 in the American market. 



Mr. King said honey could be hardened so as 

 to flint off by heating. This might be sold in 

 railroad cars as candy. 



jVIr. Mnth said he had some of his honey in 

 jars candied, and he simply put the jars in warm 

 water and it became liquid. 



Mr. Peck, of New Jersey, said that the con- 

 sumption of honey must be encouraged. The 

 price nuist be put down so as to enable the poor 

 to use it. It might be sold at ten cents a yiound, 

 and would redound ultimately to the advantage 

 of bee keepers. 



Adjourned to meet at half-past seven in the 

 evening. 



Evening Session. 



_ The association met at half past seven o'clock, 

 a' good number of delegates present and Vice- 

 President Van Slyke in the chair. 



Ninth Topic. 



What are the best honey producing plants to 

 cultivate in a poorJioney district ? This was the 

 topic for discussion. Mr. Root preferred bass- 

 wood. Ke did not know how long the liees 

 worked on it. He thought the basswood flower 

 was the only flower that produced honey that 

 produced sickness. 



Mr. Dallas, of Kansas, said that in Kansas 

 there was no basswood, yet, with some persons, 

 the eating of honey produced in that State was 

 attended with sickness. White clover honey 

 was his favorite. 



General Adair found a variety of turnip very 

 excellent for a pollen producer. There was also 

 a shrub called the Aralia Spinosa, which bore 

 one of the best honey producing flowers. He 

 had a few of them, and when in bloom they were 

 covered with bees. He had never seen anj'^ 

 buckwheat honey. 



Mr. Porter, of Minnesota, said buckwheat 

 was one of the best honey-producing plants in 

 the country. He had saved a swarm that came 

 in the middle of September, and owed his suc- 

 cess to buckwheat. A good plant, in Minnesota, 

 for honey was the golden rod. Raspberry 

 flowers were good honey-producers. He also 

 favored basswood. The dandelion was one of 

 the best as well as one of the earliest honey 

 plants. He had seen a variety of the lilac that 

 would make as good a hedge as the Osage 

 orange, and which was a fine honey-i^roducing j 

 plant. The willow also was good. 



Mr. Langstroth endorsed what Mr. Porter 

 said about the honey-producing plants generally. 

 He said there was no honey at all in the buck- 

 wheat. He had gone over acres and acres of 

 it, and had not seen a bee upon it. Again, he 

 said the buckwheat was one of the best honey- 

 producing plants. He had gone through acres of 



it and found it laden with bees. Much depended 

 on climate, season and location ; south of liere 

 it was worth little for honey. So with white 

 clover. Some seasons it was good and some bad 

 for honey making. The same was true of the 

 golden rod. He meant these remarks to show 

 the different and contradictory observations that 

 might be made from different standpoints, and 

 to show the need of charity in comparing ex- 

 periences. 



Tlie Rev. Mr. Van Slyke said that near Xew 

 York city there was plenty of golden rod. His 

 bees last season did not make any honey till the 

 golden rod bloomed, and then they made great 

 quantities. 



Tlie Mcl-extvactor. 



Mr. Langstroth was requested to s^ieak on the 

 subject of the mel-extractor and its relation to 

 bee culture. He said that in 1853 he became 

 interested in the subject of extracting honey 

 from the comb and using the comb for the bees 

 again. He consulted mechanics. None of 

 them helped him. If any one had said to him 

 centrifugal force, he would have said eureka. 

 A foreigner discovered the process. This dis- 

 covery would again revolutionize bee culture in 

 this country. Twice or thrice the amount of 

 lioney could be produced from the same stock 

 of bees and the same care now as formerly with- 

 out it. 



Now, some means must be devised to disarm 

 the public of the suspicion that the extracted 

 lioney was a manufactured concoction. The 

 candying of honey was not an objection. Age 

 did not hurt it. He tasted some twenty-five yeais 

 old, and it was good. He had good autlKjrity 

 for saying that good honey was taken from the 

 ruins of Pompeii, nearly two thousand years 

 old. 



As to Italian bees, he found that often they built 

 in boxes from the bottom upward, while the black 

 bees worked from above downward. It was 

 more diflicult to get Italian bees to work in 

 boxes than it was to get the black bees to do so. 

 We have got to convince the public that this 

 extracted honey was not adulterated. The way 

 was to put the price down so that adulteration 

 would be unprofitable. He thought the more 

 the knowledge of how to manage this extrac- 

 tion and perserving of honey was diffused and 

 acted upon, the better it would be for bee cul- 

 ture. 



He suggested the use of blue grass with which 

 to brush oft" the bees from combs. He had ex- 

 perimented in artificial combs, and the result 

 had been just nothing at all. He had doubts 

 about the bees using metallic combs for winter- 

 ing. He hoped that the invention of artificial 

 combs would be successful, in which, even if 

 the bees could not be induced to breed, they 

 might deposit honey, for emptying. 



A vote of tlianks was given to Mr. Langstroth. 



Mr. Langstrotii added, in relation to young 

 queens, that he had ascertained tliat the sup- 

 posed enmity of bees to all unfertilized queens 

 was a mistake. He had put a very young un- 

 fertilized queen on the opposite side of the comb 



