June. 1009. 



American Hee Jfonrnal 



199 



Signer Asprea so kindly sent to us. They 

 are very interesting. 



A Report from Austria 



ilr. Alex. Schroeder, of Trieste, Aus- 

 tria, wrote us May 5, as follows : 



Dear Mr. York: — I beg you to accept my 

 best congratulations and good wishes for many 

 more ytars to come in connection with the 

 American Bee Journal. Tliis is in response to 

 your Twenty-fifth Anniversary editorial, in the 

 April number. 



I have been ill now for about 4 weeks, with 

 a big anthrax that has weakened me materially, 

 but now I can get up and walk about, and hope 

 that within a week or so to be able to attend 

 to my business again. 



April was fine, but May up to this time has 

 been cold and rainy. 



With best wishes and greetings from Mrs. 

 Schrceder and myself, I am. 



Yours faithfully 



Alex. Schroeder. 



Our readers will remember that Mr. 

 and Mrs. Schroeder made a short but 

 very pleasant visit to the United States 

 last year. We mentioned their call on us 

 at the time. 



Australian Honey 



Everyone thinks his own baby pretti- 

 est. In the Northern States there is a 

 general preference for white-clover hon- 

 ' ey. In California, nothing equals the 

 flavor of sage honey. In .\ustralia is 

 to be found the delightful honey from 

 the eucalyptus. Yet the London mar- 

 ket will have none of this eucalyptus 

 honey in spite of earnest efforts to in- 

 troduce it there as a superior table lion- 

 ey. That bright Australian, R. Beuhne, 

 after interviewing the leading markets 

 of England, Germany, and .\merica, 

 thus sensibly sizes up the situation, in 

 The Federal Independent Bee-keeper : 



''Taking all these facts into consideration, 

 it cannot be doubted any longer that the honey 

 gathered from our eucalypts possesses a dis- 

 tinct flavor, not noticeable to Australians, who 

 are used . to it, but very evident to people in 

 other countries. This flavor is not necessarily 

 that of the essential oil of the eucalypt, and 

 the term eucalyptus flavor does not imply more 

 than a description of the characteristics of hon- 

 ey gathered from these trees." 



ter an illness of 3 months. The latter 

 part of January he fell 12 feet and re- 

 ceived injuries, which, complicated with 

 a severe attack of grippe, resulted fa- 

 tally. 



Mr. Russell was born in CuUen, Scot- 



ings with !Mr. Russell, and everything 

 was always entirely satisfactory. 



His wife will have the tender sym- 

 pathy of all bee-keeping friends in her 

 bereavement. 



No. 2-Fergi'.son Uncapping Machine— Simpler Adju.stment. 



land, .-Kpril 4, 1850. He went to Min- 

 neapolis in 1884, and located at Minne- 

 haha Falls, where he remained. 



In 1890 Mr. Russell began bee-keeping 

 as a business, and devoted much time 

 and study to this work, which he found 

 very congenial. When the office of State 

 bee-inspector was created. Governor 

 Johnson honored him by the appoint- 

 ment, and he was reappointed thereaf- 

 ter. In the death of Mr. Russell, Min- 

 nesota loses one of its most entlnisiastic 

 workers for the interest of bee-culture. 



It was our good fortune to have a per- 

 sonal acquaintance with Mr. Russell, hav- 

 ing met him at a number of liee-keep- 

 ers' conventions. He was a very genial 



No. 1-Fergi'si)N L.ncappixi. Machine in Actial operatio.n. 



Death of William Russell 



William Ru.-.sell, State fiee-Inspector 

 of Minnesota, died Sunday, May 16, 1909, 

 at the Thomas Hospital, Minneapolis, af- 



and interesting man, and always ready 

 to do his part in any line of work in 

 which he became interested. Some years 

 ago, we had consideralile business deal- 



The Ferguson Uncapping Machine 



Some time last fall we mentioned 

 this machine in an indirect way, as Mr. 

 Ferguson was not quite ready at that 

 time, to have it announced under his 

 name. Even now he is not prepared to 

 offer it for sale, but has completed 

 several of the machines for use in ex- 

 perimenting in a few of the large ex- 

 tracted-honey apiaries. For simplicity 

 and inexpensiveness we believe it will 

 lead all others for the present. In fact. 

 we can scarcely imagine how a machine 

 could be invented for the purpose of 

 uncapping honey tliat would be any sim- 

 pler in its mechanism, and cheaper in 

 its production, and yet do the work 

 properly. It is light in weight and very 

 compact, not weighing over about 25 

 pounds so that it can easily be carried 

 in one hand. There is practically noth- 

 ing about it to get out of order, and 

 for rapidity of uncapping we don't see 

 that anything further could be desired. 

 In trying it with Mr. Ferguson, we 

 found that combs could be run through 

 it and satisfactorily uncapped at the 

 rate of about 6 a minute, and that 

 surely is "going some. " 



It is easily adjustable for different 

 thicknesses of combs, and also for vari- 

 ous depths of frames. Neither heat 

 nor any outside power other than that 

 of the hand is necessary to do the work 

 with tliis machine. In introducing and 

 withdrawing the comb it is not neces- 

 sary to touch anytliing but the frame. 

 The cappings drop where wanted away 

 from the knives so that it is also clean 

 to manipulate. 



Fig. I represents a regular Lang- 

 stroth extracting-framc which helps to 

 get an idea of the size of the machine. 

 Wlien introducing a frame it is set in 

 a l)ottom guide and is then pushed be- 

 tween the two sets of uncapping-knives 

 until the nearest frame end-bar is about 



