72 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



of Mr. Heddon, wlio at much expense 

 of both time and money, and who 

 have no.v about equipped tlieir bee- 

 yards with wliat Mr. Heddon now 

 calls " old goods," will with despair- 

 ing sadness realize the fact that their 

 fertile leader has again changed 

 ground, and asks them to again throw 

 away the old and accept the new. 

 Perhaps to them it will seem rather 

 too much for conservative and plod- 

 ding human nature. Perhaps they 

 will think that Mr. Heddon is too 

 uon -conservative to make a vei'y good 

 leader. Perhaps there are others who 

 think that Air. Heddon belongs to 

 that class of men who live for the 

 good of posterity ; that his very bright 

 and inventive mind originates too 

 much, and runs into devious channels 

 to make liim a man of staid convic- 

 tions ; that the bee-world, as well as 

 the outside world, require such men. 

 but that it is posterity which soberly 

 considers, cons over and selects for 

 their use from the extended researches 

 of such geniuses. 



If there be bee-keepers of such 

 opinions, shame on them all ! Are 

 those who unshrewdly guessed that 

 inventive genius had reached its 

 acme, to be re-imbursed for loss sus- 

 tained from their bad guessing V Or 

 are those who will say that Mr. Hed- 

 don yesterday championed the hang- 

 ing frame, and to-day chooses the 

 Huber V that a short time since he 

 battled valiantly with Mr. Doolittle 

 for non-separators, and now prefers 

 separators V Are these men to be 

 heard v By no means ! Who shall 

 deny the right of change, or who shall 

 cripple the wing of genius V 



But with particularity to the hive, 

 the writer propounds these questions 

 without undertaking to answer them 

 himself : 



1. Is there not too much machinery 

 about it 'i 



2. Does it not require too nice 

 mechanical work— too precise meas- 

 urement of its details— to be readily 

 adapted to general use V 



3. Can men who pursue bee-keep- 

 ing for profit afford, at the present 

 price of honey, to use S4 hives i* 



4. Will not the interchange of two 

 shallow hanging-frame hives answer 

 all practicable purposes of inversion V 



Henderson, *o Ky. 



For tbe American Beo JoumaL 



My Experience in Bee-Keeping. 



A. C. FASSETT. 



On page 92 of the American Bee 

 Journal for 188.5. will be found my 

 report for 1884, stating how I built up 

 my apiary, the kind of hive that 1 use, 

 etc., and tliat at the time I wrote, 

 Feb. 9, 1.885. I had in all •» colonies 

 of bees in winter quarters— 1.5 packed 

 on tfie summer stands, and 40 in the 

 cellar; those in the cellar were kept 

 dry and warm. I had no thermometer 

 that 1 might see how the temperature 

 ranged, though I know that it did not 

 freeze there ; in fact, they were kept 

 the same as I had wintered them be- 

 fore with scarcely any loss. 



I also stated the kind of bees that I 

 had, and that I expected to Italianize 

 all of them the next season. Well. I 

 did do so, and with not much trouble, 

 either, for I only saved 2 out of the 

 5-5 colonies, and one of them had a 

 queen that would not lay. I had all 

 of my bees in winter quarters by 

 Nov. 23, 1884 ; some became restless 

 in February, and Feb. 2.3 being the 

 first day since Xov. 23 that was warm 

 enough' for bees to tly, I took them all 

 out of the cellar for a flight, and 

 found 3 dead colonies. On April 5 I 

 took them all out of the cellar to stay, 

 and found 29 colonies dead, and also 

 14 out of the 15 that were packed out- 

 side, were dead. All died with the 

 diarrhea, I think, which left me 9 

 rather light ones on April 5. 188-5. 



They then began to dwindle, and I 

 thought that they were all going, so I 

 took all I could find and put them into 



2 hives— queen and all— and the re- 

 sult was that I saved 2; but one of 

 them had to do all the breeding for 

 both until one could rear a queen. I 

 kept them both strong by taking 

 brood from the old queen. I then 

 bought one good colony and 3 Italian 

 queens in May, and was successful in 

 rearing queens, so that by .luly 1 I 

 had 30 small colonies, all doing finely; 

 but on account of the scarcity of late 

 honey, the fall breeding was a failure, 

 so I united the colonies, and now 

 have 17, some of which are weak. I 

 wish that some prominent corres- 

 pondent would write an article on 

 how to handle colonies that are light 

 in both bees and stores. 



I have 14 colonies in the cellar and 



3 outside. I put them all into the 

 cellar at first, but they would not keep 

 still, so I had to take the 3 out and 

 pack them ; up to this date (Jan. 22) 

 I have not lost a single colony. 



Watson,? Mich. 



For the American 1U« Journau 



Ttie Manufacture of Eggs and Comlis, 



S. F. NEWMAN, NOBWALK, O. 



Editor of the Bee Journal.— I 

 enclose an article on " Jlaniifactured 

 Eggs," the writer of which is evi- 

 dently disgusted with certain editors 

 who are constantly giving editorials 

 on subjects about which they are 

 totally ignorant — thus misleading the 

 public. Recently editorials have ap- 

 peared in the Cleveland Leader and 

 Cliicago Advance, both stating that 

 honey-combs are made, filled with 

 bogus honey, and capped, all done by 

 machinery. A certain professor also 

 gets a " dab " for his " scientific pleas- 

 antries." Possibly you may think 

 the article worthy of "a place in the 

 American Bee Journal. It may 

 be ihat the " traducers " of comb 

 honey can be reached by ridicule, if 

 in no other way. Here is the article 

 alluded to : 



" PoDUNK Corners, O. 

 To the Editor of the Chronicle : 

 Dear ^'i>.-— How rapt in astonish- 

 ment is the mind when it reverts 

 back over a period of 50 or GO years, 

 and notes the wonderful discoveries. 



improvements and inventions that 

 have been made which tend to pro- 

 mote the comfort, happiness and 

 w^elfare of mankind. The last of all 

 these, but by no means the least use- 

 ful, is the remarkable discovery of a 

 process for manufacturing artificial 

 eggs, upon which the editor of the 

 Cleveland Leader and Herald has 

 quite a lengthy editorial in his paper 

 of Dec. 1(), 1885. This discovery, like 

 many others, seems to have happened 

 just at the time when most needed, 

 for, as we all know, eggs are now used 

 for many purposes for which they 

 were not formerly used, and their 

 increased use has so incre.ised the price 

 that it has become quite burdensome; 

 but it is more than probable that as 

 soon as arrangements can be made for 

 obtaining them by the new process, 

 their price will be materially reduced 

 so that all. the poor as well as the 

 ricli. can always be supplied with an 

 abundance of this desirable ' fruit.' 



■' These eggs are so perfect and so 

 like those obtained the usual way, 

 that it is impossible to distinguish 

 them from the genuine, and so far as 

 we have tested them for culinary and 

 scientific purposes they -^m "fully 

 equal. The editor of the Cleveland 

 ieaffer is mistaken in saying they can 

 be detected by boiling, and I think he 

 does wrong to throw any obstacle in 

 the way of this new enterprise. 



'■ The gentleman who discovered 

 the process by which these eggs are 

 manufactured, resides in this county. 

 He is a philanthropist of ttie highest 

 order, constantly seeking to do that 

 which will benefit his fellow men. He 

 has distinguished himself in many 

 ways as a scientist, and probably is 

 not excelled in that direction by any 

 living man. When these eggs were 

 first tested to determine their hatch- 

 ing qualities, it was found that they 

 were delicient in some very important 

 ingredients. Although the chickens 

 were perfectly formed, their bones 

 lacked that firmness necessary for 

 easy locomotion. A leading physiol- 

 ogist residing here, having been con- 

 sulted, advised the inventor to mix 

 pulverized bone with the albuminous 

 part of the eggs. This advice was 

 followed and worked admirably. 



" There is another defect, however, 

 which seems not to be so easily over- 

 come. The young chickens are en- 

 tirely destitute of feathers, and no 

 wav has yet been discovered to remedy 

 the" defect. The inventor held the 

 theory that the feathers came from 

 the yolk, and he thought that if a 

 larger amount of carrots and saffron 

 was used the feathers might be pro- 

 duced. I did not agree with him, for 

 so far as my observation extended, 

 I had never "found any feathers in 

 either of those plants, and a careful 

 examination with tlie microscope 

 failed to reveal any. The actual test 

 of the matter proved that I was cor- 

 rect, for liowever much of carrots and 

 saffron was used the feathers were 

 not forthcoming. We have concluded, 

 for the present at least, to give up 

 experimenting in that direction, and 

 to raise only .sitmmec chickens. VVith- 

 out doubt, "if hatching is deferred 

 until the first of May, and the chick- 



