274 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Aug. 31, 



case he refuses to do this, please report 

 it to us at once. Our reasons for tak- 

 ing Mr. Root at his word will be given 

 you all before many months. — H. A. 

 Burch & Co." 



For the most unblushing effrontery, 

 this firm, I think, will "take the cake." 

 Their business practices will get well 

 aired shortly. E. E. Wokthen. 



Wellsburg, W. Va., Aug. 17, 1881. 



The South Haven, Mich., Sentinel 

 copies the article from the Weekly 

 Bee Journal of Aug. 17, and then 

 comments as follows : 



Too much stress should not be put 

 on the statement of II. A. Burch that 

 he is working eighteen hours per day 

 to fill orders, or on any other excuse 

 he makes. In our next issue we will 

 give a case where he has had money 

 since June, 1879, two years and tti:o 

 months, for which the remitter has not 

 received his goods, Mr. Burch making 

 this "eighteen hours a day" plea in 

 July of last year. We presume the 

 Bee Journal and the Gleanings hope 

 his partner (V) the " Co." part of the 

 firm, will return with wealth to make 

 good the claims of apiarists in differ- 

 ent portions of the country. Your 

 excuses are too thin, Master Herbert; 

 your only excuse to be made, is thorough 

 restitution of the money, or an acknowl- 

 edgment that you really are what so 

 many people consider you. 



On the other hand, Mr. G. \V. Stan- 

 ley, of Wyoming, N. Y., was at this 

 office in June last, en route for South 

 Haven, Mich., for the purpose of get- 

 ting satisfaction for himself and oth- 

 ers from Mr. Burch, or " close him up, 

 if possible," to use his own language. 

 He went, and on his return to New 

 York he wrote the following to this 

 office, according to promise, to let us 

 know the true state of Mr. Burch's 

 affairs : 



I have, arrived home at last, and 

 will tell you what success I had. When 

 1 called on Mr. Burch I found him 

 very busy with his bees, putting up a 

 lot to ship to a man in Indiana, and I 

 must say they were a very line lot. I 

 could find nothing about him in his 

 own town to make me think he had 

 any idea of beating any one, but, on 

 the contrary, found that lie had a great 

 many friends, and was working from 

 4 o'clock in the morning until 11 or 12 

 at night to fill orders and to overthrow 

 the charges of fraud that are brought 

 up against him. True, Mr. B. is a poor 

 man, but is doing all in his power to 

 not only (ill his orders, but to give 

 good satisfaction to all those who send 

 to him for goods. He had. when I 

 found him, 22U colonies of bees in his 

 yard, besides about 40 nuclei, and has 

 a good stock of Dunham foundation 

 and wax on hand. 



I can tell you why he advertises that 

 his bees did notdie, like those of other 

 bee-keepers, last winter (this I learned 

 from other parties). When he sent 

 out his circulars his bees were in line 

 condition, but they were allowed to 

 starve late in the spring by the man 

 who had charge of them, and then he 

 (Mr. Burch) had to take the money 

 that was sent in and buy more to liil 

 the orders. Of course, if all those 

 who have ordered goods of him should 

 claim their money at one time he 

 could not pay them ail, but he has bees 

 and other goods such as they have or- 

 dered to (ill the orders, and is doing so 

 just as fast as he can possibly send out 

 the goods. 



Mr. Burch has more than satisfied 

 me, and gives me a much better lot of 

 goods than my order calls for, and 

 when I wished the money refunded for 

 one of my men, he seemed perfectly 

 willing to do it, and paid over the 

 amount in full. I will say that so far 

 as I have dealt with good, honest nun, 

 II. A. Burch does not fall below the 

 average. G. W. Stanley. 



Wyoming, N. Y., July 4, 1881. 



The above letter from Mr. Stanley 

 staved off the " trouble " for a month, 

 so far as we were concerned. He went 



there prepared for war, and came 

 away sayiDg, " So far as I have dealt 

 with good, honest men, II. A. Burch 

 does not fall below the average." 



Our readers now have an outline of 

 the whole matter before them, and 

 must form their own conclusions. 



Since the foregoing was placed in 

 the hands of the printer, a subsequent 

 letter has been received from Mr. 

 Stanley, bearing date Aug. 22, from 

 which we make the following extract: 



Our Burch bees are good ones, and 

 I have no reason to complain of Burch 

 in view of the straightforward way in 

 which lie dealt with me. 



We have received letters, from sev- 

 eral parties, complaining bitterly of 

 the manner of doing business by two 

 or three queen-breeders and supply 

 dealers ; but hope it will not be neces- 

 sary to publish them. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



The Uses of Honey.— A paper named 



Food of Health remarks as follows : 



Honey can be used in lieu of sugar 

 for almost all kinds of domestic use. 

 It has no superior in the canning and 

 preserving of fruits, making straw- 

 berry shortcake, etc. Many persons 

 claim that honey disagrees with them 

 — makes them sick. This is a mistaken 

 idea and is owing to those persons hav- 

 ing eaten honey mixed with the poi- 

 son of the bee, bee bread, larvae, bees, 

 etc., as the old fashioned strained honey 

 used to be. But the honey of to-day, 

 such as is produced by intelligent bee- 

 keepers, and bearing their own label, 

 is pure nectar, free from all deleterious 

 substances, and is by far the purest 

 and most healthful sweet known. As 

 an article for the table, both useful 

 and ornamental, what can be superior 

 to comb honey ? This is now procured 

 mostly in small frames and is removed 

 from the hives as soon as it is sealed, 

 thus preserving its delicate whiteness. 

 But for use in the cuisine extracted 

 honey is superior, as it is free from 

 wax. being thrown from the comb by 

 centrifugal force. 



How, What and When to Feed.— Mr. 



L. C. Root, in the American Agricul- 

 turist, says : 



In most localities the season for 

 lioney gathering to any great extent 

 lias now passed. Some sections will 

 afford honey from Sweet Clover(Meli- 

 lot), and others from Golden Rod, 

 Aster, Enpatorium, and all fall flowers. 

 In August I urged the necessity of not 

 endeavoring to secure too much sur- 

 plus, and thus leave the brood combs 

 with too little honey for the bees to 

 winter upon. There will be cases 

 where the honey yield closes very ab- 

 ruptly, when the combs will be fully 

 occupied with brood, and the honey 

 almost entirely stowed above in the 

 boxes. Where this is the case, the 

 bees must be fed. Where fall flowers 

 are abundant, and more honey may be 

 stored than is necessary for winter, 

 empty combs should be supplied, and 

 lioney stored for spring feeding. 



If there are exceptional cases where 

 from improper management, or from 

 causes referred to above, we find feed- 

 ing necessary, what, shall we feed ? I 

 answer, let it be pure honey. I have 

 heretofore advocated the use of the 

 best " A" sugar, but time has 

 changed in our practice. The darker 

 grades of lioney are now so low in price 

 that it is no longer to our interest to 

 feed cane sugar and sell our honey. 

 Hut our strongest argument against 

 feeding other sweets than honey is, 

 that great efforts must be made by bee- 



keepers everywhere to preserve the 

 standard; of purity of honey. For this 

 reason, I urge that no other food than 

 honey be used for our bees. I am well 

 aware that cane sugar may be used 

 for wintering in such a manner that 

 all of it will be consumed by the 

 bees, but as we advance in the busi- 

 ness, I find it desirable to feed more 

 freely. While so many articles of 

 a saccharine nature are being so freely 

 and vilely adulterated, bee-keepers 

 should avoid even the appearance of 

 adulteration. 



See to it that each colony is supplied 

 with a good prolific queen. It is impor- 

 tant that all queens be of good quality 

 uopn entering winter-quarters. 



Pasture for Bees a Necessity. — Mr. 



W. Camm, in the Bee-Keepers' 1 Guide, 

 says : 



Every season convinces me more 

 and more that bee-keepers must sow 

 lioney plants and provide pasture for 

 his bees, and provide if possible a suc- 

 cession of bloom. I sowed 2 or 3 acres 

 of mellilot this spring, on poor, clay 

 hill points ; and where sown in oats, 

 it makes a poor show, but where the 

 ground was roughly plowed, and the 

 mellilot alone sown, there is a good 

 stand. Several acres of alsike also 

 were sown, and in moist places it will 

 bloom this fall, but in dry spots it will 

 make a thin stand. These with white 

 clover and buckwheat, will make our 

 main honey crop except where linden 

 is abundant. As 1 write, late showers 

 seem to have started the honey again 

 and at early dawn the bees tly as though 

 they had found lioney dew. I sowed 

 a good deal of mustard but its period 

 of blooming was so brief, the bees 

 worked upon it so few hours each day, 

 that I shall not sow it again. Catnip 

 and a kind of wild , white flowered mint, 

 is crowded from morning until night, 

 and upon mignonette they swarm all 

 through the heat of the day. A card 

 from the Rev. A. Salisbury, Camargo, 

 111., says that his patch of 5 acres of 

 mellilot swarms with bees from time 

 of flowering until frost, and that it 

 completely bridged the season from 

 white clover till fall bloom ; but of 

 quality and quantity of yield he would 

 not speak, as 500 colonies more or less, 

 had pastured on his patch till the pres- 

 ent season. 



I would rather have common black 

 bees with plenty of continuous bee 

 bloom, than the best of Italians, Cyp- 

 rians, or Hungarians and poor bee 

 pasture. 



Management of Comb Honey.— Mrs. 

 L. Harrison, in the Prairie Farmer, 

 gives the following advice : 



As soon as the cells are sealed, it 

 should be removed, so as not to get 

 discolored with the travel of the bees. 

 To be gilt-edged, that is No. 1, its 

 snowy whiteness should be preserved, 

 and whoever has this kind to sell will 

 win the day. We know bee-keepers 

 who let the lioney remain on the hives, 

 until frost drives the bees down into 

 the body of the hives, for warmth. 

 The honey that remains on during the 

 season becomes discolored, and has 

 not that delicate tenderness that comb 

 lioney has that was built and lilled 

 quickly, and removed as soon as 

 completed. 



In our early days of bee-keeping, 

 we were yearly shipwrecked in the 

 keeping of our honey, after we had 

 followed these directions. " Why ?" 

 The place we kept it in was not ac- 

 cording to bee-lore. We tried the 

 cellar, an upstairs closet, an airy cham- 

 ber, all with the same result. The 

 lioney would sweat, get watery and 

 ooze through the comb and run from 

 the boxes. When it was in this con- 

 dition we would have to put it on to 

 the bees again for them to dry it up, 

 which they always quickly accom- 

 plished. We did not like doing our 

 work twice over, and in our dilemma, 

 thought we would try the kitchen, as 

 we had failed in every available place. 

 We wrapped the boxes in newspaper, 

 tied them up securely, in order to keep 



dust, smoke or flies from defacing 

 tli9 wood, and put on top of a cupboard 

 all the place would hold. There was 

 a coal fire in this room to do the cook- 

 ing, and at times the thermometer 

 stood at 100° in the shade on the adjoin- 

 ing porch. We thought at the time 

 that the great heat would melt it into 

 a heap at the bottom of the boxes ; but 

 far from it, remaining perfectly dry — 

 it was cured. Two years afterwards a 

 lady who had purchased a box of it, 

 showed us a comb, saying ; " I can 

 handle it as easily as a piece of cake — 

 it is dry and not sticky one particle." 

 Our experience proves to us, that to 

 keep honey perfectly, it must be kept 

 in a hot, dry, airy place. Other locali- 

 ties may differ in this respect, we have 

 only experience in this locality. 



Clover as a Fertilizer.— Discussing 

 the mysteries of fertilization, the 

 American Cultivator thus alludes to 

 experiments with clover : 



For the last forty years there has 

 been no article known to agriculturists 

 which has so largely claimed the at- 

 tention of the men of science, or indi- 

 rectly that of the farmer, as has nitro- 

 gen. Theory and practice alike have 

 confirmed the opinion that there is no 

 more important element, either in the 

 vegetable or animal kingdom, than 

 this, and yet how, or in what manner, 

 or in what kind of combinations, it 

 enters into the vegetable kingdom, we 

 know no more than we did when the 

 inquiry first began. We can discourse 

 eloquently about the fertilizing quali- 

 ties of Peruvian guano, we can tell how 

 its fertilizing qualities depend on the 

 amount of nitrogen entering into 

 the plants and we know that clover is 

 a wonderful fertilizer, that it leaves a 

 large amount of nitrogen in the soil, 

 in its roots and scattered leaves ; but 

 whether it did not accumulate the 

 whole from the soil and present it to 

 us in new compounds, or, through its 

 leaves, presenting substances to the 

 nitrogen in the atmosphere which 

 would combine with it so that it could 

 be carried to the soil, and made of ad- 

 vantage to other vegetation, we are to- 

 day as ignorant as we were 100 years 

 ago. But this we do know, that one 

 kind of vegetation does furnish and 

 prepare food for another kind, and in 

 this way we find the practical value of 

 alternating crops. 



Mr. Lawes, in 1873, experimented 

 with barley and clover. He sowed 

 half a field with barley without ma- 

 nure, which had been kept in crop the 

 3 previous years, and fertilized with 

 artificial manures : the other half had 

 been sown to clover the year previous. 

 The yield of barley was 31 bushels to 

 the acre, and clover 3 tons 48 pounds 

 per acre. The next year the whole 

 field was sown to barley without ma- 

 nure. The half previously in barley 

 gave 32% bushels ; the other half after 

 clover gave 58 bushels per acre. Thus 

 we see that after taking off a very val- 

 uable crop of clover he had increased 

 the fertility of the soil to almost 

 double that of the half which had been 

 in barley. Now, without entering 

 into any speculative theories of where 

 this amount of fertilizing material 

 came from, we have the facts from 

 which we cannot ignore that by the 

 aid of clover the crop of barley was 

 vastly increased. Nor can we without 

 presumption say that this fertality 

 was the result of nitrogen which the 

 clover collected any more than it was 

 the result of phoshoric acid and pot- 

 ash, which it had also collected, — for 

 unless there were already accumulated 

 in the soil these two principles equiva- 

 lent to the requisitions of that amount 

 of barley, it would have been in vain 

 that the soil obtained through the clo- 

 ver the necessary amount of nitrogen. 



Bee-Keepers' Union. — The Eastern 

 New York Bee-Keepers' Union Asso- 

 ciation, will hold their eighth semi- 

 annual Convention on Tuesday, Sept. 

 27, 1881, at 10 a. m., at Knowersville, 

 N. Y. All bee-keepers are invited to 

 attend. W. D. Wright, Pres. 



N. D. West, Sec. 



