lVt04 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1105 



ers, a strenuous official who was doing his 

 duty in the enforcement of law, in some cor- 

 respondence kept continually referring to 

 honey of our "manufacture." At first we 

 were very indignant, and resented the insin- 

 uation that we manufactured honey; but 

 later correspondence showed that what he 

 had in mind by the term our " manufacture" 

 was honey of our production— t]\^.t is, hon- 

 ey gathered by our bees from flowers, and 

 stored in the combs. If ever there was a 

 ' ' red rag before a bull ' ' it is the term ' ' man- 

 ufacture" when applied to a bee-keeper's 

 production. 



cBut here was a food commissioner, who 

 ought to have known better, who was using 

 that term indiscriminately in his correspon- 

 dence and in his public references; and do 

 you wonder that the ' ' manufactured ' ' comb- 

 honey lie keeps cropping out in the press? 

 When food commissionex's talk about "manu- 

 factured honey," the reporter, who "inter- 

 views" him, of course has to make upj a 

 story to fit, with the result that the whole 

 bee-keeping industry is damaged by the very 

 people, the pure-food commissioners, who are 

 supposed to be its friends. 



I suppose that our political conditions, ne- 

 cessitating a change of administration every 

 once in a while, are responsible for this. 

 An official no more than gets the run of 

 things so that he understands the business 

 in all its details than he is removed and some- 

 body else is put in his place who has to learn 

 the whole thing over again, in the mean time 

 making many blunders until he becomes fa- 

 miliar with all the diflferent kinds of food 

 and food adulterations. 



SIDELIGHTS FROM THE ST. LOUIS CONVEN- 

 TION; BEE-KEEPING IN RUSSIA. 



It will be remembered that Mr. Abram 

 Titoff , a Russian apicultural expert, came to 

 this country commissioned by his govern- 

 ment to study American bee-keeping in all 

 its varied phases. He first came to The A. 

 I. Root Company's plant, and accepted a 

 position with us as employee in our wax- 

 working department. During this time he 

 familiarized himself with the Weed process 

 of foundation-making in every detail. Later 

 on he worked in other departments. When 

 warm weather came on he went out into the 

 bee-yard, and became one of our most effi- 

 cient apiarists. He proved to be not only a 

 skillful bee-keeper but a tremendous worker. 

 After having familiarized himself with all 

 the different methods of queen-rearing 

 known to the business in this country he de- 

 sired to work with and for some prominent 

 honey-producer in extracting honey. As the 

 season last summer was somewhat back- 

 ward I could think of no one but Mr. E. W. 

 Alexander, of Delanson, N. Y., one of the 

 most extensive bee-keepers in the world, 

 who was having a good crop; for be it re- 

 membered last year was a poor one in many 

 localities. To him Mr. Titoff went with our 

 warmest endorsement and recommendation. 

 He come back after two months' work in 



the height of the season, stopped a few 

 days, and then went on to the big national 

 convention at St. Louis, where he gave a 

 very interesting and exhaustive paper on 

 Russian bee-keeping. 



Little has been known about bees in the 

 greatest country of all Europe; and great 

 was our surprise to know of the possibilities 

 of bee-keeping in that land. Mr. Titoff 

 started out by saying that the Americans 

 had often expressed their surprise to him 

 that bee-keeping should be at all practicable 

 in his country; that there seemed to be a 

 general opinion that it was a land of snow, 

 ice, arctic dogs, and fur coats; that Siberia 

 with its convicts was a land of eternal snow, 

 cold, darkness, and horrors. This was a 

 great myth, as he would try to show. The 

 conditions for bee-keeping in Russia were 



ABRAM TITOFF. 



fully as favorable, he thought, as in the 

 United States; and the demand for honey 

 and beeswax was and would be greater, for 

 the reason that the Greek Church in cele- 

 brating her religious rites forbids meat be- 

 ing eaten during the fast, and that during 

 such times great quantities of honey were 

 eaten; also that wax was used in immense 

 quantities for wax candles in the church. 

 He did not believe there was any country in 

 the world where the possibilities for the sale 

 of honey and the development of apiculture 

 could be greater than in his own fatherland. 



Up to the 17th century bees had never 

 been cultivated, and so honey, if secured at 

 all, was, as one might say, the product of 

 the chase. This one fact went to show that, 

 because bees could thrive in a wild state all 

 over the country, they could certainly do well 

 under intelligent cultivation. 



The early history of Russian bae-keeping 



