760 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Get the space a little too deep or 

 shallow, and the bees stick iu the glue 

 and brace-comb with an energy that 

 may well discourage the bee-keeper. 

 But why not have it just light V 

 Accuracy should be the motto in hive- 

 making. 

 Agricultural College, 9 Mich. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Marshall County, Iowa, Conveution, 



The Marshall County Bee-Keepers' 

 Association met at the Court House 

 in Marshalltown, Iowa, at 1:30 p.m., 

 on Oct. 16, 1886. The minutes of the 

 previous meeting were read and ap- 

 proved. 



The subject of winter management 

 was the first taken up. Mr. H. Pink- 

 erton stated that he prepared his bees 

 for winter by doubling up light colo- 

 nies; making it a point to always save 

 the best queen and destroy the other, 

 as he did not like to run the risk of 

 her coming out winner in the queen- 

 ship of the united colony. He feeds 

 up colonies where he finds they need 

 it, by taking frames of honey from 

 those that have to spare, and giving 

 to the needy. He said by this means 

 he makes all strong and in good con- 

 dition for the winter. He winters his 

 bees in a cellar at a temperature of 

 40'^ to 48°. He would prefer it not to 

 fall below 45'°, or rise above 54°. lie 

 leaves the honey-board on a part ; 

 some have oil-cloth on, with the cloth 

 turned back about one-half, to pre- 

 vent the collection of moisture, which 

 they do badly if left down. A part he 

 bad cloths or quits on, but he could 

 see no difference in the three sets 



Erepared as stated. He places the 

 ives with all the slant they will 

 bear, one above another, with strips 

 between them. The caps are left on 

 the summer stands. He leaves the 

 hive-entrance open full width, so 

 that the bees can have plenty of air, 

 and a good chance to keep the hives 

 clean. His cellar is well ventilated. 

 A part of it was light and part dark. 

 He found the most dead bees in the 

 light part. In the winter of 188.5 and 

 1886 he had 117 colonies in the cellar, 

 and took out 116 the next spring, 

 having lost but one, and that was 

 queenless. He puts his bees in before 

 the weather gets cold, and puts them 

 out in the spring after it gets warm. 

 He has no certain date to put them in 

 or out, but is governed by the weather. 

 The bee-room of the cellar is sep- 

 arated from the vegetable department 

 by a partition. 



Mr. A. Fogg had wintered his bees 

 in the cellar the past two winters 

 without loss. He put the hives in 

 with the surplus arrangements on. 

 This seemed to prevent the accumu- 

 lation of moisture. The hives were 

 placed with the entrances next to the 

 wall, and ventilated by opening a 

 window and a door. The cellar was 

 kept light until the weather began to 

 get warm in the spring, when he 

 found it necessary to darken the 

 window. The temperature of the 

 cellar got as low as 34°; he would 

 prefer it not to run that low. There 



was some water in the cellar, but he 

 did not see as it did any harm. 



The President made a few remarks 

 stating that he used a stove a short 

 time in his cellar, so as to keep it at 

 the proper temperature. He thought 

 that and good preparations before 

 putting the bees into the cellar, were 

 the main points. 



The Secretary stated that he liked 

 the use of the division-board, so as to 

 cut the hives down to 6 or 8 frames, 

 or less if the size of the colony re- 

 quired it. This makes them more 

 concentrated in space, more easily 

 kept warm, thereby requiring less 

 food, and being much lighter to han- 

 dle in carrying in and out. The extra 

 frames could be placed in again in 

 the spring as needed. He preferred 

 quilts for covering bees in the winter 

 as they were less liable to collect 

 moisture or mold the combs. 



The Association requests all bee- 

 keepers, whether members of it or 

 not, to send a written report to the 

 Secretary, of the number of colonies 

 in the spring, number of increase, 

 amount of honey taken (both comb 

 and extracted separately given), and 

 the number of pounds of wax made. 

 The report can be sent on a postal 

 card to the Secretary. It is desired 

 to make a full report of the honey 

 production of Marshall county for the 

 season of 1886. All bee-keepers ai'e 

 asked to report at an early date. We 

 believe we can make a good showing 

 of the county in honey production. 



The subjects for discussion at the 

 next meeting will be " Spring care of 

 bees," by L. Keeper, and " Surplus 

 Arrangements," by A. Pinkerton. 



The convention then adjourned to 

 meet in Marshalltown, Iowa, on the 

 third Saturday in January, 1887, at 

 10 a.m. J. W. Sanders, Sec. 



Gleanings. 



AiliilteratinE Conili anil Lipiil Honey, 



The following letter was forwarded 

 to us through the kindness of the 

 publisher of the American Groce)-,with 

 an expression that I should answer it 

 for publication : 



Editor American Qrocer :— Will you be 

 kind enough to give me information about 

 manufactured honey, if there is such a 

 thing ? I think you have published articles 

 on it in your paper, but I have failed to see 

 them, if you will answer this throueh your 

 paper, you will oblige. J. H. White. 



Bridgeport, Conn., Oct. 26, 1880. 



In response to the above request we 

 sent the following reply, which was 

 in the American Grocer for Nov. II : 



We are very glad indeed to answer 

 in regard to our branch of agricul- 

 tural industry, especially as the 

 honey-business is getting to be a 

 branch of no mean pretensions. When 

 liquid honey sold at from 20 to 25 

 cents per pound, and glucose, or corn 

 syrup, was worth only from 5 to 6 

 cents per pound, there was a great 

 temptation toward adulteration ; and 

 eight or ten years ago it was probably 

 a fact that a great portion of the 

 liquid honey in glass jars and tumb- 

 lers to be found in our markets, was 

 more or less adulterated. Now, how- 



ever, when liquid honey is sold at 

 from 8 to 10 cents retail, and 5 to 

 7 cents wholesale, there is but little 

 inducement to adulterate with glu- 

 cose, especially as the quality of glu- 

 cose at all fit for the purpose is worth 

 from il4 to 5 cents per pound. On 

 this account I .believe there is but 

 very little honey to be found on our 

 markets now that is adulterated. 

 Perhaps I may add, that a good many 

 mistakes, and a good deal of un- 

 charitableness have arisen from the 

 fact that both pure honey and pure 

 glucose (or corn syrup) are, chemi- 

 cally speaking, pretty nearly the same 

 thing ; namely, grape sugar — glucose 

 being grape sugar manufactured ex- 

 pressly for the purpose of making it 

 retain a permanent liquid form. In 

 California, excellent honey is now 

 in quantities as low as 3 cents per 

 pound. This state of affairs makes it 

 more feasible and more likely that 

 glucose should be adulterated with 

 honey, than that honey should be 

 adulterated with glucose. The pres- 

 ent low prices of cane sugar, also, 

 have been discouraging to those en- 

 gaged in adulterating sweets. 



Bee-keepers have also been accused 

 of feeding their bees glucose, and 

 then taking it from the combs and 

 selling it as honey. This foolish piece 

 of slander on our beekeeping breth- 

 ren was probably first started by some 

 one who did not even know that bees 

 do not make honey— they simply gather 

 it. The act of storing it in the cells 

 does not change it in any respect. If 

 you feed the bees sugar syrup, it will 

 be sugar syrup when it is taken away 

 from them. The same is true of 

 glucose or any other substitute for 

 honey. 



We now come to artificial comb 

 honey. The only way in which it is 

 possible to put a spurious article of 

 comb honey on the market would be 

 by feeding the bees glucose or some 

 other substitute for honey ; and there 

 would be a greater probability of this 

 being done, because comb honey 

 usually commands a half more in 

 price than liquid honey, were it not 

 for the fact that the bees must con- 

 sume a very large quantity of honey 

 or other sweets to enable them to 

 secrete a very small quantity of white 

 wax from which the comb is made. 

 This latter fact has been so well 

 proven by the experiments of hun- 

 dreds of bee-keepers, that the prac- 

 tice of feeding liquid honey, in order 

 to make the bees store comb honey, 

 is now, I believe, universally aban- 

 doned. As an illustration : When the 

 honey season closes in the fall, most 

 beekeepers find themselves in the 

 possession of more or less sections of 

 nice, marketable honey, with cells not 

 quite finished. A large apiarist fre- 

 quently has a ton or more of such un- 

 finished sections. A little feeding 

 would enable him to finish these out, 

 put them on the market, and get his 

 cash, instead of waiting a whole year 

 to have them finished. On this ac- 

 count it would be extremely conven- 

 ient to feed enough pure honey to get 

 them finished. Well, sometimes this 

 will pay ; but we have all found out 

 that so large a quantity of honey 



