1871.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOUENAL. 



221 



valuable territory has passed out of our hands, 

 belonging now to Mr. K. C. Otis, of Kenosha, 

 Wisconsin, who, by his untiring energy, has 

 perhaps done more than any other pei'son to in- 

 troduce the movable frame principle to the pub- 

 lic, and who has not yet received any adequate 

 remuneration for the tim-s, money, and energy 

 which, since 1856, he has devoted to this busi- 

 ness ; but, like myself, is a poorer man for all he 

 has done." 



I have not changed my sentiments since the 

 above was written. Let no one, therefore, con- 

 tribute to the fund with the expectation that I 

 can be induced to accept any part of it. I will, 

 however, now suggest a way in which what has 

 been or may be subscribed to it, may be used, 

 so as to be truly honorable to the bee-keei^ers of 

 North America. 



If my movable comb frames have effected a great 

 revolution in bee-keeping in this country, the 

 honey-emptying machine of Maj. Von Hruschka 

 will so carry on the good work that it will be safe 

 to say that the Hruschka (for no other name 

 should be given to his device) will at least 

 double the yield of honey attainable witliout it. 

 Let us then raise money enough to procure a 

 beautiful gold medal with suitable devices and 

 send the same to Maj. Von Hi'uschka, as a slight 

 testimonial of our grateful appreciation of the 

 important aid he has rendered us, in being the 

 first to suggest and employ centrifugal force to 

 empty honey from the comb. 



L. L. Langstkoth. 



Oxford, OJiio, March, 1871. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



The Poison of tlie Honey Bee as a Medicine. 



In the first edition of my work on t' e " Hive and 

 Honey Bee," publisbed in 1853, I said : — 



"An intelligent Mandingo African informed a lady 

 of my acquaintance, that tliey do not in his counti-y, 

 dare to eat unsealed honey until it is first boiled. In 

 some of the Southern States all unsealed honej' is 

 generally rejected. It appears to me highly probable 

 that the noxious qualities of the honey gathered Irom 

 some flowers, is for the most part evaporated before 

 it is sealed over by the bees ; while the honey is 

 thickening in the cells. Boiling the honey would of 

 course expel it more eflfectually, and it is a well ascer- 

 tained fact, that some persons are not able to eat even 

 the best honey with impunity, until after it is boiled ! 

 I believe that if persons who are injured by honey, 

 would subject it to this operation, they would usually 

 find it to exert no injurious influence on the system." 



"I have met with individuals upon whom a sting 

 produced the singular eflTect of causing their breath 

 to smell like the venom of the enraged insect." 



" While the poison of most snakes and many other 

 noxious animals aflfects only the circulating system, 

 and may therefore be swallowed with impunity, the 

 poison of the bee acts powerfully, not only upon the 

 circulating system, but upon the organs of digestion." 



" An old writer recommends a powder of dried 

 bees for distressing cases of stoppages ; and some of 

 the highest medical authorities have recently recnm- 

 mended a tea made by pouring boiling water upon 

 bees for the same complaint, while the homoeopathic 

 physicians employ the poison of the bee, which they 

 callapis, for a great variety of maladies. That it is 



capable of producing intense headaches, any one who 

 has been stung, or who has tasted the poison, very 

 well knows." 



" Bees often thrust out their sting, in a threatening 

 manner, even when they do not make an attack ; 

 when extruded from its sheath, it exhibits a minute 

 drop of poison on its point, the odor of which is 

 quickly perceived, and some of it is occasionally 

 flirted into the eye of the apiarian, causing consider- 

 able itching." 'Edition of 1857. 



I have known for many years that many of the pe- 

 culiar effects produced upon the human system bv 

 honey, were owing mainly, if not entirely, to the poi- 

 son of the bee in the honey eaten. I know of no 

 one before me who has called the attention of medical 

 men to this important fact. 



Every experienced bee-keeper knows that it is next 

 to impossible to remove honey from a hive without 

 exciting the bees ; the least tap upon the hive causes 

 them to thrust out their stings, and thus to bedew the 

 combs witli their poison, so that every disturbing in- 

 fluence causes an effusion of more or less poison, 

 even when the honey is not, at the time of this dis- 

 turbance, taken from the hive. This poison, adhering 

 to and drying upon the honey comb, will, for a very 

 considerable time, be active in its effects * It is a 

 well-known fact that some persons cannot eat even a 

 very little honey without distressing cholic pains ; and 

 I have repeatedly demonstrated tliat if the honey is 

 boiled, or brought nearly to the boilinir-point, such 

 persons can eat it with impunity — while they cannot 

 eat safely a small quantity of loaf sugar in which 

 some of this bee-poison has been put. As the bee- 

 poison is very volatile, sliirhtly boiling the honey 

 seems to dissipate it entirely. 



The fact that there is almost always more or less 

 bee poison in the honey of commerce, and that many 

 of the peculiar symptoms caused by eating honey are 

 attributable to this poison, opens a new source of in- 

 quiry to the medical world ; and they can now use 

 the vast stores of facts and opinions as to the medical 

 virtues of honey, furnished by Aristotle, Hippocrates,! 

 Galen, Pliny, and a host of old and medical authors. 

 It is obvious from these remarks, that the remark- 

 able effects claimed by the homceopathists to be pro- 

 duced upon the human system by the bee poison, and 

 which they have regarded as quite a recent discovery, 

 may be traced back almost to the remotest antiquity, 

 and found to have equally important relations to the 

 old schools of medicine. 



Schuckard, in his recent work on "'British Bees," 

 says : " The earliest manuscript extant, which is the 

 medical papyrus, now in the Royal Collection at Ber- 

 lin, and of which Brugsch has given a fac-simile and a 

 translation, dates from the nineteenth or twentieth 

 Egyptian dynasty, accordingly from the reign of 

 Ramses II., and goes back to the fourteenth century 

 before our era. But a portion of this papyrus indi- 

 cates a much higher antiquity, extendinir as far back 

 as the period of the sovereigns who built the pyramids, 

 consequently to the very earliest period of the history 

 of the world. 



" It was one of the medical treatises contained within 

 the temple of Ptah, at Memphis, and which the Egyp- 

 tian physicians were required to use in the practice 

 of their profession, and if they ueirlected such use, 

 they became responsible for the death of such pa- 



* Those nsing the Hrnschlca or ceutrifugal machine for 

 emptying honey from the combs — .so named after its inventor 

 Maj. Hruschlca— should be Ciirefal to heat nearly to the boil- 

 ing-point all Hi-usc'!il<aed honey, to be sure that the poison of 

 the bee has been effectually expelled from it. This is the 

 more necessary, as tlie process of removing for emptying is 

 more likely to excite tlie bees than the simple removal of 

 the honey in boxes. 



t Born 460 years before Christ. 



