488 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



It is of importance that they blooin 

 ■when they do — just after clover and 

 basswood are past. Particularly is 

 this true in a dry season like this, 

 when, after July (the close of the 

 basswood honey season here), bees 

 could find no flowers to visit, and of 

 course an unusually large number of 

 sections are left incomplete. 



If now a plant like the Chapman 

 honey-plant could come forward and 

 furnish honey for even a few days, 

 until the uncapped sections could be 

 rounded off and completed, it would 

 add greatly to the income of my bee- 

 ranch. 



Abronia, ? Mich. 



Rural New Yorker. 



One \M tliat Fraud cannot Counterfeit, 



A. J. COOK. 



I am surprised to note the following 

 response to an inqiiiry in the Farmers' 

 Club of a late Bural New Yorker: 

 " It is probably true that men, with- 

 out the aid of bees, now make and 

 sell comb honey in which neither wax 

 nor honey is used ; and that the comb 

 is made of parafiine and filled with a 

 substance like honey." Now, Mr. 

 Editor, I wish to say that the above 

 is not only not probably true, but that 

 it is utterly absurd, mischievously 

 false, and entirely impossible. No 

 such thing has ever been done, and it 

 is very certain that no such thing 

 ever can be done. Only Nature's deft 

 and delicate fingers can fashion the 

 beautiful comb honey. Comb honey 

 is one thing that fraud cannot coun- 

 terfeit. Whoever purchases the beau- 

 tiful, white,incomparable comb honey, 

 may be sure that he has Nature's pro- 

 duct, pure and genuine. A few years 

 age Prof. H. VV. Wiley, now Chemist 

 of the Agricultural Department at 

 Washington, published an interesting 

 article on sugar, in the Popular 

 Science Monthly, in which he made the 

 above statement, apparently in all 

 soberness. Afterward, when Prof. 

 Wiley wa.s called upon for proof of 

 what was palpably absurd to any one 

 who knows of the real nature of comb 

 honey— a substance which is clearly 

 inimitable— he replied : "I only wrote 

 it as a scientific pleasantry." This 

 statement was apparentlv as candid 

 and earne.st as any part of the article, 

 and so was widely copied by the 

 press of the country, and now, like all 

 untruthful statements it is, ever and 

 anon, lifting its ungracious head only 

 to do mischief. 



Comb honey owes its excellence to 

 very delicate structure. The cell- 

 walls of the comb are only 1-140 of an 

 inch in thickness, and thus the deli- 

 cate wax breaks up in the mouth 

 almost without any extraneous force, 

 and just serves to reduce or dilute the 

 exquisite honey, and so becomes one 

 of the coveted articles of diet. It 

 seems almost like sacrilege to say 

 that such an incomparable article can 

 be made artificially. As before 

 stated, it is utterly impossible, never 

 has been done, and never can be done. 

 1 hope, Mr. Editor, you will publish 

 this correction at on'ce, and that tlie 



many papers that have spread the 

 error may be equally quick to ding 

 out the correction ; even then much 

 wrong will be done, for as we all 

 know, falsehood will traverse the 

 globe, while Truth is hitching up her 

 horse. 

 Agricultural College, 9 Mich. 



For tbe American Bee JoumaL 



Taxing Colonies— Non-Swarming Bees, 



J. E. POND, JB. 



Mr. Camm, on page 454, in discuss- 

 ing the matter of taxation of bees, 

 may have been surprised and disap- 

 pointed by the answers given to Mr. 

 Blair's query, and why he should be 

 80, is plain from the reading between 

 the lines of his article. Insofar as 

 my own answer is concerned, I have 

 to say that I answered the question 

 as 1 then understood and now under- 

 stand it. The matter was not in- 

 quired into, whether bees ought to be 

 taxed or not, either morally or as a 

 business proposition ; the question 

 being whether bees could be legally 

 taxed, and were so taxed in any of 

 the States or not. I said and still say 

 that an apiary is as subject legally 

 to taxation as any other species of 

 personal property, statute exemption 

 being the only means of relief there- 

 from. In answering I spoke only for 

 my own State— Massachusetts. 



Mr. Southwick makes the point that 

 bees are not absolute property, con- 

 sequently legally exempt from taxa 

 lion. In this he is partially correct. 

 A colony of bees hived in my own 

 apiary are absolutely my property, 

 they are solely under my control, and 

 if stolen the thief is punishable for 

 the larceny, which would not be the 

 case were they not absolute property. 

 They fall under the same category as 

 pigeons or doves, and are not ferm 

 naturm while in my hives and located 

 in my apiary, any more than are 

 pigeons or doves when in the cote of 

 the owner. 



As to the point that if a " hue and 

 cry " was made in the matter, all 

 bees would be taxed anyhow, the re- 

 mark was made jocularly, and I sup- 

 posed it would be so understood. To 

 Mr. Camm I will simply say, the com- 

 munistic idea that nothing but real 

 estate should be taxed under any cir- 

 cumstances is hardly a question for 

 discussion in a bee-paper, else I might 

 give him my views on the subject, 

 which, although based on political 

 economy, are decidedly in favor of 

 the idea that all products that possess 

 an intrinsic merchantable value should 

 be taxed for public support. 



Mr. Pryal, on page 456, gives us a 

 novel way or manner of obtaining 

 favorable decisions from the courts of 

 highest resort in the various States. 

 The same thing was hinted at in the 

 Bee Journal a few weeks ago. As 

 a lawyer, all lean say in regard to the 

 proposition is, that our Massachusetts 

 courts would disbar an attorney who 

 should bring a fictitious suit before 

 them for the purpose of getting an 

 opinion or decision. We have some 



rights ; I for one would prefer to have 

 them all trampled under foot, than 

 maintained by fraud or evasion. 



STRAIN OF NON-SWARMING BEES. 



Have any of our bee-keepers on a 

 large scale— say keepers of 100 or more 

 colonies— ever attempted to form a 

 strain of non-swarming bees by using 

 queen-cells from which the queens 

 were just ready to emerge, as the 

 means of heading colonies, and fol- 

 lowing down on that line for several 

 generations ? This question is one of 

 interest to myself, and theoretically I 

 believe the plan is correct. Introduce 

 aqueen-cell juston the pointof letting 

 out the young queen, say on the fif- 

 teenth day ; keep close watch of this 

 hive, and draw from it in the same 

 way before a swarm issues ; continue 

 this plan for two or three years, and I 

 think and believe that a non-swarm- 

 ing strain will result. In order to 

 carry the point to a nicety, the drone 

 mothers should be produced in the 

 same way. 



I have been able only to test the 

 matter slightly, as my apiary is small. 

 It is possible that the majority would 

 not care for a non-swarming strain ; 

 still, as a matter of experiment, it 

 might prove interesting, and of im- 

 portance in ascertaining how far the 

 matter of education can be carried. 

 I have a colony that has not sent out 

 a swarm for two years; the queen 

 that now heads it is in her third year, 

 and is the third generation from a 

 queen-cell introduced as above, each 

 of the intermediate queens, as well as 

 this last one, having been introduced 

 in cells from which they were just 

 ready to emerge. This case alone 

 proves nothing ; still it is a straw or 

 pointer ; and if the same result should 

 follow in a number of instances, I 

 think the theory which I intimate 

 would be well proved. Has any one 

 the time and inclination to test the 

 matter ? 



Foxboro,o Mass. 



Homestead. 



Preparing Bees for f inter, etc. 



O. CLUTE. 



With the bees, winter is the time of 

 quiet. But the wise bee-keeper will 

 be active in the care of his little 

 friends, for upon such care depends 

 his success for the summer that is 

 coming. 



If bees are wintered in the cellar, 

 care should be exercised as to the 

 time of putting them into the cellar. 

 If they are put in too early the 

 weather will be warm, the cellar will 

 be at too high a temperature, and the 

 bees will be injured by too great 

 activity. The hives should not be 

 put into the cellar until cold weather 

 reallv sets in. They should be carried 

 in on a cold, dry day. In carrying 

 them in they should be disturbed as 

 little as possible. If the temperature 

 of the cellar is not above -50^ they 

 will soon be quiet after being put in. 

 See that the cellar is perfectly dark, 

 that it is well ventilated, that it is as 

 quiet as is possible, that it is free 



