Vol. XIV 



OCTOBER, 1904. 



No. 10 



A POPULAR FALLACY. 



Apiarian Counselors and the Press Still Teaching a False 



Doctrine. 



By O. O. Poppleton. 



BEE-KEEPING literature has, ever 

 since tlie general use of tlie ex- 

 tractor, been full of warnings 

 ibout the dangeu.- of taking out honey 

 jefore it is i)roperly cured. These 

 •epeated warnings are, and probably 

 lahvays will be, in order and should be 

 Ireiterated time and again by our 

 periodicals. 



In my opinion a sen'ious mistake has 

 been made in many of these warnings 

 —one which materially lessens their 

 good effect. I refer to the idea that 

 materially more honey, such as it is, 

 can be obtained by extracting honey 

 before any of it is sealed over. So far 

 as I know this idea has been treated by 

 all writers as though it was an actual 

 fact, conceded by every one. I be- 

 lieve ovu" editor, Mr. Hill, and myself 

 ■ace the only ones who have ever ques- 

 tioned this idea, and gave warning of 

 ithe serious injury it was doing. So 

 (long as human nature remains as it is, 

 some men will be found even among 

 bee-keepers who think more of a few 

 extra dollars than they do of right or 

 wrong; and so long as they are told of 

 a way to make more money by wrong 

 methods than by right ones will use 

 the wrong ones without regard to any 

 injury done to others. It is time this 

 idea were sent into oblivion where it 

 Tightly l)elongs, and where it can do no 

 further damage. 



My attention Avas first directed to 

 this matter while keeping bees in 

 Cuba, some 15 years ago. Up to that 

 time I supposed the idea was correct, 

 having seen it repeatedly given by our 

 foremost writers and never disputed 

 by any one; but while watching some 

 experiments on other points I stumbled 

 on some new ideas. 



Special conditions there make it pos- 

 sible to observe much more accurately 

 some points in bee-keeping than it is 

 possible to do in this country. Here 

 our honey yielding flowers remain con- 

 tinuously in bloom day after day during 

 their season and any sharp difference 

 in the quantity of honey stored by the 

 bees on consecutive days is caused by 

 weather changes of some sort or other. 

 The bell-flower, from which most of 

 Cuban honey is obtained is a daily 

 bloomer that is. new flowers come out 

 each day and last for that day only. 

 It is very irregular in the amount of 

 bloom it has day by day. I have seen 

 hedges and other places almost as 

 white as a snow-bank one day with 

 bloom and the next day one might 

 Avalk a mile and not see a hundred 

 blossoms, while the following day 

 there might be half or a quarter as 

 many as on the first day. As the 

 weather conditions are much more 

 steady there than in this country the 

 amount of honey gathered any day 



