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^ERICA.^ 



42dYEAR. 



CHICAGO, ILL, JANUARY 30, 1902, 



No. 5, 



3 ^. 



^ Editorial. ^^ 



TIi«' CalilVn-iiia Conveiilion was held 

 iii I. OS Aiificlcs, .lull. lU ami 1?. The foUow- 

 ins; ollicers were re-elected : 



I'l-esidont, G. S. Stubbletield; seeretary- 

 lrc'!isui-ei', .J. F. Molntvi'e; vice-presidents, 

 (i. \V. lirodbeck, H. E. \Vilder, G. F. Merriam, 

 M. II. Meudlesou, and H. C. Williamson. 



A Los Angeles newspaper report refers to 

 the convention in part as follows: 



It was decided to orijanize the business end 

 of the Association on the plan of the Southern 

 California Fruit Exchange, and to dispose of 

 the honey crop through the latter's selling 

 agencies, thus saving the association the extra 

 expense of conducting independent agencies. 



Each county will be organized into a sepa- 

 rate exchange, each to elect one of its number 

 to become a member of the Southern Califor- 

 nia Honey Exchange in this city, which plan 

 centralizes the business here. 



The following apiarists were appointed to 

 organize their separate ooauties: Solas Wood, 

 Santa Barbara; J. F. Mclntyre, Ventura; 

 R. B. Borden and R. G. Clark, San Diego 

 county; E. A. Honey and Emerson Bros., 

 Orange county; C. B. Schwack, Riverside; 

 D. A. Wheeler and H. C. Williamson, San 

 Bernardino; Frank McXay, Los Angeles. 



J. F. Mclntyre, Maj. G. H. Marion and Frof. 

 A. J. Cook, were elected as the Executive 

 Committee. E. A. Honey, Frank McNay, 

 T. F. Arundell and Allen Barrett were after- 

 ward added to the committee. 



By organizing on the basis of the fruit ex- 

 changes, and disposing of their honey just as 

 fruit is now marketed, the bee-keepers liope to 

 work together in the upholding of the price 

 of their product, and to help each other 

 through the present dry and unprofitable sea- 

 son. 



Read Up Back I^iiiiibers. — It you are 



like most bee-keepers, you are busier in sum- 

 mer than in winter. Often it happens that in 

 summer the bee-keeper is so busy that when 

 he receives a copy of this or any other bee- 

 paper, his reading is more or less hurried, 

 and sometimes the reading of some articles or 

 parts of them are omitted altogether, because 

 they do not seem at the time of immediate in- 

 terest. When leisure conies for more reading 

 in winter, it is well to go over back numbers, 

 not only to read ivhat may have been entirely 

 omitted, but what may have been read in 

 such haste as not to receive due considera- 

 tion. Indeed, you will And many a time, that 

 what you supposed was of no interest at first 

 will be found later on to be of great practical 

 interest. Then, too, the things that you read 

 with care will generally bear reading again. 

 An article that you read last June, may, be- 

 cause of something that you have since 

 learned either in practice or from reading, 



have such a dilTercnl bearing that it will be 

 practically new to you. 



This advice will not be needed by those who 

 are well to the front as bee-keepers, but to 

 those who have not befen in the habit of giv- 

 ing more than one reading to each number of 

 the bee-paper they receive it may be well to 

 suggest the advisability of trying the experi- 

 ment of giving at least a second reading to 



them. 



■•• 



Wrong Sprayiiiff Advice. — Mr. John 

 >I. Sutton wrote us as follows, Jan, 18: 



Editor American Bee Journal — 



I have recently received from the Govern- 

 ment, Farmer's Bulletin No. 38, or " Spraying 

 for Fruit Diseases." This is a re/irint origin- 

 ally published in 1896. On page 11, I find the 

 following : 



" Use bordeaux mixture, making the first 

 application before the blossoms open. When 

 the flowers are opening spray again, etc." 



It seems to me this is in direct opposition to 

 the present teachings, and should be corrected. 

 I am sorry to see it in a Government publica- 

 tion. John M. Sutton. 



Certainly, all that is necessary is to call the 

 attention of the Department of Agriculture's 

 attention to its contradictory advice, when it 

 will hasten to make proper correction. It is 

 a good thing to report such matters when dis- 

 covered, as even the Government sometimes 

 makes mistakes. 



Meltose Again. — Eugene Secor, the gen. 

 eral manager of the National Bee-Keepers' As- 

 sociation, wrote us as follows recently . 



Forest City, Iowa, Jan. 18, 1903. 

 Editor American Bee Journal — 



Dear Nir: — Mr. F. L. Thompson, of Colorado, 

 sent me, Dec. H, 1901, a circular of a health 

 food company doing business in that State, 

 and called the attention to one paragraph 

 which was objectionable to bee-keepers. I 

 wrote the company and herewith submit the 

 correspondence in full. 



Respectfully yours, 



Eugene Secor, 'Jen. Jlmi. 



Here follows Mr. Secor's letter to the health 

 food company, dated Jan. 3: 



Gentlemen:— I have your folder on health 

 foods, and am glad to commend your general 

 fare Food I'ropo.-ition. We have used a good 

 deal of Battle Creek foods with satisfactory 

 results. 



But I notice under the paragraph describing 

 " Meltose " these words : 



" It should be substituted for Cnne-Siignr 

 Jfuin'jt and all artifically prepared sweets."' 



I wish that this sentence might be altered 

 slightly, as it conveys a wrong impression to 

 would-be users of honey. 



The fact is there is no such thing on the 

 market as caue-siujnr houey. It would not pay 

 to adulterate with cane-sugar. The adultera- 

 tions of honey are exclusively, I might say, of 

 glucose, and in the extracted form. 



Comb honey may be relied on as pure, or as 

 natural product gathered by the bees. 



Nowcan't you eliminate the word " honey," 



or add the word "adulterated" after the 

 word "sugar," followed by a comma; 



Make all the war you please on adulterated 

 honey, but it is misleading to call it nine- 

 sut/ar honey. 



May I ask your reconsideration of this 

 point! Sincerely yours, 



fkoENE Secor, Oen. Man. 



Whereupon the company written to re- 

 sponded as follows, under date of Jan. 0: 



EuoENE Secor, Forest City, Iowa. — 



JJriir ,Sir; — We have your letter of Jan. 3d, 

 in regard to a misleading thought in ourcir- 

 cular. Meltose is a pure product, and is de- 

 signed to take the place of cane-sugar, and 

 artificial sweets. Honey is a natural product, 

 perfectly pure, and we do not class it among 

 sweets that are harmful. On the contrary, 

 we use it on our own tables very freely. The 

 word honey should not have gotten into the 

 circular, and was an oversight. We will see 

 that the misleading Ihought is corrected. 



Thanking you for calling attention to the 

 matter, we are. Yours very truly, 



The above is just the kind of work the Na- 

 tional Association should be doing constantly. 

 It is educative. It is a benefit to the public 

 to have such corrections made, and also a 

 ways helps the cause o pure honey and its 

 producers. 



But why cannot bee-keepers themselves, 

 from this time on, be on the lookout for mis- 

 leading statements about honey, and write to 

 the people who make or publish such errors 

 regarding honey ! A few of us can not do it 

 alone, but all must help in the work of letting 

 the public know more about pure honey. 



Maeterlinck's " Life of the Bee," 



which at first was received almost as a work of 

 perfection, is of late having its faults noticed. 

 D. M. M., in the British Bee Journal, says, 

 " I have only words of praise for Mr. Maeter- 

 linck's book;'' and then with what can 

 hardly be entire consistency immmediately 

 adds : 



" I would, however, much preferif it had not 

 contained a single word of the moralizings of 

 his physiologist friend. This is an excres- 

 cence, pure and simple, which could well be 

 lopped off." 



Then he enters a somewhat emphatic 

 caveat against the view of the author that the 

 peasantry are filled with malevolence pure 

 and simple. 



Are Commission Blerehants Dishon- 

 est as a class! In the Progressive Bee-keeper 

 G. M. Doolittle answers this question in the 

 negative. For 25 years he has shipped honey 

 to commission merchants, shipping to as 

 many as '25 different ones, and he thinks 

 "commission men as a class compare favor- 

 ably with any other class of men in the 

 United States." 



