Aug. IS. 1911 



cially of headache remedies. It was found 

 in the latter that many and most of them 

 contained highly injurious drugs, and that 

 all of them were misbranded in that the 

 claim was made that they were " harmless " 

 (?) and general cure-alls. 



Of the several hundred instances of con- 

 demned food made public in the last few 

 days, not one relates to adulteration of 

 honey. This would indicate that bee-keep- 

 ers to-day are not having to contend with 

 the cheap glucosed honey as they did before 

 Dr. Wiley got the national pure-food law 

 enacted five years ago. 



If hundred's of cases of adulteration and 

 misbranding are found to-day under rigid 

 pure-food laws, what must have been the 

 number of bogus food preparations before 

 our food laws were enacted? It is a wonder 

 that the whole generation of us did not have 

 to go to the hospitals, the madhouses, and 

 premature graves, to say nothing of the far 

 larger class who have escaped all three, yet 

 have been "ailing" all their lives and won- 

 dering what was the matter. 



Sjjccial thanks are due to Dr. Harvey W. 

 Wiley, Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry, 

 for bringing about a new order of things — a 

 condition where adulteration and misbrand- 

 ing are rapidly disappearing because those 

 concerned in the nefarious business are being 

 arrested and fined. No man in the whole 

 national government has done more to pre- 

 serve the life and health of the American 

 nation than Dr. Wiley, for it is he who set 

 the ball rolling in the first place. If you 

 haven' c written the President, urging Dr. 

 Wiley's retention in the Department where 

 he has done such splendid work, do so at 

 once. We believe Mr. Taft means to do the 

 right thing in the matter, and it is up to 

 you to let him know how you feel about the 

 work of so useful a man. 



WORKING FOR AN INCREASE; AN IMPROVE- 

 MENT IN feeders; A SCHEME FOR SAV- 

 ING SUGAR. 



We have been conducting some experi- 

 ments in building up nuclei into colonies. 

 To that end we found that ordinary feeders 

 give out the food too fast. Half a pint of 

 syrup daily will start brood-rearing at al- 

 most any time of the year when the bees 

 can fly; but, unfortunately, bees will take 

 the half-pint out of the ordinary feeder in 

 about an hour's time. So much food com- 

 ing in all at once, then stopping short off, 

 causes general excitement, making more or 

 less of an uproar in the apiary. This unduly 

 wears out the wings of the bees, makes them 

 cross, and is liable to cause robbing, for the 

 bees in the air will hunt high and low to 

 find where this supply of food came from. 

 This is a needless waste of energy and bee- 

 life. 



We believe that we have made the discov- 

 ery (while not new it is new to most people) 

 that our feeders as now constructed allow 

 the food to be taken too fast; that means 

 that the ordinary pepper-box feeder should 



483 



have all the holes soldered up but one or 

 two. Out of such a feeder it will take a 

 good-sized nucleus all day to take half a pint 

 of syrup. The supply of food comes in just 

 fast enough to stimulate brood-rearing, and 

 yet not fast enough to cause excitement. 



It is well known that a very light steady 

 honey-flow will cause brood-rearing to go on 

 at a more rapid pace than a heavy intermit- 

 tent flow. We have decided that, for stim- 

 ulating, a feeder should be so regulated, if 

 possible, that the bees will get a \ ery small 

 supply lasting during the entire 24 hours. 

 Our experiments are not complete yet; 

 and, while we have not formed definite con- 

 clusions, we are simply giving our readers 

 the benefit of our present impressions, so 

 they can be trying it out for themselves. 

 Many bee-keepers will find on their hands, 

 this fall, colonies weak with no brood. 

 Such bees, unless they have a fresh infusion 

 of young brood during August and Septem- 

 ber, will not be able to survive the winter. 

 If their owner, on the other hand, can give 

 them half a pint of syrup so that it will take 

 them 24 hours to get the half-pint, they will 

 save their bees and get more brood. When 

 a pint of syrup is given at a time, and the 

 bees take it up inside of an hour, there is 

 greater excitement; and when the supply of 

 food is exhausted, brood-rearing has a ten- 

 dency to come to a stand-still, for the rea- 

 son, probably, that the bees fear to continue 

 brood-rearing unless they have the prospect 

 of a steady supply every hour in the day. 



Those who have pepper-box feeders of any 

 sort, or Boardman feeders with perforated 

 bottoms, should have all the holes soldered 

 up by a tinsmith except one or two. We 

 find we can cut down to one or two holes. 

 If one doesn't have either of the feeders 

 mentioned, he can take an ordinary self- 

 sealing tin fruit-can, punch a hole in the 

 self-sealing top, no larger than would admit 

 an ordinary pin. 



If, by experiment, this hole is not big 

 enough to let out the syrup fast enough, 

 punch another hole and fill the can with 

 syrui) made by mixing sugar and water in 

 equal parts by measure or weight. Invert 

 the can over a colony of bees and then note 

 the results. If you "don't find that you get 

 more brood for' a given amount of syrup, 

 we shall be surprised. In other words, this 

 manner of stimulating should save a con- 

 siderable amount of sugar. 



Later. — Later experiments with the one- 

 hole pepper-box feeder tend to show that 

 the principles of slow feeding, set forth 

 above, are correct and sound. Slow contin- 

 uous feeding by which it will take the col- 

 ony the whole 24 hours to take up a pint of 

 syrup, will produce more brood for the syr- 

 up used than if the same amount is taken 

 out of the feeder in an hours time. The 

 one-hole feeder does not excite the bees in 

 the least. Those whose colonies are not 

 strong enough to go into winter, and who 

 desire to save as much as possible in the 

 cost of sugar, will do well to try the one- 

 hole feeder. 



