February 11th, I fed both honey and 

 rye flour. April 18, 19, bees were very 

 busy and I fed them 27 4-lb. boxes of 

 buckwheat honey and all the rye flour 

 and corn meal they would take, there 

 being no bloom except the red cedar, on 

 which the bees were busy. 



April 22nd. for the first time the bees 

 gathered pollen and honey from the 

 gooseberry. On the 24th they were at 

 work strongly on the cherry bloom. 

 On the 26th they commenced on the 

 plum and pear bloom. 



Bees are now doing well, but I lost 

 heavily since early in November, 1878, 

 at which time I had 175 colonies in good 

 condition. The delay in housing them 

 until late in December, caused the 

 death of 18 colonies, reducing the num- 

 ber to 157 ; then the change of location 

 in the spring of 1879, after they had 

 been placed on their summer stands for 

 about 8 days, which occasioned an ad- 

 ditional loss of 21 colonies, leaving only 

 136 alive, and some of those in rather 

 poor condition to pass through the 

 season. 



Fairfield, Iowa.. 



.From the Bee-Keepers' Guide. 



The Adulteration of Food. 



REV. J. G. TETER. 



We are living in an age of adultera- 

 tion. The chief cause that has led to 

 this mischievous work is the desire for 

 gain. Many people have become over 

 anxious to amass a fortune or lay up a 

 competency. That thirst for worldly 

 gain has been the means of laying a 

 strong temptation in the way, and has 

 led many a man to violate what he 

 knew to be the principles of right and 

 justice. Adulteration is not confined 

 to honey alone, but is found among all 

 the articles of food we eat (or nearly 

 so), and much of the drinks now in use 

 are also adulterated ; and many of the 

 medicines that are carried into the sick 

 room have been tampered with. It is 

 difficult to find wines or liquors to-day 

 that have not been mixed with foreign 

 ingredients. 



About 19 years ago, I was preaching 

 in a vicinity where there were a num- 

 ber of large distilleries that were kept 

 in constant operation. At one of these 

 distilleries they used so much poison 

 that the swill that ran from the build- 

 ing killed the hogs that drank it. It 

 was then turned into the river and it 

 killed all the fish for 3 miles down the 

 stream. The men that drank this 

 liquor acted like raving maniacs. They 

 were in every sense of the wordpeiso»eeZ. 

 In a very short time many of these men 



died the worst of deaths with delirium 

 tremens. Undoubtedly a large part of 

 the drinks sold at the saloons to-day 

 are fearfulbj^adidterated. 



We pass from the saloons to the 

 groceries, and what articles are not 

 adulterated ? Some of the green teas 

 now sold have once been steeped and 

 the nutriment has been drawn from 

 them. The leaves have been thrown 

 into a can and colored with a cheap kind 

 of coloring, but that coloring is poison. 

 And when drank, it affects the nerves 

 and keeps the person awake when he 

 should be asleep. There is also a great 

 amount of adulteration in the spices 

 and coffees offered for sale. If not as 

 detrimental as the adulteration of 

 liquors and teas, yet they are mixed with 

 articles of a cheaper grade. 



Honey is used as an article of food 

 and also for its medicinal properties. 

 In years gone by it has brought a good 

 price in the markets, and often the de- 

 mand has been greater than the supply. 

 Since extracted honey has been placed 

 upon our markets it has been an easy 

 thing to compound sugar with honey, 

 and when the compound was sold for 

 honey the profits were very great. But 

 the adulteration we meet with to-day is 

 usually a compound of honey, glucose 

 and the oil of anise. The receipe 

 usually used is 10 lbs. of glucose, 2 lbs. 

 of honey, and a drop of the oil of anise. 

 The glucose usually used is not that 

 made from the grape ; but is made from 

 starch by the action of acids, heat and 

 lime. It has been demonstrated that it 

 contains a large amount of poison. It is 

 unfit for food, and if men buy it for 

 honey with the intention of using it for 

 its medicinal properties, the poison will 

 only aggravate the disease instead of 

 assisting nature to throw it off. Where 

 this compound is thrown upon the mar- 

 kets under the name of honey or k ' choice 

 honey'''' as it is usually labeled, it checks 

 the sale of all articles under the head 

 of honey, while at the same time it 

 drags the sale of the pure article of 

 honey down to a level with this cheap 

 poisonous stuff. It is easy to see how 

 this is a damage to all the bee-keepers 

 of the land, and also a curse to our 

 citizens in general. 



The first step towards eradicating this 

 evil is to point out some method by 

 which we may detect adulteration in 

 honey. It isa fact well understood that 

 pure honey will granulate if exposed to 

 a cool atmosphere, and this is a common 

 test the world over. 



A cheap and easy way to test the 

 presence of the poorer grades of glucose 

 in honey, is to put some of it into a cup 

 of tea made strong. If it is heavily 



