AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



36T 



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Stlm-Trof el Ateurllly— Oilier Notes. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 



BY G. \V. DEMAREE. 



Nothing more absurd and groundless 

 has ever appeared in our bee-literature 

 than the wild imaginations of Bro. 

 Clarke concerning the new (?) use of 

 the little weapon of defense, in which 

 the bee glories, and the world recoils 

 from with dread horror. 



Examining the bee's " stinger " with 

 the ordinary care that the expert me- 

 chanic examines a working machine, it 

 will be found that the "stinger" is 

 operated by voluntary muscles which 

 have little or no power except in the 

 forward and reverse motion. Catch the 

 bee by the wings and permit her to try 

 to sting your fingers by bending her 

 body, and you may see that the stinger 

 itself has but little side motion. 



I have often exhibited the manner in 

 which the bee uses her weapon, by ap- 

 plying her " business end " to the fleshy 

 part of my wrist, in the presence of men 

 of learning, most of whom are surprised 

 at the feeble power which produces such 

 stupendous (?) supposed effects. 



A little practical experiment will show 

 conclusively how formic acid gets into 

 honey. You only have to evaporate 

 some thin sugar syrup over a strong 

 colony of bees with a wire-cloth excluder 

 between, to demonstrate practically how 

 formic acid is absorbed from the elllu- 

 vium arising from the cluster of bees. 



This little experiment will spoil a 

 great deal of vibjhty smart learning (?) 

 about bees manufacturing honey by 

 means of their "heads" (glands) and 

 " tails " (stiugs). Bah ! 



ARTIFICIALLY EVAPORATED HONEY. 



For three years past I have sought by 

 experiment to ascertain the facts, as to 

 what the difl'erence is — if any — between 

 honeys taken with the extractor before 

 the combs are sealed by the bees, and 



that taken after the combs have been 

 sealed. In order that no factor should 

 intervene, in the way of change of 

 weather conditions, age of the honey- 

 producing flora, etc., I adopted the plan 

 of running the combs through the ex- 

 tracting process twice. First, to throw 

 out all the unsealed honey, which was 

 put into vessels to itself, to be artificially 

 evaporated ; and then, the sealed combs 

 were uncapped and the honey from this 

 source was put into tanks which hold 

 from 500 to 1,000 pounds. 



The thin honey was evaporated under 

 the best possible conditions, in a warm 

 room under a draft of summer air to 

 carry off" the moisture as it escaped from 

 the honey. After the thin honey be- 

 came as dense as the naturally-cured 

 honey, there was but little difference in 

 the appearance of the two articles, 

 when looking at them, but when dipped 

 with a spoon and poured, the artifi- 

 cially evaporated article showed a 

 "syrupy" consistency that is always 

 absent when pouring out virgin honey. 

 No expert apiarist can fail to recognize 

 the difference between the texture of 

 "whipped" syrup and pure virgin 

 honey, and this difference does exist be- 

 yond question. 



And the difference in flavor is more 

 striking still. The artificially evaporated 

 article has a slight flavor of "malt" — 

 the result of a second slight fermenta- 

 tion. Such a flavor is rarely ever de- 

 tected in virgin honey. 



Another difference is plainly apparent: 

 When cold weather approaches, the arti- 

 ficially evaporated article will granu- 

 late before the usual time, and has a 

 white, salvey, starchy appearance and 

 texture never seen in the pure virgin 

 article. 



All nectars gathered by bees undergo 

 normal fermentation, natural to good 

 honey, and this is the agent that changes 

 the sugar in crude nectar. Therefore 

 my experiments show that the second 

 fermentation, which nearly always takes 

 place when evaporating thin honey arti- 

 ficially, under the most favorable con- 

 ditions, always injures the texture and 

 flavor of honey. 



CLOSK-FITTING FRAMES. 



The strongest argument against the 

 practicability of close-fitting frames, 

 aside from my own experience, has just 

 been brought to my notice by some sup- 

 ply dealer who has sent me his catalogue 

 displaying a cut of such a hive with 

 three frames "glued together," resting 

 up against the hive, and a nuxn repre- 

 sented as pulling out of the hive two 



