408 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



June 30 



GEORGE W. YORK, Editor. 



PUBTilSHT WEEKLY BY 



118 Idichigan Street, CHICAGO, ILL. 

 [Entered at the Post-Office at Chicago as Second-Class Mail Matter,] 



UNITED STATES BEE-KEEPERS' UNION 



Organized to advance the pursuit of Apiculture: to promote the interests of bee 

 keepers; to protect its members ; to prevent the adulteration of honey; and 

 to prosecute the dishonest honey-commission men. 



AIemt>ers7iip f ee— S-I.OO per JVimuni, 



EXECCTIVECOMMITTEE— Pre?.. George W. York; Viee-Pres., W. Z.Hutchinson; 

 Secretary, Dr. A. B. Mason, Station B. Toledo, Ohio. 



BOARD OF Directors— E. R. Root: E. Whiteomb; E.T.Abbott; C. P. Dadant; 



W. Z. Hutchinson: Dr. C. C. Miller. 

 General manager and Trkasdrbr— Eugene Secor, Forest City. Iowa. 



VOL. 38. 



JUNE 30, 1898. 



NO. 25. 



Note.— The American Bee Journal adopts the Ortbocraphy of the following 

 Rule, recommended by the joint action ot the American Pliilological Asso- 

 ciation and the Philological Society of England:— Change "d" or "ed" flnal 

 to *'t" when so pronounced, except when the "e" affects a preceding sound. 



The Awful Rush for bee-supplies is about over for 

 this year. It is strange that so mauy will wait until they 

 really need the goods, and then send in their orders and expect 

 them to be filled " by return mail." Then if the goods don't 

 come as expected, some at once begin to berate the dealer, 

 when perhaps he had several hundred orders in ahead, and 

 may also be entirely out of goods on account of the factories 

 not being able to supply them as fast as he and other dealers 

 had ordered. 



The way to do is to order enough goods early — say in 

 March or April— so that should they even then be delayed 

 there would be no doubt about their arriving in plenty time 

 for use when needed. We gave this advice in these columns 

 very early In the season, but It seems quite a number failed to 

 heed it, and consequently suffered severe disappointment. 



We have had e.xperience enough in the bee-supply busi- 

 ness to have genuine sympathy for the overcrowded and over- 

 workt dealers when the grand rush for goods arrives. It is a 

 terrible strain, and we wonder that many of them are not 

 found in the insane asylums after an experience of a year or 

 two. 



National Pure Food Law. -The Ohio Farmer, 

 in a recent issue, referred thus to the Pure Pood Bill which 

 was introduced in Congress some time ago : 



We have lookt over the Pure Food Bill introduced in Con- 

 gress — a modification of the original measure prepared by the 

 recent pure food convention in Washington. It is lengthy, 

 and relates largely to drugs. In so far as it will aid State 

 pure food authorities to enforce their laws we commend It. 

 Of course, it can only apply to interstate traffic. Adulterated 

 goods sold in the State where made do not come under its 

 jurisdiction. 



It organizes a section in the chemical division of the De- 

 partment of Agriculture for analysis and investigation of sam- 

 ples of goods offered for sale anywhere in the United States. 

 If any article under its jurisdiction is found to be adulterated, 

 the Secretary of Agriculture informs the United States district 

 attorney where the sale was made, and he must prosecute. 

 As we understand it, such sales must be referred to the De- 

 partment of Agriculture, or, in other words, are taken out 

 from the State authorities' hands. If so, the Bill should be 

 revised in this particular, as State laws should in no case be 

 interfered with. 



Section 2 of the proposed law provides a fine of $200 for 

 introducing any adulterated goods into any State from out- 

 side, and .':530U for each subsequent offense, or imprisoment 

 tot to exceed one year, or both. 



Section 9 requires all manufacturers and dealers to fur- 

 nish samples to any one authorized by the Secretary of Agri- 

 culture, with a fine of $10 to $100, or imprisonment, or both, 

 for refusal. 



Another section provides for the confiscation and sale of 

 adulterated goods carried from one State to another, the pro- 

 ceeds to be turned into the United States treasury. Other 

 sections define what adulterations consist in, the fixing of 

 standards, and providing for enforcement of the law. 



On the whole we think the Bill is a good one, and we 

 trust that Congress will find time, amidst the war excitement, 

 to pass it. It is as good as we can expect, with our present 

 constitutional limits to the Jurisdiction of the national govern- 

 ment. We shall never be able to control the production and 

 sale of adulterated goods until Congress has complete jurisdic- 

 tion, or laws of all the States are uniform and uniformly en- 

 forced. 



It will be remembered that Messrs. Secor and Abbott, of 

 the United States Bee-Keepers' Union had a hand (or two) in 

 the work done by the pure food congress last March in con- 

 nection with the Bill referred to. We hope it will soon be 

 past by Congress. We are glad to notice that the large and in- 

 fluential agricultural papers of the country are lending their 

 influence in the right direction. We trust that more of them 

 will fall into line in defense of a measure so closely in the in- 

 terest of public health by way of honest preparation of food 



products. 



^ . »- 



Drawn Foundation witb Natural Bases. 



— It turned out last year, that In some cases the bees would 

 not perform satisfactorily with drawn foundation having a flat 

 base. The A. I. Root Co. now announce that they have com- 

 pleted machinery to turn out drawn foundation with natural 

 base. They will make the cell-walls only about }4 inch deep, 

 about twice the natural thickness, and the base as thin as the 

 bees make the natural base. This will make it run about the 

 same number of feet to the pound as the ordinary thin super 

 foundation. As yet it is only made in pieces 39gx4 inches. A 

 half-pound costs a dollar, postpaid. Here is what Editor Root 

 has to say about this new natural-base deep-cell foundation, 

 In Gleanings for June 15 : 



Several have written of late, asking why we had nothing 

 to say about drawn foundation. I will explain : It will be 

 remembered that the dies that were made last season at so 

 great an expense (nearly §1,000) turned out a product with 

 flat bases. Our early experiments seemed to show that, when 

 cells were deep, the bees would accept such a base as readily 

 as the other. But the developments of the season went to 

 show that the bees did not In all cases take kindly to it. In 

 some instances, at least, they thickened the midrib in their 

 effort to make concave cell-bottoms. While they did not do 

 so in all cases, the fact that the bees did so at all in a few in- 

 stances was sulficient reason to induce us to abandon the dies, 

 as much as they cost, and go to work on a set that would pro- 

 duce natural bases. 



Mr. Weed thought the problem would be easily solved ; 

 but altho he has been working on it for nearly a year, meet- 

 ing with repeated failure, he has only just succeeded in hav- 

 ing a set made that makes drawn foundation with natural 

 bases a success in every way — at least so far as the mechani- 

 cal construction of it is concerned. In the mean time, while 

 he was experimenting, we feared that he might not be able to 

 perfect his dies, and it seemed wise to say nothing about the 

 new product until we were sure of what we could do. 



I am now glad to report that the new dies are in opera- 



