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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 1. 



RAMBLE 168. 

 In Tacoma. 



BY RAMBLER. 



The Phenecie Bros, are not unknown to bee- 

 keeping fame in Washington. They have a 

 little factory here in Tacoma for the manu- 

 facture of supplies, and also have an apiary. 

 I believe they published a few numbers of a 

 bee-journal ; but it seems that no portion of 

 the Pacific Coast, either north or south, has a 

 class of bee-keepers that will sustain a journal 

 devoted to their interests, therefore this jour- 

 nal was suspended, and is in that painful con- 

 dition to this day. 



Upon the first call that Mr. Littooy and I 

 made at the factory we found no one within. 

 It was election day, and the proprietors were 

 serving their country at the polls. I called 

 twice afterward, and at all times the same 

 silence reigned, and I did not see the gentle- 

 men while in Tacoma. 



Mr. W. H. Pallies is another bee-keeper 

 of whom I had some knowledge through cor- 

 respondence and trade, and I felt quite well 

 acquainted with him even before I met him. 

 Mr. Pallies lives quite a little distance out of 

 the city, in a suburb quarter. It was ex- 

 tremely easy to find his residence under the 

 guidance of Mr. Littooy. Of course it rained 

 somewhat that forenoon, and we dispensed 

 with the wheels, and took the electric-car line 

 which runs past the gentleman's door. Our 

 call was made the day after the election ; and 

 although we found Mr. Pallies at home in the 

 tender care of his family, he was considerably 

 used up from the arduous duties of election 

 da}'. I understood him to say that he was 

 obliged to sit on a board all day and nearly 

 all night. Of course, such treatment would 

 use almost anybody up. 



Mr. Pallies has about 100 colonies of bees. 

 He is one of the pioneer bee-keepers of this 

 portion of Washington. He also uses the 

 Heddon hive ; but through the discussions of 

 the virtues of large hives in the bee-journals 

 he is getting somewhat estranged from it — so 

 much so, at least, that he is experimenting 

 with a few of the regular Dadant twelve - 

 frame hives. His experiments so far give him 

 a favorable opinion of the large hive. He says 

 that a swarm from an ordinary eight-frame 

 hive is not large enough to fill one of these 

 big hives, and it takes them about a year to 

 get thoroughly to going ; but when they do 

 get to going, when one of these big hives 

 casts a swarm it is so large it will fill a hive of 

 like size and fill it rapidly with honey. In 

 this case like begets like. He is quite sure 

 that a colony in one of these big hives is not 

 so liable to spring-dwindle as they are in a 

 smaller hive. 



Mr. Littooy and I could not be convinced 

 that any hive is better than the Heddon ; and 

 we were firm in our belief that any thing any- 

 body else can do with a hive we can do with 

 the Heddon, and more too. 



Mr Pallies seems to be a careful experi- 

 menter, and I have no doubt he will learn the 

 best way to operate his bees, and in an emi- 



nently satisfactory way to Mr. Pallies. He 

 sells all of his honey in his home market, and 

 to private customers, and sometimes has to 

 send out of the State for honey. The grocers 

 here as well as in other coast towns have a 

 prejudice against California honey, for such 

 mixtures have been sent here from San Fran- 

 cisco that, when sold to the consumer, they 

 would bring them back to the grocer. 



Mr. Pallies related his investigations into a 

 Sm Francisco firm which advertised and sold 

 outfits for the manufac ure of artificial honey. 

 The main ingredient for this mixiure was a 

 syrup made from boiled artichokes. The 

 syrup is white and tasteless. Cornstalks were 

 then ground in a sorghum-mill, and the re- 

 sulting syrup along with glucose, was intro- 

 duced to give color and sweetness. To five 

 gallons of the above mixture one quart of 



W. H. PALUES' APIARY AND HONEY-HOUSE. 



honey was added to give a honev flavor. The 

 entire cost of the outfit was 8200. A very 

 plausible circular extulled the mixture as in 

 every way equal if not superior to bees' hone}', 

 and the profits from its sale were s-ated to be 

 enormous. The company made their profits 

 from the sale of the outfit, and cared but little 

 whether the mixture was of use or not. Al- 

 though such mixtures were put upon the mar- 

 ket several years ago, the effect still lingers. 



We hear much about the honey markets of 

 Europe, and that the consumer prefers his 

 extracted honey in the candied state, for he 

 has been educated in the right way, and 

 knows how to choose the pure honey. On 

 the contrary, our consumer has been educated 

 by the schemer; and when pure honey is 

 offered for sale there is a suspicion that there 

 is a Yankee trick behind it ; and is it not a 

 fact that such schemes are worked upon the 

 people of this more than of any other country? 

 and when they are tried in other countries 

 they come to grief through more stringent 

 national laws. The very low price for honey 

 within the past few years is the only effective 



