1904 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



169 



do field work, and which have, perhaps, 

 never taken wing', will stick to the combs, 

 while a majorit}' of the older ones will fall 

 oflF. The few that do cling will, of course, 

 gfo back; but their return will not percepti- 

 bly weaken the nucleus. I feel sure you 

 must know of this trick unless you have 

 been working with hybrids so long- that you 

 had forgotten it; but it works like a charm 

 with pure Italians. Hybrids and blacks 

 all shake easily, 30ung' as well as old. — 

 Ed.] 



Glycerine, a small per cent, put in hon- 

 ey to keep it liquid, p 120. I'm afraid of 

 that — very much afraid of it. We raised a 

 howl against putting in glucose to keep 

 from granulating, and this is just a little 

 like it. The higher price of glycerine 

 makes a difference, but — but — [Your last 

 unfinished sentence answers j'our own ques- 

 tion. Adulteration, properly speaking", is 

 the putting of a cheaper ingredient into a 

 more expensive article for the purpose of 

 deceiving, and lessening the cost of the 

 product. If two per cent of glycerine would 

 prevent granulation, let us say 2 lbs. in 

 100, would any one call it adulteration, 

 when glycerine at wholesale costs 20 c. per 

 lb. as ag-ainst 6 or 7 for extracted honey? 

 It was once said that 10 to 20 per cent of 

 glucose would prevent g-ranulation. The 

 larger the quantit}", the more sure the pre- 

 vention. But glucose costs less than one- 

 fourth as much as honey; and it is very ev- 

 ident that the people who first advocated 

 g-lucose to prevent granulation did so sim- 

 ply to cover up a deeper- laid scheme of 

 cheapening- the product, with the intention 

 of selling it as pure honey, and 7iot to pre- 

 vent granulation. 



But we do not know yet that glycerine 

 will have any effect; and if it does I should 

 not think of using more than two or three 

 per cent. Indeed, I question whether any 

 one could afford to use any more. Let's 

 see: 100 lbs. of ex'racted, we will say, 

 would cost $6.00. Suppose we should put 

 in 3 lbs. of glycerine, worth 60 cents. This 

 would be enough to wipe out a good profit. 

 Themarginon honey isclose; and if onecould 

 make 10 per cent on his honey, or 60 cents, 

 he is making a fair profit — that is, when 

 he is buying to sell again. But you might 

 argue that a man who bottles his honejs 

 and gets 20 cents per lb. for it at retail, 

 could afford to use the glycerine to the ex- 

 tent of two or three per cent or more. But 

 does the one who receives 20 cents retail ac- 

 tually make much more than the one who 

 wholesales in barrels and square cans at 7 

 to 8 cents? We must deduct the cost of the 

 glass package, the cost of bottling, labeling, 

 washing of the bottles, corks, etc. Now 

 that I have asked this question, whether 

 one can make more money bottling than he 

 can to sell at a good price wholesale, I ain 

 wondering whether our subscribers can not 

 help us in the solution of it. I once talked 

 with a large bottler, and he told me that if 

 he could get a good fair wholesale price for 

 his honey in bulk he could actually make 



more clear cash than he could to bottle. 

 Then why did he put it up in glass? Sim- 

 plj' because, a good deal of the time, he can 

 not get his price for bulk honey, and he is 

 obliged to bottle in order to make the nec- 

 essary profit in his business. — Ed.] 



1/^eieJibor3jieldj 



Speaking about "kicking up a dust," 

 the Austrian Imperial Union, or what might 

 be translated as such, which includes near- 

 ly all Austrian bee- keepers, is making it- 

 self felt. Its first action was to interview 

 the Commissioner of Railways to see if he 

 would not have the railway-beds of that 

 kingdom planted with honey-bearing flow- 

 ers. The attempt was perfectly successful. 

 That, certainly, is a step in the right di- 

 rection, not only in the securing honey, but 

 in getting unsightly weeds out of the way. 



The Central Union, in Prague, has se- 

 cured for its members very cheap insurance 

 on bees. For the trifling sum of 8 cents 

 every member of the Union is insured, per 

 colony of bees and hive, against loss by fire, 

 storm, and thieves. So much for foreign 

 dust. 



\iu 



BRITISH BEE JOURNAL. 

 A correspondent writing from Natal, 

 South Africa, says: 



I had some very pretty sections of comb honey last 

 year, some filled with pure orange-blossom honey as 

 white as snow. Then I had some thinner sections, 

 darker honey, from the mango trees. Many people I 

 showed the sections to here said it was the first honey 

 they had seen "made to order " and one lady insisted 

 it had been made by machinery! 



A writer makes the following sensible 

 suggestion. Perhaps the National may 

 have to consider the matter some day: 



I should be glad to know whether it is legal to de-' 

 serine as " honey " any production otherwise than the 

 nectar gathered by bees from the flowers. For exam- 

 ple, would it be legal to describe glucose as " glucose 

 honey," or treacle as •' treacle honey'? If it be not 

 legal, I thi:k it is the duty of bee keepers to take such 

 action as will at once cause the withdrawal of a certain 

 advertisement, headed, '• Honey without Bees," and 

 as a sub-head, " A New Food Delicacy." 



In the issue for Jan. 21 the editor says: 



It is with sincere regret and sorrow that we have to 

 announce that the Revue Internationale closes its use- 

 ful career after an existence of twenty-five years. We 

 have the last number before us in which M. Ed Ber- 

 trand, the venerated originator and editor of the pa- 

 per, takes leave of his readers. Many papers are 

 started and after a short existence disappear without 

 being missed; but with respect to the Revue Interna- 

 tionate, we venture to think the regret will be univer- 

 sal and the void created will be long felt. All bee- 

 keepers acquainted with the French language read 

 with intertst what appeared in this, the leading ex- 

 positor of the movable comb sysiem on the Contnu nt 

 of Europe, and looked forward to its appear:, uce 



