1804 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



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AVhosoeviT shall exalt himself shall ho abased: and he that 

 shall humble himself shall he exalted.— Matt. 23: 12. 



For some reason or other we are just now 

 having the largest number of orders for renew- 

 als to Gleanings we ever had— and this in 

 spite of the hard times. As we have not been 

 making any great spread in the way of pre- 

 miums and other devices to swell our list, we 

 can not conceive why the renewing should be 

 so general unless — well, our extreme modesty 

 forbids our filling out the sentence. 



On page 375, 1893, appeared a clipping from a 

 paper, to the effect that jNIr. J. A. Buchanan 

 not only adulterated honey with glucose, but 

 pleaded guilty. In the next issue we published 

 a letter from Mr. Buchanan which showed that 

 he had been made the victim of spite, and at 

 the time we were entirely satisfied that he was 

 innocent. Lately we have been informed that 

 one of his accusers has had to flee from the 

 hands of justice because of some rascality. 

 The record of this person is altogether crooked, 

 while that of INIr. Buchanan has been, so far as 

 we can ascertain, straight and honorable. 



Dr. Miller says, in Straws, we should say 

 'quiet robbing to preve^it robbing," rather 

 than "quiet robbing iostop robbing." We bor- 

 rowed the expression from no less a scholar 

 hail friend Hasty, on page 359 of the Bec-keep- 

 rx' Reinew. Either form may be correct, 

 ■vhichever view you take of it. One time last 

 ■unimer our honey-house door somehow got 

 )pen. Closing the door without giving the bees 

 omething else to pounce on to would have 

 lieu disastrous to small nuclei throughout the 

 tpiary. Our stacked-np hives containing a 

 vee entrance at the time were not operating, 

 imply for the reason that bees had used up all 

 tie ^stores in them. We put combs into them, 

 lo^ 'd up the honey-house door, and the rob- 

 "I- turned their noses immediately toward 

 li" stacked-up hives. Here, doctor, was not a 

 ;tM- of preDOifing. but one of stopping some- 

 limg that was already existing. You know, 

 like cures like;" and, if we admit your view, 

 I like prevents like." 



EGATIVE AND POSITIVE TESTIMONY ON THE 

 DISCUSSION IN THIS IS.SUE. 



I Thk discussion in this issue, as to whether 

 'he bees perform any valuable pan in the fer- 

 ilization of blossoms, leans strongly to the side 

 f the bee. Mr. Fultz' article, one of the best 

 fe have ever read on the "other side," combats 

 pme claims that we do not think are made by 



bee-keepers or by their representative bee-pa- 

 pers; see p. 49; and in the second place, his ar- 

 guments are based largely on neudllve testi- 

 mony—that is, proof of something he has not 

 s(ien— while Prof. Cook and the rest rely upon 

 positive facts and positive figures. For in- 

 stance, if A steals a sheep of B, and C, when 

 placed on the witness-stand, says A did not 

 steal the sheep, because he, C, did not see him 

 do so, the evidence is weak. But if D, when 

 placed on the stand, says he actually saw A car- 

 ry ofl" one of B's sheep and put it among his 

 own. his testimony would be positive; and the 

 testimony of two such men would convict A of 

 theft in spite of "bushels" of negative testi- 

 mony. Mr. Fultz says, in effect, that he does 

 not believe that bees fertilize blossoms, because 

 he sees no evidence of it; but otJier good wit- 

 nesses do. 



CANDYING OF HONEY NO PROOF OF PURITY. 



We want to iterate and reiterate again, that 

 the candying of extracted honey is no proof of 

 its purity. Nearly a year ago we adulterated, 

 as stated in another column, for the purpose of 

 experiment, several samples of honey with 

 glucose. Into one we put 35 per cent; into an- 

 other, 33X; another ,^.;, and another -:(. These 

 samples were all put into a close cupboard, 

 together with another sample of pure honey. 

 At this date every one of them is candied; but 

 the candying is less solid, in proportion to 

 the amount of glucose in the honey; and while 

 we think we might be able to recognize the 

 presence of glucose by the peculiar way the 

 honey candies, it is doubtful whether the aver- 

 age bee-keeper or consumer could do so without 

 having made previous experiments with several 

 samples, such as we have. You see, the mat- 

 ter stands this way: If the general public be- 

 lieves that candying is the best proof of purity, 

 the glucose-mixer can show that his samples 

 of elucosed honey (which he will, of course, call 

 strictly pure) will candy; and there was a time, 

 a year or so ago, when bee-keepers would be 

 perfectly satisfied with any sample that showed 

 a tendency to granulate. We desire, therefore, 

 to correct this impression as speedily as possible. 



Unfortunately we have several thousand 

 labels (for you know we have quite a business 

 in that line) printed ahead, in which the word- 

 ing occurs, that " candying is the best proof of 

 purity." Just as soon as these labels can be 

 changed it will be done. 



A DISTINGUISHED VISITOR. 



We have just been favored with a visit from 

 Dr. A. Vergel de Dios. of Manilla, Philippine 

 Islands. Mr. D. is a physician and dentist, 

 and has followed that profession in Paris, 

 France, for the last six years, and has also 

 studied at the University of Pennsylvania, 

 for about a year and a half. While at the 

 World's Fair he learned of the existence of the 



