t ^fHrot^ 8«-5APe,-^ 



AMER\C^)^ 



4 2d YEAR. 



CHICAGO, ILL,, JANUARY 16, 1902, 



No, 3, 





1^ 



^ Editorial. ^ k 



j^ 



The Ijies Aliout Honey "re re-appeai- 

 U\g in various forms in l)oth newspapers and 

 farm journals. Mr. Newton Bawn sends the 

 foUowintr, whieli appeared lately in a depart- 

 ment condncted by J. S. Trigg, of Rockford, 

 Iowa, who is an agricultural writer of con- 

 Biderable prominence, and should know better 

 than to " get off '' such stufl: 



" A cute machine manufactures the artificial 

 comb and a swindler takes it and tills it with 

 glucose honey, scattering here and there a 

 dead bee on the comb, and the deluded pur- 

 chaser eats it, associating it with apple-bloom, 

 the fragrance of white clover and summer 

 flowers, while the stuff is made of parafline 

 instead of beeswax for the comb, and glucose 

 for the nlling." 



If Mr. Trigg doesn't correct that paragraph 

 at oiur, a good many thousand people will 

 now know where he belongs. It is exceed- 

 ingly unfortunate that any one should be 

 willing to write a thing like that, and thus 

 put himself down as— as — well there isn't a 

 word of truth in the whole paragraph. 



We have written Mr. Trigg, reci nesting him 

 to publish •' The Truth About Honey," in his 

 paper. He should be only too anxious to get 

 a statement like that, which appears over the 

 names of responsible men. 



Carbolineuni. — A warning is sounded 

 against the use of this material in hives, as it 

 may affect the flavor of honey. It ought to 

 be a fine preservative for bottom-boards, 

 where it would perhaps not affect the honey. 



Sweet Clover as Forage, — A short 

 time ago Gleanings in Bee-Culture asked for 

 reports as to whether stock would readily eat 

 sweet clover. From Michigan, Ohio and 

 Indiana come responses that say neither 

 horses now cows will eat it unless starved to 

 it. From New Mexico comes the report that 

 horses and cows will eat it down as clean as 

 if a mower had gone over it. M. S. Gosney 

 reports as follows from Kentucky : 



Last fall I sowed some live acres in timothy. 

 The winter was hard, and, supposing I would 

 have a light catch in February, I sowed sweet 

 clover, got a fair stand, and more than half a 

 stand of timothy. When the timothy seed 

 was ripe and had begun to fall, the sweet 

 clover was from 18 inches to 2 feet high. I 

 turned in three horses which had never 

 learned to eat sweet clover. After a few days 

 I noticed they were eating the clover and 

 leaving the other grasses, of which there 

 was an abundance — not only timothy, but 

 blue-grass and Bermuda grass; but they ate 

 nothing but the clover until they got the last 



bit of it. antl, owing to the extreme drouth, I 

 feai' the sweet clover will all be i<illed. My 

 buggy-horse ate sweet-clover hay greedily the 

 llrst time he ever saw any. 



These reports are about as contradictory as 

 usual. So[netimes two men in the same 

 locality give opjiosite reports. The probable 

 fact is that some stock have learned tf) eat it 

 and some have not. One man writing to 

 Gleanings seems to think there must be some 

 sinister motive in the mind of any one who 

 advocates that stock should be taught to eat 

 sweet clover, saying: 



" You certainly have had enough evidence, 

 such as Mr. Zurburg's, to convince a jury 

 or an honest man. Why should we wish our 

 stock to learn to eat it !" 



The testimony of a thousand men might be 

 given that stock would not touch sweet 

 clover, but if a single reliable man should 

 testify that he had seen horses and cows eat it 

 greedily, no honest jury would decide that 

 sweet clover was worthless as forage. The 

 time was when hard coal was considered 

 worthless as fuel, because no one knew how 

 to burn it ; but when one man actually suc- 

 ceeded in burning it, his testimony that it 

 was good for fuel outweighed all the negative 

 testimony that could be piled up against it. 



There are a good many people who know 

 from personal observation that sweet clover 

 has a value as a fodder-plant, and their num- 

 ber is constantly increasing. 



The Sting of the Queen-Bee is 



thought by some to be of use in the act of 

 egg-laying. B. Hamlin-Harris says in the 

 British Bee Journal ; 



I have myself repeatedly seen the queen-bee, 

 while actually laying eggs, work her sting up 

 and down, as if by such an act the process 

 were made easier. I think it is simply com- 

 mon-sense to suppose that such would be the 

 case. But must we not seek an answer to our 

 question from a different and more fundamen- 

 tal source ? 



The question is, What relationship exists 

 between the sting and the egg-laying organs ? 

 Surely, they both belong to the same system, 

 and bespeak the feminine sex. The sting is 

 essentially a part of the female, and not the 

 male. Would it be surprising, then, if one 

 organ assisted the other, though, perhaps, in 

 a very small degree J 



Bees in Hot Countries are sometimes 

 said to be lazy about storing after having 

 learned in a tropical climate that the.v may 

 depend upon the flowers for a continuous 

 supply. In the British Bee Journal, A. C. 

 Sewell writes from South Africa: 



One has only to watch the hives to dispose 

 of any charge of want of energy. I have seen 

 them returning with pollen in the early 

 dawn before sunrise, and in the evening, 

 when it was so dark that I had to put up my 



hand before the entrance to feel them going 

 in, and a colony will build up with great 

 rajiidity. 



The constant breeding that goes on must 

 also require a large (|uantity of honey that 

 would otherwise go into the supers. There is 

 no long perioti of rest in winter, but ohe Hnds 

 up country, where the climate is colder, that 

 the harvest is i)etter, and it seems to uie that 

 in order to get good honey in quantity a win- 

 ter sulliciently cold to dry up vegetation and 

 produce a dormant condition is necessary. 



Basswood Not a Success in Colorado 



seems to be the verdict, according to reports 

 in the Rocky Mountain Bee Journal. The 

 trees die down to the ground each season, and 

 make no substantial growth. 



Do Bees Get Honey from Corn ?— A 



discussion' with regard to this is on in Aus- 

 tralia. Hessel Hall, who says he secured, 

 during the past season, between three and four 

 tons of corn honey, is quoted in the Austra- 

 lian Bee-Bulletin as saying: 



When the maize-fields are in bloom, if no 

 other honey-flow is on, the whole apiary 

 makes for the eorn-tassels. At such times 

 the bees roar and show signs of excitement 

 over their work, such as they never show ex- 

 cept when they are bringing in honey. 



During the period of maize-bloom the bees 

 working on maize bring in large quantities 

 of dull, greenish-colored honey, mild and 

 pleasant in flavor, candying speedily into soft, 

 white crystals, rather brittle in the grain. 

 This honey is not so glutinous as most honey, 

 cuts differently in uncapping, and, when new, 

 carries with it the odor of the maize-blooms. 



" The Truth About Honey " is some- 

 thing that few people aside from actual bee- 

 keepers know much about. It is unfortunate, 

 too, both for the general public and the pro- 

 ducers of honey. 



Recently, the old lie about the manufac- 

 ture of comb honey was revived, and it is 

 again going the rounds of the, press, greatlj- 

 to the detriment of honey sales in certain 

 localities. One of the greatest offenders 

 lately was the Chicago Daily Tribune. And 

 the worst of it wag, that when this influential 

 newspaper was requested to publish a refuta- 

 tion of its slander against honey, it gave only 

 a few lines of truth, when it had used consid- 

 erable space in which to tell what was not 

 true. 



In view of the many misrepresentations that 

 are current, the Chicago Bee-Keepers' Asso- 

 ciation appointed a committee at its meeting 

 in December, for the purpose of prepar 

 ing a statement for the general newspaper 

 press, that should aid in setting the reading 

 public right on the honey question. Their 

 report has been given out for publication to 

 all the Chicago daily newspapers, and now it 

 only remains to be seen whether they will 



