854 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 1. 



queen by eating through the sugar paste. Poor de- 

 luded souls ! in their innocence they think they have 

 hatched out a queen to take the place of their dead 

 one, and there is undoubtedly great rejoicing in the 

 hive. 



Poor deluded souls, indeed ! Mr. Walsh's 

 great heart of sympathy is sublime. There 

 are several other statements that do not smack 

 of real experience, but I will give only one 

 more on this wind-up of the article. 



It should be remembered that bees deserve our re- 

 spect and protection, and that to kill a bee is to waste 

 a pound of honey. 



A bee worth a pound of honey ! Would it 

 were so ! If it were, a colony that produced 

 50 lbs. of honey would contain just ^o dees. 

 Whew ! 



I am surprised that the editors of the Chau- 

 lauqiian did not recognize the absurdity of 

 some of the preposterous statements, even 

 though the)- were not professional bee-keep- 

 ers. Why ! the idea of making a queen -cage 

 out of wire doth so exactly \\\& facsimile of 

 a queen-cell, and sme?ring over the end of it 

 with candy so that even the bees (deluded 

 souls) could not detect it from their own man- 

 ufacture ! Almost any one ought to know 

 belter than to make such a statement as that. 

 It is very evident that Mr. Walsh got his in- 

 formation entirely from books, and that his 

 vivid imagination quite ran away with his 

 good sense. As a bee-keeper we have never 

 before heard of him. 



HOW THE OHIO PURE-FOOD I^AWS WORK. 



Our Mr. Weed, who has been selling our 

 honey in Akron, has run across some glucose 

 mixtures put up by a concern notorious for 

 selling adulterated honey and syrups. This 

 same firm evidently sell their mix'ttires as pure 

 goods in States "where the laws are lax or are 

 not very rigidly enforced. In a State like 

 Ohio, for instance, where we have a good 

 pure-food law, and a food commissioner who 

 sees that said law is enforced, they put out the 

 same goods, but on the back of the package 

 they put the formula of the so-called honey, 

 in fine print, which they are obliged to do to 

 conform to our Ohio law. Their expectation 

 is. of course, that the consumer will not stop 

 to read the fine print, but take it as pure goods. 



Well, it seems this concern, through its 

 representative, sold a consignment of the stuff 

 in jelly-tumblers to a firm in a town near 

 Akron. They represented, at the time of 

 making the sale, that the goods were pure ; 

 but on their arrival, or at least soon after, it 

 was discovered that there was a small label on 

 the back of the tumbler, containing the form- 

 ula of glucose, honey, and sugar. But the 

 goods had been paid for, and the grocer had 

 the stuff on his hands. It would not sell, and 

 he had no heart to push it either. 



We expect to give the name of this glucoser, 

 and all the facts in the case to the U. S. B. K. 

 U. Personally, I believe it is a good case ; 

 and if the Union does nothing more than to 

 expose the name of the firm, after securing 

 the proper evidence in the form of affidavits, 

 it will have done a good work. 



From the foregoing it will be noted that 

 the practical effect of our Ohio pure- food laws 



is to do away with glucose competition in 

 honey. Other Slates have good pure-food 

 laws ; but they lack good food commissioners 

 to enforce them. Now, what can be done in 

 Ohio can be done in other States ; and I am 

 not sure but that this would be another very 

 good field for the U. S. B. K. U. to work in ; 

 namely, to punch up commissioners who are 

 negligent of their duties ; and, failing to en- 

 force the laws, to secure the appointment of 

 other men in their places. We need men with 

 backbone to enforce purf^-food laws, just as 

 we want them in every responsible position. 



CASTING BREAD UPON THE WATERS ; HOW TO 



WHET THE APPETITE OF CONSUMERS 



FOR HONEY. 



In order to disseminate information in re- 

 gard to honey as a food, and to create a taste 

 for it, we have been inclosing our honey-leaf- 

 let in every one of the envelopes that go out 

 of our office. One such leaflet found its way 

 to H. W. Richardson, vSection Director of the 

 Weather Bureau of the U. S. Def 't of Agri- 

 culture, whose office is located at Columbus, 

 O. In a letter dated Nov. 19 he writes : 



I thought your little circular on honey so interest- 

 ing that J gave a copy to a reporter, requi .sting him to 

 give vou credit for extracts made from circular, which 

 I .see'he did not do, as perhaps the newspaper regard- 

 ed the same as an advertisement. Anyhow, the pub- 

 lication won't hurt the A. I. Root Co.. as several par- 

 ties have applied to rae for copies of "bulletin," and I 

 have referred them to you. If you could send me a 

 dozen of these circulars I should appreciate it. 



The resiilt was, the reporter gave it a hand- 

 some write-up, making liberal extracts, the 

 same appearing in the Columbus Dispatch of 

 Nov. IS. This started a good many inquiries 

 in regard to this leaflet that was styled, by 

 the repor'.er, "A Bulletin issued from the 

 Weatherstation." I suppose I'ncle Sam, in 

 the reporter's estimation, gave it a sort of 

 " tone," and that is why he gave it such a lib- 

 eral notice. Well, it has done a good deal of 

 good already. 



This point struck me right here: Suppose 

 bee-keepers were to hard a copy of this hon- 

 ej'-leaflet to the editors of their local papers, 

 and ask them to give it a write-up or to make 

 extracts from it. Who knows but it would do 

 a great deal in the way of whetting up the ap- 

 petite of consutners for honey ? The Section 

 Director of the Weather Bureau at Columbus 

 regrets that the reporter entirely ignored the 

 name of The A. I. Root Co. We do not care 

 a fig about that. All we care for is that, 

 somehow or in some man ner, consumers shall 

 know about the value of honey as a food. 

 Credit? Why, we do not want any; and I am 

 rather of the opinion that, if o .r name had 

 been used in connection with such a write-up, 

 people would have turned away, thinking ic 

 was a neatly gotten-up advertisement. Let all 

 names be omitted, but let the facts go travel- 

 ing around the world. Visit your reporters 

 and local editors. We wdll furnish copies free 

 for such purposes. 



Another thought comes in right here: If 

 every bee-keeper would mail a copy of the 

 honey-leaflet in letters that he writes it would 

 help greatly to scatter the right kind of seed. 



