April 20, 1899. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



245 



reported my case and cure to the medical faculty, after 

 which I had calls for bees that the poison could or mig-ht be 

 extracted in alcohol to be given internall)' as a remedy for 

 rheumatism. 



My general health has improved during all these years. 



St. Joseph Co., Ind. 



Feeding- Sug-ar Syrup to Fill the Brood-Combs 

 Prior to the Main Honey Harvest. 



BY \V. \V. M'NE.^L. 



I CANNOT but think it a mistake on the part of anyone 

 who resorts to the use of sugar syrup in the manner 

 spoken of to secure a crop of honey. The feeding of it 

 to stimulate the queen to increast activity, thereby getting 

 the combs tilled with brood instead of syrup is certainly a 

 more practical method and less questionable. Feeding bees 

 is a fussy, unpleasant work at best ; when the word is 

 spoken and the act performed, the story will reverberate up 

 and down the valley and adjacent hills till they who eat 

 honey decide to buy it of some one else. If the colony is 

 allovfed an abundance of good, ripe honey the fall previous, 

 or given a sufficiency at one feeding in the spring of the 

 year, they will usually be found able to take care of their 

 share of the honey crop when it comes. 



To feed bees sugar syrup and get it stored in the brood- 

 combs in the manner they store when gathering from the 

 flowers, is something every one cannot do, or will not take 

 the time to do. If only a little is fed for a goodly number of 

 days, surely none of it can be stored for future use unless 

 the bees are gathering from other sources enough to meet 

 their needs, and if they are given syrup in quantities to en- 

 able them to do this, it will most certainly be done at the 

 expense of brood or numerical strength. 



When the honey harvest arrives the result most likeh- 

 will be one of two things ; The queen, if she be one or two 

 years old, will issue with a swarm ; if she be of the current 

 season's rearing, the bees will clear the brood-combs for 

 her of the syrup, and carry it into the supers. If they never 

 do this, why is it that a swarm having a young fertile 

 queen and hived on drawn combs during a good honey-flow 

 continues to work right along in the sections for sometime 

 after the flow has ceast ? Will those who insist that bees 

 do not carrj' above a portion of the syrup when the brood- 

 combs are crowded at the opening of the harvest consent to 

 feed a dark grade of extracted honey prior to the coming of 

 the 7i'/iile honey ? The addition of sug-ar syrup to well- 

 ripened clover or basswood honey does not improve the 

 quality or color, be it done by the bees or the apiarist. The 

 darker grades and thin, watery, unripe honey may be made 

 better ; but to sell it under the name of honey — well, say, 

 my esteemed bee-keeping friend, wouldn't you feel just a 

 little bit wronged if some one to whom you had paid the 

 price of best pure honey would deliver instead an article 

 composed of sug-ar syrup and honey, and the whole labeled 

 " honey ?" 



Bee-keepers should not be too loud in their condemna- 

 tion of glucose when their own houses of stone are com- 

 posed so largely of glass. I feel that no one can be more 

 bitterly opposed to the use of gflucose with honey than my- 

 self. Such adulteration cannot be other than a voluntary 

 effort to deceive for the sake of gain. But to ignore such 

 wholesome proof as the bees produce, that the syrup or 

 honey of the brood-combs is oftimes carried into the supers 

 — a portion of it, I mean — and there stored in the comb 

 along with the honey being gathered from the field, is a 

 moral slackness which gentlemen of the brotherhood should 

 be very careful of. 



haste the time when there will be made known some 

 simple, reliable means of detecting the presence of glucose 

 or cane sugar in honey ! Then our patrons may read from 

 the label on can or bucket the surety of the genuineness of 

 its contents. 



1 am prone to believe, owing to the largely varying 

 flavor of pure honeys, that adulteration is not nearly so 

 prevalent as the belief thereof. But a world of suspicion 

 on the one hand, and a company on the other practicing the 

 adulteration of honey, and no ready means to convince a 

 quizical customer that the honey one is selling- is, beyond 

 peradventure, strictly pure, has changed the selling of 

 honey in many places from a pleasant to an unpleasant one. 



When honey is bought in a distant market to hold one's 

 trade, great care and judgement should be exercised in select- 

 ing and in the handling, if the apiary be close to where the 

 hone)' is kept. Honey that differs widely in flavor from 



what people are accustomed to buy will generally find poor 

 sale ; but it niaj' be a fruitful source of foul brood conta- 

 gion, and so prove to be a pretty expensive way of holding- 

 the trade in honey. Alfalfa extracted honey is certainly 

 pleasing enough in body and flavor to suit the most exact- 

 ing- purchaser ; but even this I would not feed to my own 

 bees without first diluting with water and boiling thoroly. 



With proper precaution I believe it to be to one's inter- 

 est to buY when his own crop is short. As well as I like the 

 taste of alfalfa honey the daintiest little mouthful distresses 

 me as if it were poison pure and simple to my stomach. I 

 have eaten of a g-ood many kinds of hone)', but none save 

 the alfalfa ever hurt me. I have sold it quite largely with 

 the best of satisfaction to all parties concerned, and know 

 of but one other case who, like myself, was made sick from 

 eating it. 



A good article of extracted honey, to my notion, is bet- 

 ter than the same in the comb, and I fully believe that 

 honey in this form will be the only way it can be produced 

 at a profit in the near future. 



The sooner bee-keepers cease to stir up further opposi- 

 tion by the injudicious feeding of sugar syrup the better it 

 will be for the pursuit. Scioto Co., Ohio. 



IS 



Law and Honey Prices— A Reply to Mr. Doolittle. 



BY EMERSON TAYLOR ABBOTT. 



THERE is a certain animal which is said to become very 

 much excited at the appearance of a red rag, and some 

 of my remarks seem to have had a like effect on Mr. 

 Doolittle (see page 195), yet, for the life of me, I cannot tell 

 why. There seems to be no reason why he should lash him- 

 self into such righteous indignation, unless he has lookt at 

 the dark side of things so long that his vision of the crown 

 and glory of life, health and happiness, has become a little 

 blurred. 



Mr. Doolittle, this is not a radically bad world, and 

 " God is not dead," even tho they did feed our soldiers on 

 bad meat, and just now we are engaged in an inglorious 

 effort to kill off a lot of half-civilized Filipinos. It is true, 

 however, that some men are a good deal richer than an ex- 

 ercise of common honesty would seem to warrant, but I see 

 no advantage in becoming greatly excited about it. 



I have verv positive views on the subject which Mr. 

 Doolittle touches, but I am thoroly confident that the 

 American Bee Journal is not the place to discuss them. I 

 think I can see these things just as " clearly " as Mr. D., 

 but perhaps they may not look the same to me as they do to 

 him. Let that be as it may, I want to set myself right, for 

 I am convinced that the two articles referred to, taken as a 

 whole, do not teach what Mr. D. tries to write into them. 

 Perhaps I did not express myself clearly, but what I wanted 

 to say, in the pure food talk, was that no law should be past 

 ivith'a viciL< to raising or lowering the price of any product. 

 Especially should no law be past because it will enable a 

 certain class of people to get more for their products. This 

 is not what law is for, but to promote the common good. 

 Briefly, to illustrate, I do not believe we have any right to 

 pass a law against the adulteration of honey because it will 

 raise the price of honey, hut because it is a. fraud to adul- 

 terate, and all frauds should be supprest. 



Bless your soul, Mr. Doolittle, I had no idea of discuss- 

 ing what effect laws do have on the price of things when I 

 said, "Law has nothing to do with increasing the price of 

 the produce of any individual ;" and I still insist that this 

 is not the province of law, but rather to guarantee unto 

 every man " Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." 

 Perhaps it would have been better if I had said, " Law 

 should have." etc. 



I want to enter a mild protest against Mr. D.'s repeated 

 assertions that evidently Mr. Abbott believes so and so, for 

 I am quite sure he does not know what I do believe on these 

 subjects. I have never discust them in any bee-paper, nor 

 do I intend to do so. There is not much occasion just now 

 to discuss low prices of anything in this locality, especially 

 the price of comb honey, for there is very little to be had, 

 and I could sell a great' deal of it at remunerative prices, if 

 I only knevr where to get it. Wonder which it was, lazv or 

 politics that brought about this state of things ! 



Let me say, in conclusion, that I honestly believe that 

 the adulteration fraud is the gigantic crime of the centur)-, 

 and a disposition to wink at it shows a lack of moral senti- 

 ment which should startle into activity the most sluggish 

 and indifl'erent citizen of a free country. Adulteration 

 ignores the foundation principles of all moral sentiment, 

 and undermines two of the recognized basic ideas of legiti- 



