1921 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



401 



three years, causing a large financial 

 loss to Mr. Carr. But little sa-oss has 

 been laid upon the sale of infected 

 honey, and yet su;h sales should be 

 prohibited unless the honey is thor- 

 oughly sterilized. Report ha.; it that 

 foulbrood appeared in and around a 

 large eastern city only after certain 

 honey bottlers had carelessly exposed 

 containers that had been used for in- 

 fected honey. We know of a bee- 

 keeper in Pennsylvania who h-irvested 

 and sold an immense crop of honey 

 while at the same time fighting foul- 

 brood in his apiaries. Was it right 

 that this honey should be sold without 

 being sterilized? I say no, p.nd that 

 prohibition of sales of such raw honey 

 should be enforced. 



Mr. Latham is right regarding mov- 

 able frame hives. Too often they 

 may become "immovable" movable 

 frame hives, and then they ai'3 just as 

 much a menace as bo.x hives. Educa- 

 tion is needed, but it should be the 

 kind that will teach that not every- 

 one can keep bees successfully and 

 that it were better not to keep them at 

 all than to keep them slovenly. 



Pennsylvania. 



(If the beekeepers should make a 

 general effort to prohibit the sale of 

 honey from apiaries in which disease 

 is present it would very probably re- 

 sult in the ruination of the honey 

 markets. Such efforts would /esult in 

 genei'al newspaper comments which 

 would give the general imr.ression 

 that there was danger of the person 

 eating the honey contracting some dis- 

 ease. The fact is that such state- 

 ments are already beginning to ap- 

 pear frequently in print. The bee- 

 keepers cannot be too careful to make 

 sure that the real facts concerning 

 bee diseases get into print. Foulbrood 

 is now so generally distributed that it 

 would be impossible to limit the sale 

 to those whose apiaries are <;ntirely 

 free from it.— F. C. P.) 



How soon commencing after show 

 of bloom. Lilian E. Dland. 



British Columbia. 



(We refer this to our readers for 

 replies. — Editor.) 



SUGGESTIONS FOR OBSERVA- 

 TIONS 



I am interested in "causes," i. e., 

 why things happen. You have no 

 doubt made observations on honey 

 flows in your locality; can you tell me 

 under what conditions the honey flow 

 is extra good, average, and a failure? 

 In what rotation do the extra good 

 years come? 



It would be interesting if you would 

 ask beekeepers in the different States 

 and countries to make accuiate ob- 

 servations on honey flows before and 

 during the flow, giving the range of 

 the main surplus plants in their locali- 

 ties. For instance, the following ta- 

 ble could be filled in daily: 



Temperature — day, night. 



Weather conditions — Sunshine, 

 cloudy, etc., wind. 



Barometer. 



Hydrometer. 



Soil — water, land. 



Elevation. 



Form of country, i. e., mountains, 

 table land, etc. 



Latitude, longitude. 



Phase of moon during honey flow. 



Surplus honey flowers. 



Duration of flow. 



EDITOR OF THE BEE WORLD 



Our readers will be interested in 

 the photograph of A. Z. Abu.hady, 

 shown on this page. Mr. Abushady is 

 the editor of "The Bee World," »ub- 

 lished by the Apis Club of K^ gland. 



A. Z. Abu>hri'ly. 



The Apis Club is an internati( nal in- 

 stitute for the study of apiculture and 

 the official organ furnishes a j^'iod re- 

 view of cuiTent beekeeping literature 

 of the entire world. References to 

 this publication have appeai'ed fre- 

 quently in these columns. 



QUEEN CAGE CANDY 



By Jay Smith 



It is an admitted fact thai Ameri- 

 can foulbi'ood has been spread in 

 candy that has been used to provision 

 cages in which queens are sent 

 through the mail. The law requires 

 that a certificate of health be fur- 

 nished or that the honey be boiled be- 

 fore being used in making qujen can- 

 dy. Boiled honey is about "he poor- 

 est food for bees that can hit imng- 

 ined and will cause dysentery and 

 death to the bees and queen if they 

 are confined for any length cf time. 

 If a certificate of health is furnished 

 with each shipment showing that no 

 disease exists in the apiary from 

 which the queen is sent, it does not 

 prove that the honey was taken from 

 that apiary. There is nothin,!: to hin- 

 der one from using diseased honey 

 and furnishing a health certificate at 

 the same time. I do not mean to in- 

 fer that anyone would do that inten- 

 tionally, but there is a possibility that 

 diseased honey might be used acci- 

 dentally. To overcome the objections 

 named above, it has been recommend- 

 ed that we must invert sugar instead 

 of honey in making queen candy. 

 This has been tried by many beekeep- 



ers, the invert sugar being purchased 

 fi'oni manufacturers of that commod- 

 ity. It answered the purpose very 

 well as long as the shipment was made 

 to a point not far distant, but if the 

 distance were great and if the weather 

 were hot and dry, the candy made 

 with invert sugar would dry out and 

 become hard and the bees would die. 

 Now the chemists maintain th;u honey 

 and invert sugar are exactly the same, 

 with the exception of the flavor, and 

 this had no bearing on the matter of 

 the candy drying out. But queen 

 breeders proved that candy made with 

 invert sugar did dry out, wh'le that 

 made with honey did not. I was sat- 

 isfied beyond doubt that the chemist 

 knew what he was about, and I 

 thought I knew what I was ab )i:t when 

 I proved that the invert sugar candy 

 dried out. The past season I have 

 been investigating and experiment- 

 ing to find, if possible, where the dis- 

 crepancy lay. A little simple experi- 

 ment made it all plain, so that any 

 one can make his own inv.jr: sugar 

 and in the regular way make queen 

 cage candy that will not get hard. 

 This candy is in every respect equal 

 to the best article made with honey 

 and in fact it is superior. Several 

 tests were made by provisioning 

 queen cages with the home-made in- 

 vert sugar and honey and the honey 

 candy became hard before the candy 

 that was made from invert sugar did. 

 For these tests the cages were placed 

 in the attic during our driest weather, 

 when the thermometer was running 

 above 100 degrees every day out- 

 doors, while up in the attic it was as 

 hot as — well, you can imagine what. 

 In making the investigations, I 

 first tested the boiling point i:f honey, 

 and invert sugar made by manufac- 

 turers. It is known that water boils 

 at a temperature of 212 degrees. As 

 sugar is added and the syrup becomes 

 heavier, the boiling point is higher. I 

 found that honey boils at a tempera- 

 ture of 245 degrees, while th'.' com- 

 mercial invert sugar boils at a tem- 

 perature of 235 degrees. Thi;; made 

 it plain that the reason that candy 

 made with invert sugar dried otit 

 sooner than that made with honey 

 was the fact that invert sugar con- 

 tained more water and as soon as the 

 water dried out the candy became 

 hard. Some home-made invert su- 

 gar was then made by using granulat- 

 ed sugar and tartaric acid, and this 

 was boiled until a temperature of 250 

 degrees was reached, 5 degree? above 

 the boiling point of honey. This has 

 proved superior to honey from the 

 fact that it is heavier and will not dry 

 out, no matter how hot and dry the 

 weather is. It is a simple matter to 

 make this invert sugar, and anyone 

 can easily make it. A thermometer 

 that will register up to 250 degrees is 

 necessai-y. To make this invert 

 sugar proceed as follows: To one- 

 half pound of boiling water add one 

 pound of granulated sugar and ten 

 gi'ains of tartaric acid. Allow this 

 to boil slowly, without stirring, till a 

 temperature of 250 degiees is 

 reached. If you have no druggist 

 scales to weigh the tartaric arid, use 

 a scant one-fourth teaspoonful. A 



