26 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Jan. 12, 1899. 



be counted in the old, but in appearance there was no differ- 

 ence, and he pronounces the fence a faihire. He thinks the 

 scheme of doing without separators altogether more prom- 

 ising than that of using fences. Glue didn't hold his fences. 

 The objections made in the Canadian Bee Journal are men- 

 tioned, and the American Bee-Keeper is credited with 

 having been fair, altho taking a somewhat neutral attitude. 

 Editor Root gives half-tones of two of the late Mr. Morton's 

 fancy honey, " life size." that are fine as pictures : also a 

 picture of eight old-style sections that are fine, for which he 

 says he hunted long and hard ; and a picture of four of Dan- 

 zenbaker's 1898 fence honev. 



How Much Heating will make Foul=Broody Honey 

 Safe to Feed?— Dr. Miller advised not less than ISO min- 

 utes. R. L. Taylor thought 15 minutes enoug-h. Editor 

 Root, less definite, advises boiling "several minutes." Dr. 

 Miller, in Gleanings, gives his reason for not feeling safe 

 with boiling so short a time. Prof. Mackenzie heated 

 spores of foul brood to 212 degrees, and kept them at that 

 point for two hours, and then secured growth. In other 

 words, two hours' boiling did not destroy the spores, and 

 the doctor says: "While not inclined to dispute in the 

 least that you may have safely fed infected honey that had 

 less than 15 minutes' boiling, with my present light I don't 

 feel safe to'advise anything less than]boiling 2'2 hours." 



Hives. — In discussing in the Progressive Bee-Keeper 

 the right kind of a hive, R. C. Aikin favors the shallow di- 

 visible brood-chamber, two or three sections, each 15 inches 

 square and five inches deep. Doolittle follows, and says 

 this is theoretical bee-keeping, for Aikin has not had expe- 

 rience with these shallow chambers, and by the time he has 

 had as much experience as Doolittle he will not favor them 

 so much. Doolittle says he has modified his views some- 

 what as to the size of hives. For 20 years he manag-ed suc- 

 cessfully the smallest brood-chamber in existence, averag- 

 ing nearly 100 pounds of comb honey annualh' ; but having 

 purchast an apiary with 10-f rame Langstroths which he has 

 workt in an out-apiary, he thinks he would now prefer the 

 10-frame Langstroth to the 9;frame Gallup where cellar 

 wintering could be practiced. For five years he has had 

 hives larger than 10-frame Langstroths, but sees no advan- 

 tage in them. 



Saving Strayed Queens — It sometimes happens in 

 taking ofi:' supers that a queen will be taken with the bees 

 that remain in the super, and if several such supers have 

 been piled up together it is not easy to tell whence the queer, 

 came. Fred S. Thorington had an interestiiig experience 

 in that line. He put the cluster of bees out in the open air 

 without protection in the day, covering them with a blanket 

 at night, leaving them without food. Two days later they 

 circled in the air like a natural swarm, and went to what he 

 supposed was the hive the queen came from. The idea 

 .seems to be to let them swarm like a hunger-swarm, and 

 trust to their going back to their own hive. The only ques- 

 tion would be whether, in a case where the workers came 

 from a number of different hives, they might not return to 

 the hive from which a large number of workers came, thus 

 taking the queen to the wrong hive. — Progressive Bee- 

 Keeper. 



A Section-Cleaner made by John S. Bruce is thus de- 

 scribed by F. L. Thompson in the Progressive Bee-Keeper : 



•• The framework is the same as that of Mr. Aspin- 

 wall's, but the roller, about two inches or over in diameter, 

 consists essentially of a rasp made by punching holes in a 

 sheet of tin with a !:t-inch fine chisel". The center is a core 

 of wood, and between the wood and the tin rasp are T tins, 

 forming a number of little alleys into which the propolis 

 falls, and is puncht out occasionally with a wire. The su- 

 perfluous roughness is taken off the'rasp by turning it with 

 a file until it has acquired just the rig-ht degree of cutting 

 surface to remove propolis and do smooth work. On the 

 same level with the roller is a knife made of an old file, 

 which, when the section is past along to the rasping roller, 

 first cuts away any large-sized chunks of propolis or wax. 

 It is so near to the rasp that one end of the section is pass- 

 ing over the rasp before the other has left the knife : and on 

 the other side of the rasp i's aiu)ther roller, covered with 

 emery-cloth over felt, also quite close to the rasp. All being 

 on the same level, the section passes over the knife, the 

 rasp, and the emery-cli>tli. at one operation and one sweep. 

 The edges are cleaned just like the sides, strips between 

 and on each side of the rollers forming a table above the 

 level of which the rollers slightly project." 



United States' Bee= Keepers' Union. 



General Manager Secor's report for 1898, which is in 

 the hands of the members, reads as follows : 



Report of the General Manager for 1896 : 



Fellow Bee-Keepers: 



It is considered one of the legitimate purposes of this 

 Society to promote legislation in the interest of bee-keepers. 



Acting on that idea the Executive Committee appointed 

 three delegates to attend the Pure Food Congress, held in 

 Washington, D. C, beginning March 2. lSfl!S. The delegates 

 consisted of E. T. Abbott, of St. Joseph. Mo : Dr. A. B. 

 Mason, of Toledo, Ohio; and your humble servant, the 

 General Manager. 



The object of the Pure Food Congress was to unite all 

 producers and all manufacturers of food products, and all 

 societies and people that believe in the necessity or desira- 

 bility of protecting the public against adulteration and mis- 

 branding of every article intended for food, drink or medi- 

 cine, consumed by man. 



Believing that in no other way could this society so 

 speedily and effectually bring about the results it is seeking 

 to achieve, Mr. Abbott and myself attended that con- 

 vention. 



We were greatly pleased, not only with the number of 

 delegates present, but the representative character of the 

 men: Scientists of national reputation : leading physicians 

 and pharmacists; pure food commissioners from many of 

 the States; intelligent and progressive farmers; representa- 

 tives of wholesale and retail grocery and confectionery 

 associations; and many other organizations and interests 

 were represented by able and earnest delegates, solely in 

 the interest of purity of all articles of human consumption. 



What was accomplisht at that congress is more fully ex- 

 plained by Mr. Abbott in his paper. " The Busy Bee," and 

 copied in the American Bee Journal, March 31, page 200, 

 and my own report publisht in the last-named paper, on 

 page 216. 



In April last I got a letter from Frank Gilmore. Water- 

 town. Conn., enclosing a letter from a law firm of his town 

 in which Mr. Gilmore was notified to remove his bees within 

 l.~) days under a threat oj: prosecution and injunction. The 

 complaint was. that the aforesaid bees destroyed the entire 

 crop of peaches, raspberries, and other fruits on the prem- 

 ises of a neighbor; that they stung horses and visitors, and 

 otherwise annoyed the neighborhood. 



I gave Mr. Gilmore such advice as I thought best suited 

 to his case- and presume he escaped the clutches of the law. 

 as I heard nothing further from him. 



During the same month. Mr. Baldwin, of Mexico, Mo., 

 sent me an account agaiust a Chicago commission house, 

 saying he could get no pay for honey billed to the firm. I 

 at once began correspondence with the commission men, 

 and after a couple of letters got a draft in full. Mr. Bald- 

 win exprest himself as entirely satisfied with the trans- 

 action, and donated to the Union two years' membership in 

 advance. » 



Ed Gerould. of East Smithfield. Pa., was threatened 

 trouble from a neighbor who was determined to spray his 

 peach orchard while in full bloom, altho it had been ex- 

 plained to him that by so doing his neighbor's bees might be 

 poisoned. Mr. Gerould wrote me for advice and help. I 

 sent him some printed matter and advised him how to pro- 

 ceed, which was the last I heard of that matter. 



Chas. Haise, a quiet, peaceable, unoffending person who 

 lived in Atlanta, 111., received from the Marshal of the town 

 the following notice in June, 189S: 



"SIR:— You are hereby notified tliat your bees, situated and kept on 

 the premises now occupied by you. have become and are a nui:*ance to 

 the ueighborhood and pubUc. and you are hereby notified to abate, 

 remedy, or remove the same immediately as provided by ordinance. A 

 failure to do so will subject you to a penalty of not less than $itoo.OO.'' 



The Union was appealed to by Mr. Haise and his neigh- 

 bor bee-keepers. The trial had already been set. and only 

 three days remained in which to get my advice to him re- 

 garding a plan of defense. But it proved sufficient. The 

 case was dropt when the prosecutor found an organization 

 with money, courage, and hiw behind the defendant. 



The bee-keepers interested exprest their gratitude for 

 the prompt and efficient aid rendered by the Union, and 

 said they believed the case was disraist because of its as- 

 sistance. No money was expended by the Union in this 

 matter. 



An effort was made before the Western Classification 

 Committee to rescind the rule instructing all railroad agents 

 to refuse bees by freight in less than car lots. I put up the 

 besc argument I could think of by letter, but failed. The 

 rule still stands, I believe. Mr. Aiken went before the Com- 

 mittee in person, by request of the President, for the same 

 purpose. 



At a meeting of the Board of Directors held in Omaha, 

 Neb., in September, Ib'.ls, the General Mauager was author- 

 ized to commence legal jiroceedings against the adulterators 

 or counterfeiters of extracted honey, if, in his judgment. 



