isys. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOLRNAl^ 



627 



sick, or what is it ? I want to ask these doctors what it Is 

 about honey that makes people sick ? Is it some peculiar 

 kind of honey ? 



Dr. C. C. Miller — There is peculiar honey and there are 

 peculiar people. Sometimes it is the honey and sometimes 

 the patient. 



Pres. York — When I first met Dr. Peiro he told me could 

 not eat honey ; that it made him sick. I gave him some 

 honey, and he could eat it all right. He had been getting the 

 glucosed article, and of coarse It made him sick. 



A Member — Doesn't pure honey sometimes make people 

 sick ? 



Mr. Cameron — \ have noticed that comb honey sometimes 

 makes people sick. I didn't know but It might have been 

 poisoned by bee-poison — by the bees crawling over it and de- 

 positing the poison from their stings. Will that make people 

 sick ? I notice In opening hives sometimes, especially if it is 

 a little cold, that the bees run around with their stings out, 

 and the poison will no doubt be deposited on the combs. It 

 may be it Is that which makes people sick. It might not 

 make all people sick, but I presume it will some. 



A. I. Root — There were some boys who cut a bee-tree in 

 our county and they ate all they possibly could, and the houey 

 made them all sick. I ate a lot of the honey — rather more 

 than I do usually, and it didn't make me sick at all. I was 

 familiar with it, and knew how m'uch to eat; it didn't hurt 

 me. A person that has not eaten any honey for a good while 

 — a good many years — might be made sick If he would go to 

 work and eat as those boys did, even pure honey. 



Mr. Whitcomb — You will find people who are not able to 

 eat honey at all. 



Dr. Mason — There is no doubt but that eating too much 

 honey will make people sick. There are some people who 

 can't eat any without being made sick. But some of us know 

 that there is a very simple remedy for that. When the chil- 

 dren of Israel were going into the Land of Promise, they were 

 told that it would be a land flowing with milk and honey. If 

 persons who are made sick by honey will take milk with it, it 

 won't affect them that way. 



E, S. Miles (Iowa) — I would like to give my experience. 

 My two brothers cut a bee-tree one time when they were not 

 used to honey, and of course they ate too much — they ate all 

 they wanted, and my mother also ate of it, and it made them 

 all so sick they thought they were going to die. They drank 

 milkwlth it, and they thought itwas the milk that did it. Since 

 I have been producing honey it agrees with them whether 

 they drink milk or whether they don't. It looks to me as if 

 in that case they simply ate too much. If they ate too much 

 no doubt the milk wouldn't save them. I think a person 

 should be temperate in using honey when he isn't used it, the 

 same as with everything else. Persons who are used to honey 

 could eat a good deal more than those who are not. 



Dr. C. C. Miller — The question was askt whether it Is not 

 the poison of the bee-stings on the honey that makes people 

 sick. The latest investigations I think show that the poison 

 of the bee-sting Is something separate and distinct from the 

 formic acid. There is formic acid In honey, but I am not so 

 sure that there is any real bee-poison In honey. The state- 

 ment Is made that the bees In crawling over the combs when 

 they are disturbed will thrust out their stings with drops of 

 poison on them. I very much doubt whether those drops of 

 poison are ever deposited on the combs ; and If it were, I think 

 it would evaporate. The formic acid that is in honey gets 

 there through the blood of the bee. I doubt whether anything 

 gets Into the honey through the sting of the bee; I think that 

 an utter and entire mistake. The formic acid gets Into the 

 honey through the blood of the bee ; we find It there, and It Is 

 a useful part of the honey. One of the good things about 

 honey is the formic acid in It. Don't let us make a mistake 

 by saying that the honey Is poisoned by the bee-stings. 



Dr. Mason — Is there formic acid in the poison that comes 

 from the sting ? 



Dr. C. C. Miller— As I understand It the latest investiga- 

 tions show that the poison In the bee-sting is entirely separate 

 from the formic acid. Formerly it was said that the formic 

 acid was the poison ; but that Is not so understood now. 



Mr. Whitcomb — Perhaps there Is an explanation as to why 

 honey taken from bee-trees makes people sick. When the 

 tree is cut open and the bees aroused, their first Instinct is to 

 save everything they can, and they run around over the combs 

 with the stings thrust out, and little drops of poison may fall 

 upon the combs and get into the honey. Honey taken by the 

 old-fashioned robbing process, where the bees are allowed to 

 run over the combs and the poison runs off of the sting, will 

 make people sick. I don't know but that sometimes a single 

 drop of the poison might kill a person, taken either into the 

 stomach or into the circulation. We ought to be careful to 



keep It out of the honey. I have had cases under my observa- 

 tion where people could not take a teaspoonful of honey with- 

 out making them sick, if it were taken by the robbing process, 

 while honey taken by the bee-escape process would not affect 

 them. There was a case of a lady in Chicago who had been 

 from a chlid unable to eat any honey. I took some honey up 

 to the house at night and she ate of it — ate as much as any of 

 us. There was also another case at our State fair where a 

 man who had not been able to eat honey before, ate of 

 it several times there, and reported that it hadn't made him 

 sick. In the robbing process, or In cutting bee-trees, the bees 

 rush over the honey and run the sting out, and small particles 

 of poison may drop on the combs. 



Dr. C. C. Miller — Whilst not desiring to contradict that, I 

 want to add an interrogation point. It is not settled that the 

 poison does not get Into the honey, but it is possible that Mr. 

 Root's explanation should go along with that — that when 

 honey Is taken from a bee-tree by the robbing process people 

 may take an unusual amount of it, and that unusual amount 

 Is enough to account for their being made sick, without any 

 poison in the C£S!. 



Mr. Whitcomb— If I find that honey taken by the robbing 

 process makes people sick, while honey taken by the bee- 

 escape process does not, I don't see how to account for It in 

 any other way than by supposing that honey has been 

 poisoned. 



Dr. Mason — I want to take Dr. Miller's interrogation 

 point away. That matter, so far as I am concerned, is set- 

 tled. I have sometimes eaten of this poison. I have been 

 stung several times on the tongue, and have felt the sickness 

 coming on without any doubt. In uncapping, I have the 

 habit of chewing on the capplngs, and sometimes I have un- 

 consciously put a bee into my mouth. I have often felt the 

 sickness coming over me, without any doubt from the effects 

 of the poison. I know what it is. 



The convention then adjourned until 1:30 p.m. 



LContlnued next week.l 



Using Two-Story Brood-Chambers — Division- 

 Boards. 



BY DR C. C. MILLER. 



The editor of the Bee-Keepers' Review quotes the ques- 

 tion and answer about using two-story brood-chambers 

 (American Bee Journal, page iSB), and comments as follows : 



" It seems to me that some of us are not looking at this matter 

 in the right light. Dr. Miller's idea, if I understand him, is some- 

 thing like this: In order to get honey we must have bees. The 

 more bees the more honey. If the queen has filled all the available 

 cells in eight frames, give her more in an additional story; then 

 you will get more bees, and, consequently, more honey. I think 

 this is correct reasoning. I agree with it. But, Doctor, let's go a 

 little farther. A queen that has eight combs well filled with brood 

 just at the approach of the honey harvest, will not fill eight more 

 so full as another qneen would have filled them if she had had 

 them early in the spring. 



"To put it in a different shape, if a man is going to put his 

 capital into an extra hive and set of combs for each of his colonies, 

 he will get more bees, and, consequently, more honey, if he has a 

 queen for each of these new hives; in short. If he has them occu- 

 pied by regular colonies. The profitable keeping of bees does not 

 depend so much upon having each 7WP/1 occupied to her full ca- 

 pacity, as it does in having the mmhs and /lives occupied to their full 

 capacity." 



Editor Hutchinson is one of those men so eminently fair 

 in discussion that it is almost a pleasure to disagree with him. 

 I'm not certain, however, that we can get up any disagree- 

 ment in the present case. He agrees with me up to a certain 

 point, and then says, " But let's go a little farther." Very 

 well, Mr. Hutchinson, I've gone a little farther with you, and 

 think your reasoning correct. I agree with It. 



Now, " let's go a little farther." After going over the 

 ground you have gone, the time comes that has come witb 

 very many of us — perhaps with the majority of us — when we 

 desire no more Increase, have all the bees we think our pas- 

 turage will stand, and want all the honey we can get with a. 

 given amount of bees and a given amount of labor. We want 



