(Entered ut the Post-OEQcc at Chicago as Second-Clasa Mail-Matter.) 

 Published Weekly at $1.00 a Year, by George W. York & Co., 334 Dearborn Street. 



GE ORGE W. YORK, Editor 



CHICAGO, ILL,, FEBRUARY 21, 1907 



Vol, XLVII— No, 8 



editorial ^oics 

 and Comments 



Breeding a Pure Race of Swiss Bees 



The bee-keepers of Switzerland appear to 

 be quite unanimous in asserting that the Ital- 

 ian bees are but little it any better than the 

 common bees found in Switzerland. Starting 

 from these premises, thej have been trying to 

 improve the common Swiss bee. It appears 

 that there are now established a number of 

 breeding yards in German Switzerland, where 

 they keep choice colonies for the rearing of 

 drones, and they transport their young 

 queens in nuclei to those yards to have them 

 mated with these choice drones. By careful 

 selection they claim to have some improve- 

 ments already, and hold that they can make 

 much more progress by continuing this 

 method. 



We can see only one drawback to this pro- 

 cedure. The breeding yards, or mating yards, 

 are placed IJ^' miles from the nearest apiary. 

 Bee-keepers who have any knowledge of 

 queen-rearing and mating in this country are 

 aware of the fact that the mismatings in a 

 yard of Italian bees located 1^4 to 2 miles 

 from a yard of the common bees will show 

 about half mismatings, all other circum- 

 stances being equal. 



The distance which seem s to be adopted 

 as sufficient in Switzerland, would be entirely 

 inadequate in this country. Queens and 

 drones certainly By readily, and in a very 

 short time a distance of 1 or 2 miles. Mat- 

 ings often occur at distances of 4 miles and 



more. 



■*■ 



Some Early Honey-Dealing 



Dr. F. D. Clum, of Cheviot, N. Y., sends 

 us the following about one of the earliest 

 large dealers in honey in this country : 



The largest and most extensive dealer in 

 honey in the United States in the years 1870 



to 1S~.5 was Daniel W. Quinby, a commission 

 merchant of New York City, He was a ven- 

 erable looking, gray-bearded man, and was 

 known throughout the city commission dis- 

 trict as " Uncle Dan." He controlled the 

 honey market in those days, as all the bee- 

 keepers of the time regularly forwarded their 

 honey to him for sale on commission. This, 

 probably, was due to the fact that he was a 

 near relative of the well-known Moses 

 Quinby, one of our pioneer bee-keepers who 

 died in New York State, May 27, 1875. 



Thousands of dollars worth of honey was 

 sold in the fall of each year by Mr. Q., and 

 yet none of it was extracted. The public 

 looked upon extracted honey with great sus- 

 picion, and do so to-day for that matter. It 

 is hard to convince the consumer that ex- 

 tracted honey, as found in the market, is the 

 strictly pure unadulterated product of the 

 bees. I remember the first can of extracted 

 honey Mr, Q. tried to sell a prospective buyer, 

 who, at the end of a long talk, critically 

 looked at the honey, smelled of It, and tasted 

 it, and then drawled out: " Well, it looks all 

 right, and smells all right, and tastes all 

 right, but I would rather have it in the comb, 

 for then / mouhl *■)»•«' it to be all rig/it.^^ 



It is the same lack of confidence that pre- 

 vents the bee-keepers of to-day from greatly 

 increasing their incomes, for every experienced 

 apiarist knows that it costs less to produce 

 extracted honey than it does to produce comb 

 honey. Our best bees — the Italians — reluc- 

 tantly begin work in the pound sections; 

 they prefer to work upon large combs, and 

 when we consider that these large-sized 

 combs, after the extraction of honey, can be 

 refilled by the bees over and over again, the 

 saving is apparent. 



Nearly every one who eats honey prefers 

 the extracted when convinced of its absolute 

 purity. Even the children at the table take 

 a spoon and dip from the plate the liquid 

 honey which has run from the comb in pref- 

 erence to eating the comb. It is to the mutual 

 interest of the producer and consumer that 

 extracted honey be universally used instead 

 of comb honey, for when the public becomes 

 convinced of the at'eolute purity of extracted 

 honey, the producer's income not only will 

 be greatly increaseil, but the public will re- 

 ceive an article that they really like better, 



that contains more food value, and at a saving 

 in cost. F. D. Clum, M. D. 



There is no doubt that a larger amount of 

 extracted honey is produced to day than of 

 comb honey. And we believe, as does Dr. 

 Clum, that when the general public discover 

 how good really well-ripened extracted honey 

 is, they will use it in preference to comb 

 honey. But it must be well-ripeneil. Probably 

 no other single thing has interfered with a 

 wider use of extracted honey than that of 

 putting !(7iripened honey on the market. It 

 not only injures the producer who is so fool- 

 ish as to do it, but all producers of the best 

 extracted honey are compelled to suffer from 

 its evil effects. 



Even for baking and other manufacturing 

 purposes, the unripened extracted honey is a 

 detriment. Mr. R. A. Burnett, the oldest and 

 largest wholesale honey-dealer in Chicago, 

 told us only recently that years ago he used 

 to sell car-loads of buckwheat extracted 

 honey to bakers and tobacconists, but all at 

 once certain Eastern bee-keepers began to 

 " get smart," and thought they could produce 

 so much more by extracting it before ripe. 

 The result was that such honey ruined the 

 bakery goods in which it was need; also 

 caused tobacconists loss, so that they would 

 have no more buckwheat extracted honey — 

 wouldn't risk buying it even if assured that 

 it was well-ripened. The lighter grades of 

 honey were considered too expensive for man- 

 ufacturing purposes, so ttat some sweet 

 other than honey was sought and used, thus 

 cutting out a large demand for honey. And 

 all because some short-sighted bee-keepers 

 thought they could fool the buyers. Well, 

 they succeeded to such an extent that not 

 only were the dealers and large buyers fooled, 

 but thousands of honey-producers as well. 



It might be a good thing if the National 

 Association would take up this subject, and 

 see what it can do toward putting a stop to 

 the offering of unripe honey on the market. 



Honey-Butter 

 Food Law 



Ruled Out by Pure 



The following has been received at this 

 office from one of our subscribers in Okla- 

 homa: 



I have shut down my factory which has 

 been running for several years for putting up 

 all kinds of pickles, chow-chow, pumpkins, 



