1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CLE lURE. 



225 



it. The same thing applies to " Given away free, 

 poultry-punches, etc.," page 102. 



You will say I'm taking a critical view. Very. The 

 advertising pages of Gleanings are remarkably 

 clean; but any thing beyond the strict truth in adver- 

 tising is wrong, and, in the judgment of good adver- 

 tisers, foolish. When a dozen advertisers say they 

 have the best whisky in the world, how much do I be- 

 lieve in either? I've glanced through Gleanings, 

 Feb. 1, and it's even cleaner, I think, than usual. 

 Without more careful scrutiny I note only four items 

 which might be questioned: p. 145, " The best farm pa- 

 per on earth." " Best fruit paper," and, p. 146, " 600,000 

 planters will say under oath," and "Best in the 

 world." 



We will consider the first one. It is by 

 the Agricultural Epitomist, an excellent 

 farm journal; but instead of giving $50 in 

 gold /or 3 cents, the real truth of the matter 

 is, they pay the $50 to the people who hunt 

 up subscribers to their journal. This is 

 plainly evident if you read their advertise- 

 ment all through. The $50, etc., is simply 

 to catch the eye, and the others are much 

 after the same fashion. I agree with Dr. 

 Miller in thinking it unwise for Henry Field 

 to use such an expression in advertising his 

 field corn. Now, those who are getting old, 

 like Dr. Miller and myself, are very apt to 

 lack sympathy with the younger ones who 

 may not mean any particular harm by their 

 extravagant statements. I wish our readers, 

 young and old, would tell us what they may 

 think about it. By the way, I dislike to see 

 any farm paper, or any other class journal 

 for that matter, keep proclaiming that 

 theirs is the ' ' best in the world, ' ' especially 

 when there are so many other good and 

 praiseworthy journals. This is a Christian 

 nation, and most of us are trying hard to be 

 not only courteous but Christianlike to our 

 friends and neighbors; and some of us (I 

 verily believe) are striving hard to love even 

 our enemies. It is a pretty big thing just 

 now to claim you have the best of any thing 

 there is in the world. —A. I. R. 



THE U. S. STANDARD FOR THE PURITY OF 

 HONEY. 



Our readers will remember that, some 

 time ago, I stated that the chemists of the 

 Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. 

 C. , were about to revise the standards of 

 honey from the standpoint of the chemist. 

 The old schedules formerly used were defec- 

 tive in that they did not adequately nor 

 properly describe the diflFerent kinds of hon- 

 ey on the market. There seemed to be a 

 disposition on the part of the chemists to 

 narrow the definition of honey in general to 

 only the nectar of flowers stored in combs 

 by bees, leaving out saccharine exudations 

 of plants and exudations from certain in- 

 sects called "aphides." We requested our 

 subscribers to write to Prof. H. W. Wiley, 

 at the Department, urging that the standard 

 be broad enough to include honey- dew, for 

 the reason that the product was liable to be 

 present in any natural honey, whether the 

 bee-keeper desired it or not. The point was 

 right here: If honey-dew were eliminated or 

 not mentioned, any bee-keeper might have 

 his honey classed as ' ' adulterated ' ' by any 

 chemist who would find a saccharine sub- 



stance from aphides. The last bulletin, 

 entitled ' ' Standards of Purity for Food Pro- 

 ducts, " from the oflRce of the Secretary of 

 Agriculture, gives the classification as fol- 

 lows: 



1. Honey is the nectar and saccharine exudations of 

 plants gathered, modified, and stored in the comb by 

 honey-bees (Apis mellifica). It is Ifevo-rotatory, con- 

 tains not^ more than twenty-five (25) per cent of water, 

 not mor^^than twenty-five hundredths (0.25) per cent of 

 ash, and not more than eight (8) per cent of sucrose. 



2. Comb lioncy is honey contained in the cells of comb. 



3. Extracted honey is honey which has been separated 

 from the uncrushed comb by centrifugal force or gravity. 



4. Strained honey is honey removed from the crushed 

 comb by straining or other means. 



This is a vast improvement over the old 

 schedule; moreover, it is not narrowed down 

 to the nectar of flowers as was proposed. It 

 further properly describes ' ' extracted ' ' 

 and ' ' strained ' ' honey, but still leaves out 

 the one thing asked for— namely, honey- 

 dew. J. A. Green, in this issue, p. 221, pro- 

 poses an excellent wording. 



It is possible that we as bee-keepers did 

 not make our representations strong enough 

 nor soon enough. However that may be, 

 the old definition was practically the same 

 so far as the recognition of honey-dew was 

 concerned— the kind of honey that comes 

 from insects. So far no honest bee-keep- 

 er's honey has been classed as adulterated 

 because of the presence of this product; 

 and a chemist has advised me that probably 

 no trouble of that kind will arise. But 

 while we are about it, if not too late we 

 should get the change, as there is no know- 

 ing when some innocent bee-keeper may Ibe 

 made the victim of an unfortunate defini- 

 tion. Bee-keepers know that it would be 

 utterly impossible to keep out all trace of 

 the product of aphides from their honey cer- 

 tain seasons in certain localities. There 

 would be at most only a small amount of it 

 —not enough to affect the flavor or the 

 quality. Ninety-five per cent of all market- 

 able honey, at least, would be entirely free 

 of it. The U. S. chemists, I know, are de- 

 sirous of preventing fraud on the part of 

 the unscrupulous. They certainly do not 

 wish to put a hardship on a few bee-keepers 

 who some seasons can not keep honey-dew 

 out of their honey; and we shall hope the 

 definition as above given will not be final. 

 It is to be hoped that Dr. Frear and his as- 

 sociates will see the justice of the claim of 

 the bee-keepers, and make the definition 

 broad enough to include any thing that bees 

 gather from natural sources. No bee-keep- 

 er would ask more. Producers desire the 

 standard to be rigid enough to exclude any 

 foreign substance that man may put in. 



CLOSE THE ENTRANCES OF BROODING COLO- 

 NIES THIS SPRING. 



It will be well to sprinkle a handful or 

 two of sawdust over the entrances of out- 

 door colonies, both at the home and out 

 yards. This prevents chilling drafts when 

 brood-rearing begins to start up, and may 

 save much brood and not a few bees. When 

 the weather warms up suflftciently, the bees 



