312 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



May 18, 1899. 



PUBLISHT WEEKLY BY 



George W. York & Company, 



116 Michigan St., Chicago, III. 



ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. *%S% SAMPLE COPY FREE. 



[Entered at the Post-Office at Chicag-o as Second-Class Mail Matter.] 



United States Bee-Keepers' Association. 



Org-anized to advance the pursuit of Apiculture ; to promote the interests 

 of bee-keepers ; to protect its members ; to prevent the adulteration of 

 liouey ; and to pro&ecule the dishonest honey-commission men. 



JMc-mbersbip Fea—^1,00 per Jk.iiiituxi, 



Executive Committee— Pres., E. Whitcomb; Vice-Pres., C. A. Hatch; 



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

 Board of Directors— Iil. R. Root; E. Whitcomb; E.T.Abbott; C. P. 



Dadant; W. Z. Hutchinson; Dr. C. C. Miller. 

 Gen'l Manager and Treasurer— Eugene Secor, Forest City, Iowa. 



PlaoG and Date of I^e>xt Aleetlng-r 



In Franklin Institute, 



15 South 7th Street, between Market and Chestnut Sts., Philadelphia. Pa., 



September 5, 6 and 7, 1899. Every bee-keeper is invited. 



VOL. 39. 



MAY 18, 1899. 



NO. 20. 



Note— The American Bee Journal adopts the Ortho<fraphy of the follow- 

 ing Rule, recommended by the joint action of the American Philolog'- 

 ical Association and the Philolojjical Society of Eng-land: — Chauf^e 

 *'d" or "ed" final to "t" when so pronounced, except -when the "e" af- 

 fects a preceding sound. 



Changes in Apiarian Fixtures Deprecated. — N. D. 



West, in the Canadian Bee Journal, object-s to fences and 

 plain sections. He objects to chang-es in g-eneral, because 

 they cost, and by the time all make them we are no better 

 off than we were before ; but he rather lets the cat out of 

 the bag in giving reasons against fences by saying that 28 

 j'ears ago he tried them. So Jie has done the very thing he 

 objects to in others. But he has good sense on his side 

 when he says that the man who makes some costly change 

 to get ahead of others is only making expense for the whole 

 fraternity, and in the end no one is any better off. Your 

 head is pretty level, Mr. West. 



The New York Honey Market Mr. J. E. Crane, of 



Addison Co., Vt., spent some time in looking over the honey 

 market of New York city last December, and tells about it 

 in an article in Gleanings, from which we take these para- 

 graphs : 



Remembering the experience of the late Moses Ouinby 

 in shipping honey to that market, when, in 1860, 20,000 

 pounds broke down the market completely, and much of the 

 honey was carried over the following year before it was 

 sold, I inquired how much honey was now taken by the 

 same market, and was informed that there was no trouble 

 in disposing of about 6,000,000 pounds yearly, about tive- 

 sixths of which was extracted honey ; that while, formerly, 

 there was a demand for honey but a part of the year only, 

 now there is a demand the whole j'ear round. These facts 



were of much interest to me, as the prospective demand for 

 honey is one of great interest to everj- honey-producer. 



I might say incidentally right here that, previous to 

 1875, or about that time, there was, so far as I know, no New 

 England city where honey was regularly sold at wholesale. 

 A little was sent to Boston or other cities and sold to any 

 one who who would buy, or left to be sold on commission 

 by any one who was willing to handle it, or, perhaps I 

 .should say, who could be trusted to do so ; but I have the 

 impression that most retail dealers, previous to 187S, in New 

 England, went to New York for their honey. To-daj- sev- 

 eral New England cities have wholesale dealers, some of 

 them doing an immense business. These facts show the 

 immense increase in the demand for honey during the last 

 30 or 40 years. 



Two or three years ago we investigated the receipts of 

 honey in Chicago, and came to the conclusion that there 

 must be, in a good honey-year, about twice as much honey 

 handled in Chicago as in New York, or something like 

 1,200,000 pounds. This would give about six pounds to each 

 person living in Chicago, while it is now estimated that the 

 per capita consumption of sugar in this country is 64 pounds. 

 We all need to urge the more general use of honey. 



Honey a Cure for Smallpox. — Mr. Chas. Dadant has 

 kindly sent us the following item which he dipt from a 

 newspaper : 



Mexico City, Mes., Dec. 26. — Experiments made with 

 smallpox patients in Oaxaca, show that by administering 

 honej- diluted in water to smallpox patients the pustules of 

 the worst variety disappear, and the fever is immediately 

 diminisht. The matter attracts much attention. The rem- 

 edy was accidentally discovered by a young girl who was 

 down with the disease, who secreth' refreshed herself with 

 honey and water, with astonishing curative results, and it 

 was then tried on soldiers sick with the disease. 



Mr. Dadant wrote us the following note when sending 

 the foregoing paragraph : 



Friend York : — Please advise all the bee-papers to pub- 

 lish it, for if honey proves to be a good medicine for small- 

 pox, it will be a great succor to mankind, while its use will 

 help the bee-keepers to dispose of their crops. 



Ch.\s. Dadant. 



We might say that in the Bee Journal for Jan. 21, 1897, 

 we publisht the same item, word for word, excepting it was 

 then dated " Dec. 28." Mr. F. Bussler, one of our Mexican 

 subscribers, seeing the item in the Bee Journal, wrote us 

 the following letter, which we publisht March 4, 1897 : 



Mr. George W. York, Chicago, 111. 



Dear Sir; — I saw your statement about the honey-cure 

 for smallpox, and I can tell you that it is reallj- true. Here 

 in Mexico that disease comes nearly every year, when the 

 rainy season finishes. This 3-ear it has been pretty bad in 

 some places. The authorities are trying hard to get rid of 

 this malady, but the Indians are very little educated. In 

 nearly all the papers the honey-cure was publisht, and for 

 this reason I sold my honey as soon as I got it out. 



Yours respectfully, " F. Bussi.ER. 



The Relative Cost of Comb and Extracted Honey, 



along with the question as to which is more profitable to 

 produce, seems to be one of the problems never to be fully 

 settled, and it is perhaps well that it is so, for if all found 

 it best to produce only extracted hojiey, the possibility is 

 that the price might be reduced, and a market for comb 

 honev left unsupplied. In Gleanings the editor argues in 

 favor of getting the bees to start promptly in the sections 

 by first giving them a super of shallow extracting-combs, 

 then putting under a super of sections. Dr. Miller thinks a 

 single bait-section might do about as well, and objects to 

 having part of the honey put in extracting-combs that 

 might make white section honey. Then the editor urges 

 that with prices in proportion of 6 cents for extracted to 10 

 for comb, counting all expenses on both sides there may be 

 more monev in the extracted. 



