36 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Jan. 16, 19C2. 



publish it. and thus desire to correct the 

 errors which they have helped to circulate. 



Wishing our readers to see the report ot 

 the committee referred to. we give herewith 

 a copy of it, and would suggest that all en- 

 deavor to have it reprinted in their local 

 newspapers. If any paper will publish this 

 report, and desires to have the pictures also, 

 we will, upon request from the publishers of 

 any such paper, mail electrotypes of the en- 

 gravings free, and also a printed proof or 

 copy of the report. We offer this so that no 

 bee-keeper need part with his own copy of 

 the American Bee Journal. 



Here follows the cominittec's report : 



The Truth About Honev. 



A Committee of the Chicago Bee= 



Keepers' Association Corrects 



Some Popular Errors. 



BEE-HIVE. 



Some statements with regard to honey, 

 which are very far from the truth, having 

 been published, the Chicago Bee-Keepers' 

 Association appointed the undersigned a com- 

 mittee to give to the public a statement of the 

 exact truth with regard to the purity or im- 

 purity of honey as found upon the market. 



Honey is not only an appetizer, it is an 

 article of food ot the highest value. Unlike 

 sugar (which makes such a strong demand 

 upon the digestive organs that it is a prime 

 factor in the establishing of that terrible 

 scourge. Bright's disease, and other diseases). 

 honey lays no heavy burden upon any vital 

 organ, and its use as a daily article of diet 



tends toward 

 health and 

 long life. 

 Such being 

 the case, it is 

 of the first im- 

 portance that 

 the pure arti- 

 J^ cle should be 

 obtained. 



H o n e y 1 s 

 found upon 

 the market in 

 two forms; 

 liquid, and in the comb. The liciuid is ob- 

 tained by throwing it out of the comb by 

 means of centrifugal force, in a mauhinL- 

 called a honey-e.v:traetor, iu whieh the couib 

 ot honey is revolved so rapidly thit the 

 honey Hies out of the comb somewhat as the 

 mud Hies from a wagon-wheel when the 

 wheel revolves rapidly. When thus obtained 

 it is called extracted honey, and may be found 

 put up in tin or glass packages. It varies in 

 color from water-white to almost bhick. the 

 color depending upon the flowers from which 

 the honey was obtained. Nearly all honey 

 granulates upon theapproach of cold weather, 

 having somewhat the appearance of lard, and 

 in this form it is preferred by some. It can 

 be restored to the liquid form by heating it 

 slowly, as too much heat spoils its delicate 

 flavor. 



It is not a hard matter to mix glucose with 

 extracted honey, the mixture varying in 

 character according to the quality of glucose 

 used, the ordinary glucose of commerce con- 

 taining matters untit to enter any human 

 stomach. Thanks to the elforts of the 

 National Bee-Keepers' Association and the 

 valuable aid of the Illinois Pure Food Com- 

 mission, the operators in this vile work of 

 adulteration have found Chicago no longer a 

 safe Held in which to operate, and it is now 

 not a difficult thing to find pure extracted 

 honey just as stored by the bees. Respectable 

 grocers have no dithcuty in offering you an 

 article that they may warrant as pure, having 

 on the label the name of some reliable pro- 

 ducer or dealer. 



Comb honey is that stored in waxen cells, 

 the marvelous workmanship of the honey- 

 bee. The statement that no pure comb 

 honey can be found upon the market in Chi- 

 cago, but that it is all ■■ manufactured stuff 

 made up of glucose and parartine.'' could not 

 possibly be farther from the truth. The sim- 



COMB noNEY. 



pie truth is that itot >i pound of comb lioney 

 tfiiii was nut ituide bi/ ihe beei< in to bf J'innul in 

 idl diivayo. There is not a pound of it in all 

 the world, and never was. The Department 

 of Agriculture at Washington, D.C., has also 

 issued a statement that there is no such thing 

 as manufactured 

 comb honey. 



The following 

 offer, made by a 

 man of undoubt- 

 ed financial re- 

 sponsibility (and 

 the undersigned 

 are willing to 

 add their own 

 financial respon- 

 sibility to his), 

 bears upon the 

 case: 



"I will pay 

 .?1000 in cash to 

 any person who 



will tell me where comb honey is manufac- 

 tured (/. c, filled and capped over) by 

 machinery; or I will pay the sum to any one 

 who will find machine-manufactured comb 

 honey on the markets for sale." 



That otter, made in all good faith, has been 

 standing for years, but noone has claimed the 

 JIUOU. The offer still stands, and if the mass 

 of comb honey is manufactured it ought not 

 to be a ditflcult matter to find a pound — just 

 one little pound — of such manufactured 

 honey through which to obtain that .?10U0. 



The truth is, that when you find honey in 

 the comb you maybe absolutely certain that 

 the bees, not man, put it there. It may vary 

 in color, it may vary in quality: all Howers 

 do not yield the same honey ; but it was all 

 stored by the bees. 



It ought not to be a difficult matter for any 

 one with the exercise of a little common sense 

 to convince himself that there is no such 

 thing as manufactured comb honey. Take 

 any two samples and compare them. While 

 they may look in general alike, it will be easy 

 to see that there is so much difference in 

 them (variations in the irregularities upon 

 the surface and on the edges) as to show that 

 they could not possibly have been made in the 

 samejmould. No two samples ot comb honey 

 exactly alike can be 

 found in all Chicago. So 

 they could not have been 

 made by any machinery 

 except that of the bee 



The statement, "Gen- 

 uine honey has brown 

 coloring around the cells; 

 glucose honey is perfectly 

 white," could only be 

 made by one densely ig- 

 Wf norant of honey. The 

 truth is, that all honey- 

 HOXEY-EXTRACTOB comb, when first made by 

 the bees, is white as the 

 whitest found on the Tuarket. If it is left in 

 the care of the bees it becomes dark, and if 

 left with them for several years it will become 

 almost black. All of it would obtain the 

 "brown coloring" simply by being left long 

 enough on the hive. The white is more beau- 

 tiful to the eye (no better to the taste), so it 

 is taken from the hive generally before the 

 bees have had time to darken it. 

 This is the truth about honey. 



GEOI4GE W. York, 

 J'rfsiJeiit Chicago Bee- Keepers' Asmcintion. 



C. C. MiLLEK, M. D. 



C. p. Dadant. 



Lateu.— A day or two after delivering a 

 copy of the committee's report or statement 

 to the Chicago Tribune, it was returned to us 

 with the following note: 



" The Editor ot the Tribune regrets that he 

 can not make use of the manuscript, which is 

 respectfully returned herewith. This does 

 not mean necessarily that the article is not 

 meritorious, as on account of the large num- 

 ber of manuscripts received it is not possible 

 to print all." 



But little comment on this is nece.ssary. 

 The Tribune thus admits that it had room to 

 publish lies about honey, but it has not the 

 space to allow the truth to appear about it! 



We hope those of our readers who are , so un- 

 fortunate as to read The Tribune, will let its 

 editor know what they think of its way of 

 doing things. It has plenty of space for 

 liquor dealers' advertisements, sporting stuff, 

 etc., but declines to correct its own misstate- 

 ments that are of untold damage to an honest 



industry. 



•*■ 



Washington as a Bee-Country. — A 



writer in Gleanings in Bee-Culture, who has 

 kept bees in that State for six years, gives a 

 charming picture of Washington west of the 

 Cascade Mountains, where pretty much every- 

 thing-combines to make life worth the living 

 — no hot weather, the average in summer 

 being TO degrees, seldom below 40 degrees in 

 winter, no mosquitoes. Hies or gnats, no 

 snakes except garter-snakes, no wind-storms, 

 no thunder nor lightning, etc. — and then 

 comes this wet blanket: 



" But he won't find this a very good bee- 

 country, for the simple reason that the sum- 

 mers are entirely too cool." 



\ Weekly Budget. ^ 



Mr. Fred H. Hunt's Apjart appears on 



the front page this week. He calls it " Wheat- 

 ridge Apiary," and it contains 90 colonies. 

 Mr. Hunt reports the last season as being not 

 a very favorable one in his locality, the aver- 

 age surplus honey per colony being much 

 below the normal. 



Mr. a. E. Willcutt, of Hampshire Co., 

 Mass., writes as follows, in reference to 

 "stone shade-boards:" 



Mr. Editor : — Please send word hastily, to 

 our "hasty "friend "Hasty." to clear his 

 throat for giving the three cheers mentioned 

 on page 9. I will gladly send him a " sample 

 dozen" of the "stone shade-boards" "by 

 mail." it he will send the required postage. 

 They will all be sent in the " Hat," and each 

 piece under separate cover; he can "nail 

 them up " at his leisurr. A. E. Willcutt. 



Mr. F. W. L. Slades, a prominent api- 

 arian writer in Eggland. writing us Dec. 20, 

 1901, said, among other things: 



Mr. George W. York. — 



Ditir ,Sir : — I have only just got back to 

 England from a three-months' trip amongst 

 some of the prominent bee-keepers in the 

 Eastern States and Canada. I very much re- 

 gret I did not get as far as Chicago 



I was very sorrv I was not able to get over 

 early enough to attend the National conven- 

 tion at Buffalo. However, all the American 

 bee-keepers I called upon treated me splen- 

 didly, and I had a very good time indeed with 

 them. Amongst those I called on were, 

 Ernest R. Root, Frank Benton, Capt. Hether- 

 ington, G. M. Doolittle, W, F. Marks, and C. 

 W. Post and Dr. Fletcher of Canada. I was 

 also very glad to make the acquaintance ot 

 Mr. Ashmead, of the National Museum, 

 Washington, D. C, who is deservedly held in 

 very high esteem by the hymenopterists of 

 this country. 



Yours very truly. 



F. W. L. Sladex. 



It was indeed unfortunate that Mr. Sladen 



could not be at the Buffalo convention ; there 



' he would have met many others that would 



have been pleased to meet him. He must 



come again, and remain longer. 



