{Entered at the PostOfflcu ;ii Chicago as Second-Class Mall-Matter.) 

 Published Weekly at $1 OO a Year, by George W. York & Co., lis W. Jackson Blvd. 



GEOKGK W. YOKK, Editor 



CHICAGO, ILL, MAY 9. 1907 



and Commenfs 



Detecting Adulterants In Honey 



A subscriber in New Zealand writes as fol- 

 lows: 



Is there any easy method which an ordinary 

 bee-keeper might apply to detect the presence 

 of adulterants in honey? 



In New Zealand the public buy the comb 

 honey because they know it can not be faked. 

 It seems to be a more sensible view than that 

 of the United States of America public. We 

 don't nearly meet the demand for comb honey 

 here. 



We don't know of any unless it be by the 

 taste. It is not very difficult to detect the 

 presence of glucose by the taste. 



New Zealand is ahead of the world in a 

 good many ways, and you are to be congratu- 

 lated that your public is so intelligent that it 

 knows comb hon^ can not be faked. Here, 

 too large a proportion of the public believes 

 not only that comb honey can be, but that it 

 is faked. But the tide seems to be turning, 

 and we are counting much on what will be 

 effected by our pure-food laws. 



Brevity Sometimes Dangerous 



Brevity is desirable, but it should not omit 

 an essential part of a story. Mr. D. M. Mac- 

 donald occupies a page and a half of the 

 British Bee Journal with what he calls gems 

 from " Forty Years Among the Bees.'' The 

 work is exceedingly well done, but the brevity 

 of the extracts, averaging perhaps 4 lines 

 each, may in a few cases lead to misunder- 

 standing when such short statements are 

 taken without the context. 



The sentence, " I have found no way of 

 securing all worker-comb except by having it 

 built by a weak colony." Taken alone that 

 might be understood to show that weak colo- 

 nies were generally used for building comb, 



^tW.VKV.a..: - 



and that Dr. Miller had not learned the value 

 of comb foundation. On the contrary, it is 

 well known that Dr. Miller is an earnest advo- 

 cate of full sheets of foundation, both for 

 brood-combe and sections, and the number of 

 brood-combs in his hives not so produced are 

 exceedingly few. A statement of the whole 

 truth would be, " I have found no way of 

 having the bees build all worker-comb with- 

 out the use of foundation except by having 

 the comb built in a very weak colony. My 

 practise is to have combs built in strong 

 colonies on worker-foundation.'' 



Another extract reads: " If a colony has 9, 

 10, or more frames of brood, all but 8 are 

 taken away." Somewhat vague as it stands, 

 but some might understand a disapproval of 

 more than 8 frames of brood to the colony at 

 any time. On the contrary, the largest 

 amount of brood is encouraged up to the time 

 of putting on supers, when each colony is re- 

 duced to one story of 8 frames each. 



" Increase is made by taking frames to the 

 out-apiary, and, of course, bees stay wherever 

 they are put, and work upintoa otlony.'' The 

 last part oi the sentence suggests the advan- 

 tage of making uK-rease in that way, but the 

 labor of moving to the out-apiary is no small 

 item, and as a maMer of fact the plan is sel- 

 dom used. 



Possibly some of D. M. M.'s readers would 

 be less puzzled if he would clear up these 



few points. 



— -^ 



Nuclei and Colonies 



A nucleus is wil! understood to be a very 

 weak colony of bi-.'s, but just where is the 

 dividing line bt'twi-. u a nucleus and a colony 

 is not so well iiiiliTstood, just as it is not 

 always easy to -ay when a boy becomes a 

 man. Perhaps ir might be said that anything 



Vol, XLVII-No. 19 



less than 3 Langstroth frames, fairly well 

 covered with bees, is a nucleus, and anything 

 more is a colony. That leaves .3 frames of 

 brood covered with bees to be called some- 

 times a nucleus and sometimes a colony. The 

 time of year may have something to do with 

 it. Hundreds of colonies come out of winter 

 quarters with no more than 3 frames covered 

 with bees-yes. thousands of them; and 

 many with less than that, and yet at that time 

 of year they are called colonies. In the mid- 

 dle of summer they would hardly be called 

 colonies, but nuclei. Then there are the 

 "baby nuclei" about which so much has 

 been said lately, consisting of I, 2, or 3 very 

 small combs, with a correspondingly small 

 number of bees. 



Higlier Postage Rate to Canada 



Beginning with May 8, the postage rate on 

 all United States periodicals mailed to Canada 

 was quadrupled, which will compel us to 

 raise the subscription price on the weekly 

 American Bee Journal to all Canadian sub- 

 scribers, from .¥1.00 a year to $1 50. This is 

 made necessary from the following notice 

 which was recently sent out by our Postmas- 

 ter-General, Hon. G. v. L. Meyer, at Wash- 

 ington, D. C. : 



" It is hereby ordered that, commencing on 

 theSthday of May, 190;, the postage rate 

 applicable in the United States to ' second- 

 class matter ' addressed for delivery in Canada 

 shall be one cent for each four (4) ounces or 

 fraction of four (4) ounces, calculated on the 

 weight of each package and pnepaid by means 

 of postage stamps allixed." 



This will compel us to put alcentstamp 

 on each copy of the American Bee Journal 

 mailed into Canada, beginning with this 

 week's issue. Therefore, our Canadian read- 

 ers will please take notice of the increase in 

 price when renewing their subscriptions, 

 which increase is not our wish at a but is 

 made necessary, as stated, through interna- 

 tional postal agreement. 



Of course, every Canadian subscriber now 

 on our list will receive the Bee Journal the 

 full time for which he has paid, regardless of 

 the heavy extra postage bill we are called on 

 to pay. It will be quite a loss to us, but the 

 American Bee Journal means to do as it 

 agrees. We trust that our Canadian readers 

 will continue their kindly support rii?ht 

 along. ^ 



