1888 



GLEANIi^GS iK B£E CULtUtiE. 



628 



(jLEANIHCS IN BEE CCLTDRE, 



Published Semi- Monthly. 



-fi^. I. I^OOT, 

 EDITOR AND PUBLISHER, 



l-IEDIOiT-S^, OHIO. 



TERMS: $1.00 PER YEAR, POSTPAID. 



FoT Olubbing Bates, See First Fage of Beading Matter. 



:b^/£EIDIiT^a., ^s^TJO-- 1, leea. 



Foi' our ligl't alfliction. which is but tor a inoiiient. wurketh 

 for us a far more excfeiliiisf and eternal weigr'it of glory.— II. 

 Cor. 4:17. 



REDUCTION IN POSTAGE ON SEEDS, CIONS, ETC. 



As we go to press we learn that the law now reads: 



Hereafter the postage on seeds, cuttings, roots, cions, and 

 bulbs, shall be charged at the rate of one cent for each two 

 ounces or fraction thereof, subject in all other respects to the 

 existing laws. 



OUR SUBSCRIPTION-LIST. 



Tn spite of the poor season and the poor pros- 

 pects, we have received an addition of 135 new 

 names during: the last month; expired, 73, mailing 

 an access of 53 over and above our report of last 

 month. We have at present 8355 subscribers. 



MAILING QITEENS TO CANADA. 



The matter has been finally arranged once more, 

 as our friends will see by the following, from the 

 weekly Herald of New York: 



Washinuton, July 17, 1888.— The Poatniaster-General an- 

 nounces in the post,al bulletin to-day :— The Canada office hav 

 ing as.sentt'd to the ]Mopositiiin of this department to admit to 

 the mails ex. ■hanged to thi- I'liited Stales and Canada pu<-k- 

 ages of (lUfcn-bces and tlicir at li'iidant bees when so put up as 

 to pieveiu iiij\ir\ In tho^e handling the mails, wliile at the 

 same time allowiiigan easy veiilieation of the eonlents, such 

 packages will hereafter be entitled to transmission by mail 

 to Canada, provided they confoiui to the conditions pre- 

 scribed for them in the domestic mails of this country; and 

 similar packages received in the mails from Canada should be 

 promptly forwarded to their destiiiatioiis and delivered to ad- 

 dressee. 



DISCOURAGING FOR CANADA. 



The Ciinadian Bee Journal of July 25 is just at 

 hand. We learn that the season so far in Canada 

 has been any thing but favorable for bee-keepers. 

 The proprietors of the C. B. J. have been sending 

 out postal cards, and they make a condensed state- 

 ment as follows: 



The probable average yield per colony through- 

 out the whole province will not be five pounds, the 

 total increase not more than five per cent. The 

 prospects for the fall tiow are exceedingly poor, 

 and the probability is that feeding will have to be 

 resorted to rather strong. 



We extend to the Canadians our sympathy, and 

 we hope they will return the compliment to us. 



PRONOUNCING GENUINE HONEY SPURIOUS. 



You will remember that, in our last issue, I spoke 

 repeatedly of the fact, as it seemed to me, that our 

 State chemists were calling genuine pure honey 

 spurious. Well, we learn from the A. B. J. of July 

 35, that numbers 15, 16, and 17 of the honey pronounc- 

 ed by the Dairy Commissioner of New Jersey to be 

 bad, mentioned on page 4.53 of this journal, came 

 from our staunch friend C. F. Muth. Woe betide 

 the chemist who shall accuse our stalwart honest 

 German friend of such a thing as that ! and it seems 

 that even Prof. Wiley has had the assurance to ask 

 friend Muth for some samples to analyze. Friend 

 Muth's reply is as follows: 



"We kiww what we deal in, and handle only 



straight goods— and want nothing more to do with 

 your ' apparently pure.' " 



Some years ago while in Cincinnati I got lo.st, as a 

 matter of course. I always get lost in a big city. I 

 made some intjuiries for friend M.'s place of busi- 

 ness. Everybody knew him. Yes, the women and 

 children knew him; and, furthermore, everybody, 

 so far as I could learn, seemed to speak his name 

 with pride. Friend M. is not only well off in this 

 world's goods, but he has a, reputation for strict hon- 

 esty and integrity among the whole German popu- 

 lation as well as the English; and the chemist or any 

 body else who jiccuses him of adulterating his hon- 

 ey would hurt himself a good deal more than he 

 would friend M. Not only the whole city of Cincin- 

 nati, but the honey-people of the State of Ohio and 

 other States would laugh at such a charge. You 

 need not say that friend M. has been humbugged. 

 He is too sharp and keen to be humbugged on honey. 



0a^ 0WN ^pi^^Y. 



co^^)ucTKD by ebngst b. boot. 



A POOR SEASON FOR HONEY. 



TT will be remembered, on account of 

 M foul brood we decided to devote our 

 ^l apiary to comb honey. Although sec- 

 ^ tions have been supplied either in wide 

 frames or T supers, very little honey 

 has been secured. I told a friend yester- 

 day, in response to a question as to how 

 much honey we had secured, that, accord- 

 ing to my best knowledge, we had ob- 

 tained two filled sections of honey from 240 

 colonies. To-day (26th), examination shows 

 we have obtained at lea.st 25 lbs. This is 

 about all the surplus that we can boast of. 

 All the brood-nests, however, are pretty 

 well tilled with capped honey. 



Neighbor Shane, who lives five or six miles 

 from us, and usually secures a good crop of 

 honey, writes that his yield will be very 

 small, and that his bees worked only a day 

 and a half on basswood. 



RED-CLOVER HONEY. 



This evening neighbor Clark, whose api- 

 ary is about a mile distant, informed us that 

 his bees had suddenly started to work on 

 something. The basswood having closed, 

 we surmised that it might be "bug-juice." 

 To ascertain whether our bees had been aft- 

 er the same article, we (A. I. R., J. T. C, 

 friend C, and myself) placed our ears near 

 the entrances of some of the best colonies in 

 our own apiary, and, sure enough, there was 

 the roar we usually hear during a honey-flow 

 consequent on the evaporation of nectar. 

 We imagined that we smelted "bug-juice." 

 As it was dark, we made no further exami- 

 nation. 



July 27th. — The neighbor referred to 

 above brought us a sample of the alleged 

 "bug-juice," which lie extracted from yes- 

 terday's gathering. It was light-colored, 

 and quite thin, as the bees had not had time 

 to evaporate it. The unmistakable flavor of 

 bumble-bee honey, which we boys used to 

 consider so flne, was present. We came to 

 the conclusion that it was red-clover honey, 

 and subsequent examination and testing, in 

 our own apiary, showed the presence of this 

 same new honey. 



