AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



265 



to find her. What I would like to know is 

 whether or not she will ever be of any ac- 

 count. They had young bees, and also 

 capped brood. ^L. C. 



Searights. Pa. 



Bro. Doolittle replies to the foregoing as 

 follows: 



It is quite doubtful about this queen be- 

 ing of any value, as she probably will be 

 too old to become fertile by the time drones 

 are reared in the spring. There is a possi- 

 bility that some colony in the neighbor- 

 hood may have a few drones wintered over, 

 and in this case she may become fertile, 

 and prove a good queen. I should not kill 

 her at present, any way, but wait and see, 

 giving the colony a frame of brood occa- 

 sionally from other colonies, to keep their 

 strength up. When spring fairly opens, if 

 she does not lay worker-eggs, you can kill 

 her and let the bees rear another, or send 

 South and buy one to replace her. 



G. M. Doolittle. 



Adiiltera^tion ofH omey. — Mr. Jno. 

 A. Holmberg, of St. Paul, Minn., has sent 

 the following item, taken from the St. Paul 

 Dispatch of Feb. 13th : 



The Food Commissioner of the State has 

 received the report of the chemist upon 

 samples of honey collected during the 

 months of December and January. The 

 result is not particularly gratifying. Dur- 

 ing that time 38 samples were analyzed, 

 and 35 per cent, of them contained adulter- 

 ation. The list of grocers from whom the 

 honey was obtained, contains the names of 

 many prominent Twin City dealers, but 

 they were, of course, in ignorance of the 

 adulteration. The producers given by the 

 commissioner were Hunt, Phillips & Co., 

 Towle Syrup Co., Frank Moeser, Wood & 

 Harris, and others unknown. Three arti- 

 cles of adulteration are used, and none 

 other was found in the samples analyzed, 

 namely, glucose, cane sugar and other 

 sugar. It does not appear that the honey 

 is rendered less wholesome, but simply 

 that it is adulterated with cheaper material, 

 and therefore is an imposition upon the 

 consumer. 



The above is certainly not a very encour- 

 aging state of affairs for the producer of 

 honest honey. We trust that the Minne- 

 sota law against the adulteration of honey 

 will be rigidly enforced, and thus compel 

 the criminal practice of adulteration to 

 cease, unless such mixtures are properly 

 labeled and sold for just what they are. This 

 would only be simple justice to those who 

 labor to put a pure article of honey upon 

 the market. 



Since the editorial published on page 200, 

 we have received a number of strong en- 

 dorsements of our position upon the ques- 



tion of honey adulteration. Here is one of 

 them: 



Friend York :— Yes, do all you can to 

 make it unpleasant for every one that adul- 

 terates honey, and the Bee Journal will 

 only be the better for it. 



Oshkosh, Wis. A. E. Manning. 



Another reads as follows : 



Friend York:— Keep right on fighting 

 the adulterating business. We are all with 

 you except Mr. Heddon. Yes, I agree with 

 you and Bro. Root exactly. Agitate, agi- 

 tate, and aggravate such business, is my 

 ™otto. Orville Jones. 



Stockbridge, Mich. 



An Indiana subscriber writes thus in re- 

 gard to the "crusade against honey adul- 

 teration:" 



Friend York :— Let there be no halt in 

 the crusade against honey adulteration. 

 The advocates of sugar-syrup honey have 

 already done bee-keeping immense damage, 

 and our journals should speak in no uncer- 

 tain sound in the matter. My son and I 

 sold a good deal of honey in the city of 

 Huntington last year, and often when we 

 offered it, the first question asked of us 

 would be, "What is it made of ?" and in 

 some cases the suspicion of adulteration, 

 imbibed by reading articles in papers on 

 the subject, was so strong that parties 

 would not buy. The idea of artificial 

 comb, artificially filled, is very prevalent 

 among some people here. 



Huntington, Ind. A. H. Snowbekger. 



An Illinois subscriber expresses his 

 "hearty thanks" for the stand we have 

 taken on this subject. Here's his opinion 

 and advice: 



Friend York:— Allow me to express my 

 hearty thanks for the editorial entitled, 

 " Heddon and Adulteration," in the Bee 

 JouKNAL for Feb. 15th. I endorse every 

 word quoted from Qleaninc/s, as well as your 

 own comments on the same. I do not think 

 it possible for bee-keepers to denounce such 

 ideas in too strong language. I think the 

 last few lines of your "comments" will be 

 endorsed by all honest bee-keepers. 



Probably not one bee-keeper in one thou- 

 sand adulterates his honey in any way, but 

 it is a well-understood fact that large 

 quantities of adulterated honey are pre- 

 pared in the large cities and sent broadcast 

 over the land, and retailed from grocery 

 stores as pure honey. I have seen several 

 samples of such so-called honey here in 

 Rockford, Ills. Many reliable grocers re- 

 fuse to handle extracted honey simply be- 

 cause it has such a bad reputation. It does 

 not seem possible that such an intelligent 

 man as Mr. Heddon could possibly be ignor- 

 ant of this fact. 



I have tried for years to work up a trade 

 in extracted honey, but find it almost im- 

 possible except where I am well known. 



