1900 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



391 



It appears they guess at it. . . In view of Mr. Hakes' 

 testimony, as reported from his customers, if the hon- 

 ey I sent him was adulterated, it would probably be 

 beneficial to both producers and consumers if all hon- 

 ey was adulterated in the same way." 



Seveial years ago, perhaps twelve or thirteen, some 

 well-known bee-keepers felt satisfied that Mr. Heddon 

 was engaged in adulterating honey, and selling it to 

 his cnstimiers, and since that time several have com- 

 plained that the honey purchased of him as pure was 

 adulterated before it reached them, and have stated 

 that the packages thej' received showed no signs of 

 having been changed or tampered with in any way 

 from the time they were shipped till received by them. 



A little over six years ago there was an impression 

 that Mr. Heddon vvas engaged in adulterating honey ; 

 and a chemical analysis of some honey, claimed to 

 have been bought of him, showed that it was adulter- 

 ated with at least 50 per cent of glucose, as was shown 

 in Gle.'\nings in Bee Culture at that time. 



It is possible that this report is too long, and may 

 contain matter that may not have any bearing on or 

 connection with it ; but I thought it might be well, in 

 every possible way, to expose the adulterators, who- 

 ever they may be, and so put producers, dealers in, 

 and consumers of honey on their guard against the 

 adulterators ; and if but a small portion of the state- 

 ments and affidavits before me are true, one of our 

 own number has gone astray, and, if so, should be ex- 

 posed. Very truly yours, A. B. Mason, 



Sec. of the National Bee-keepers' Association! 



[Ill publishing the foregoing we have as- 

 sumed a very unpleasant and disagreeable 

 duty, to say the least. — Ed.] 



GREASY SECTIONS. 



The Queen the Cause ; A few Facts in Support of 

 the Proposition. 



BY J. A. GOLDEN. 



Dr. D. A McLean, in the March 1st issue of 

 Gleanings, has given us quite an amount of 

 testimony in regard to the greasy appearance 

 of cappings of section honey ; also W. M. 

 Whitney ; and the latter seems to be very anx- 

 ious to buy all such queens from apiarists who 

 hold that the queen is responsible. Dr. D. A. 

 says he wishes to lend his assistance to " sit 

 on " Dr. Miller and other writers who advise 

 the killing of queens that are held responsible 

 for producing the greasy appearance of cap- 

 pings of comb honey. Now, Dr. McLean, I 

 make a specialty of producing section comb 

 honey, and have always held the queen re- 

 sponsible for the greasy appearance spoken of, 

 and I am still of the same opinion, unless you 

 can unravel the following : 



I will give only one instance, and upon this 

 you can see conclusive evidence, I think, if 

 you will turn to Gleanings, 1898, page 690. 

 Now, from the reading of your observations it 

 seems that you base your conclusions upon 

 the condition of the weather and flow of nec- 

 tar. This being so, why was it that all my 

 colonies during 1897 and '98 produced just as 

 beautiful white capped honey as is shown in 

 view No. 1 and 2, page 690 ? and one colony 

 producing the greasy-looking capped honey, 

 both 1897 and '98, as shown in 3 in same view ? 



In presenting the view of section honey 

 shown, it was a test case of three diiTerent 

 styles of separators ; and it so happened that 

 No. 3 was produced by the queen's colony that 

 produced nothing but greasy, smeared, capped 

 honey, both brood as well as section honey ; 

 and in presenting the view I then asked for 

 the opinions of the brethren as to the cause of 



No. 3 showing so dark. Of course, any hon- 

 ey-producer could have told the cause ; but, 

 coming up as it did, all would naturally think 

 the separator had something to do in the mat- 

 ter ; but if you turn to page 844 you will see 

 my answer as previously promised, and the 

 queen lost her ruling, notwithstanding she 

 was the most valuable honey-gathering queen 

 I ever owned ; and if Mr. Whitney is a pro- 

 ducer of extracted honey he is quite wise in- 

 deed in purchasing such queens. 

 Reinersville, O., Mar. 9. 



I didn't see any thing of the deacon again 

 for more than a week, when one day, just as I 

 had finished putting starters in my second 

 thousand of sections, he came in. 



"Say, Lisha," said he, "have you got any 

 grapes yet? Old Lydia Morton has been ail- 

 ing all winter, and I thought I would see if I 

 could get some and take over to her. She is 

 very fond of them." 



I went and brought out a nice basket of 

 Vergennes that looked fresh, and had that 

 rich deep wine color that only choice grapes 

 can show. 



"I declare !" said he; "those look good 

 for February. How in the world do you man- 

 age to keep them so fresh ? " 



" Not much of a trick," I replied. " In the 

 first place, you want a good keeping variety. 

 Some varieties won't keep much better than 

 early apples. I have found the Vergennes one 

 of the best. The Lindley is good ; so is the 

 Merrimac, a black grape, and some others. 

 When they are fully ripe, pick them carefully 

 so as not to bruise them, and put in shallow 

 boxes with slatted bottoms. I use old supers 

 for this. Leave in a cool dry place until the 

 stems shrivel, and then pile one on top of an- 

 other, six or eight deep, and cover the top one 

 with a board or paper, and keep in a cool 

 place — the cooler the better if it doesn't freeze. 

 In this way I keep them most of the winter, 

 and sometimes I have had them in May." 



"That is worth knowing," said the deacon; 

 and after he had hemmed a little he went on. 

 " I have been thiriking, since I was in the oth- 

 er day, about that idea of having dominion 

 over every thing. I am not sure but there is 

 something in it. I thought how you managed 

 your bees. You clip the queens' wings, and 

 change them about and keep them from run- 

 ning away ; but I guess it is a good deal against 

 their will sometimes. And then I thought of 

 old Bill Sykes' son Silas that ran away. You 

 knew him. Now, Bill might have broken one 

 of his boy's legs, or maimed him some way as 

 you do your queen bees, or shut him up, but 

 it would have been a pretty barbarous way of 

 retaining his dominion over him till he was 

 twenty-one. How much better it would have 

 been to bring him up to work, and be dutiful, 



