June 22, 1899. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



393 



"I have been badg^ered and browbeaten by manufac- 

 turers of adulterated foods until I am tired. I have been 

 threatened by political destruction, and been approacht by 

 bribe-givers until I feel it my duty to await the presence of 

 other members of the committee before taking further 

 testimony. There is one concern in this city that has 

 already threatened to ruin me — the fflucose trust. 



" It is the old story of the flour bill. I stood by the bill 

 for unadulterated flour, and have always believed I com- 

 pelled its passag-e. At that time the g-lucose men did every- 

 thing in tlieir power to frighten me, or in some other way 

 ^et me off the track of my purpose. Why, they even went 

 to my son, who was newly wed, and had only a scant home 

 for himself, and oS'ered him a salary of $10,000 a year to act 

 as attorney for them, making the injplied condition that he 

 should haul me away from the support of the flour bill. The 

 adulterators of food products are pursuing similar tactics 

 tp-day, and that is why I am determined that before the in- 

 vestigation proceeds further, fellow-members of the com- 

 mittee must step in and share the burden of responsibility. 



" Testimony that has been absolutely of no value has 

 been admitted by me simply because I did not wish to ac- 

 cept the responsibility of excluding it. I have not wisht to 

 take the risk of having it said that I excluded testimony 

 that might explain alleged evil conditions. I knew the 

 testimony could avail nothing, but admitted it in order that 

 there might be no opportunity for the charge of prejudice. 

 Had there been other members of the committee to support 

 me, this time would not have been wasted. Still, I cannot 

 say that much time has been wasted, because I have gath- 

 ered enough evidence to form the foundation of a bill to 

 compel every manufacturer of food products to label all food 

 according to its composition." 



So the glucose trust is beginning to make its threats. 

 All right ; before they get thru it (the trust) will have a 

 fe%v scores to settle with the bee-keepers of this country. 

 Glucose is the principal adulterant found in the so-called 

 '•honey" mixtures ofl^ered for sale in so many grocery 

 stores in Chicago and other cities, and some of these fine 

 daj-s some one will be compelled to stop that criminal prac- 

 tice, or work for the State awhile for nothing. We believe 

 it will not be very long until we have a strong national law 

 against adulteration, and then we will see whether Mr. 

 Glucose Trust will "threaten to ruin " anybody. About 

 that time it will likely be ruined itself. 



The Boston Transcript, some time ago, publisht the 

 following paragraph, which gives quite a little information 

 about glucose, and the extent to which it is manufactured 

 and used as an adulterant in this country : 



What Glucose is M.adk Of. — Commercial glucose is 

 made from corn, but it may be got from almost any sort of 

 vegetable stuft'. It may be obtained from cotton rags by 

 mixing with the rags a small quantity of sulphuric acid. 

 Ordinary blotting paper treated in the same way will yield 

 glucose. Cotton rags and blotting paper are cellulose, and 

 cellulose is the same thing chemically as sugar, save that it 

 contains more water in each of its molecules. The sulphuric 

 acid takes away the extra water, and the residue is glucose. 

 Glucose is not quite so sweet as cane-sugar, but it costs only 

 about one-fourth as much per pound. So it makes a very 

 suitable adulterant, and for this purpose it is widely em- 

 ployed in the manufacture of candies, jellies, syrups, etc. 

 It would be made out of rags but for the fact that corn is 

 cheaper than rags. Ten pounds of glucose are turned out 

 annually in this country for every man, woman and child 

 in the United States— a total of 650',000,000 pounds. In fact, 

 it is the most widely employed of all adulterants. 



So glucose is more used than any other product by adul- 

 terators, and in order to sell it it must be past off under tlie 

 name of something better, such as honej', syrup, jelly, etc., 

 and thus defraud the public. We would advise the glucose 

 trust to put their trust in some more honorable article. 

 Glucose is too great a defiler of the pure and the good. 



To Close Saturday Afternoons.— We wish that bee- 

 keepers (especially those in or near Chicago) would hereby 

 take notice that the offices of the American Bee Journal and 

 Root's Chicago Branch of bee-keepers' supplies will be 

 closed Saturday afternoons during Julj', August and Sept. 



Rev. Ch.\s. Horack, of Lasalle Co., 111., called on us 

 June 10. Mr. Horack preaches to a Bohemian congrega- 

 tion, and keeps a few colonies of bees for recreation. 



♦ » » # ♦ 



Mr. W. T. Rich.\rdson, of Ventura Co.. Calif., presi- 

 dent of the California Bee-Keepers' Exchange, wrote us 

 June 5 : " We shall not have any surplus hone^' this year." 



♦ » « * * 



Mr. J. H. Stock, of Erie Co., N. Y., has sent us a pho- 

 tograph of his apiary of about 20 colonies. We are glad to 

 get pictures of the apiaries of our readers, some of which 

 we are able to have engraved so as to reproduce them in the 

 Bee Journal. But for engraving they must be very clear 

 and distinct. Poor photographs cannot be " halftoned " 

 very satisfactorilj-. 



» « ♦ * ♦ 



Alice Jennings — evidentlj' a little city girl — writing 

 about bees, had this to say about them : 



" Bees are always busy because the idle ones are killed. 

 Thev make honey and wax, but paratfine candles are 

 cheaper, or else candles made out of whales. The bees 

 build cells and combs, and sometimes fill trees, and bears 

 smell the honey and eat it. They suck the juice out of 

 flowers, and the flower dies. Bees are meaner than mos- 

 quitoes, and you can tell them by the yellow bands on their 

 abdomen." 



♦ * * * * 



Mr. Chauncey E. Anderson, of Lucas Co., Ohio, sends 

 us a clipping from the Toledo Blade, about bees storing 

 honey in a sponge that a certain New Englander put into a 

 hive. The idea is to fill a hive with sponges, then have the 

 bees fill them, and afterward squeeze out the honey, thus 

 saving the comb-building. We can hardly conceive of any- 

 thing more ridiculous or foolish. The whole thing has every 

 appearance of the usual newspaper yarn. 



Mr. Anderson reports the prospects good for a splendid 

 honey-flow in his locality this j'ear. 

 « * * * * 



Mr. Frank Beers, of the firm of E. A. Beers & Co., 

 doing a general merchandise business in Uinta Co., Utah, 

 called on us June 10, having come to Chicago about a week 

 in advance of a carload of fine alfalfa extracted honey of 

 last season's production. Mr. Beers' firm expects hereafter 

 to represent the bee-keepers of his locality in the marketing 

 of their honey. He has been instrumental in organizing a 

 local bee-keepers' association numbering about 25 members. 

 We wish both the firm of Beers & Co. and the bee-keepers 

 all the success they may anticipate. 

 « * * » » 



Mr. W. E. Hatterman, a bee-keeper of this (Cook) 

 county, returned from a visit to Porto Rico a few weeks 

 ago. He is simply overwhelmed with the beauty of that 

 new possession of Uncle Sam. He doesn't believe that 

 there are two colonies of bees in modern hives on the whole 

 island. All are wild, living in the trees, and whenever any 

 honey is wanted, the natives must first go out and find a 

 bee-tree ! Mr. Hatterman thinks it would be a grand place 

 for up-to-date bee-keeping. He traveled over a good por- 

 tion of the island on horseback, and found in endless pro- 

 fusion nectar-yielding plants of many varieties. He was 

 delighted with the climate, and says he is going back some 

 day. 



Langstroth on the Honey.Bee, revised by the Dadants, 

 is a standard, reliable and thoroughly complete work on 

 bee-culture. It contains 520 pages, and is bound elegantly. 

 Every reader of the American Bee Journal should have a 

 copy of this book, as it answers hundreds of questions that 

 arise about bees. We mail it for $1.25, or club it with the 

 Bee Journal for a year— both for only $2.00. 



The Premiums offered on page 385 are well worth work- 

 ing for. Look at them. 



