440 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



July 13, 1899. 



PCBLISHT WEEKLY BY 



Qeorqe W. York & Company, 



116 Michigan St., Chicago, III. 



ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. ^^^ SAMPLE COPY FREE. 



[Entered at the Post-Office at Chicago as Second-Class Mail Matter.) 



United States Bee-Keepers' Association. 



Organized to advance the pursuit of Apiculture : to promote the interests 

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

 honey ; and to prosecute the dishonest honey-commission men. 



Aletnbershlp Fee—^l.OO per Aajium, 



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

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



Board of Directors— E. 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. 



Place and Date of JKext ILIeetiag : 



„ In Franklin Institute, 



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

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



VOL. 39. 



JULY 13, 1899. 



NO. 28. 



No-TE— The American Bee Journal adopts the Orthographv of the follow- 

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

 Ji*?,! "^^I""^'^!;'"" ^"'' ""^ Philological Society of England:— Change 

 d or ed" final to "t" when so pronounced, e.xcept when the "e" af- 

 fects a preceding sound. 



Pure.Food Commissioner for Illinois.— Mr. T. L. 



Chapman, of ^^eyville, an ex-State Senator, -n-as ap- 

 pointed June 2g^h by Gov. Tanner as pure-food commis- 

 sioner under the act past by the last general assembly 

 creating the office. Referring to the appointment. Gov. 

 Tanner had this^tosav, as reported in the Chicago Record : 



" I consider this the most important appointment made 

 or to be made bj' this administration. It is important from 

 the fact that the law creating the office of pure-food com- 

 missioner is a very drastic one, giving to the commissioner 

 extraordinarily arbitrary powers. Therefore, after worry- 

 ing much over the selection, I arrived at the conclusion that 

 it was the duty of the executive to select some one outside 

 of the interests affected, wholly without prejudice— an hon- 

 est, fair-minded man of good ability, broad-minded and 

 conservative, yet firm. Taking this 'view of the matter I 

 determined upon the selection of a lawyer, the best lawyer 

 I could secure to take the place, a man' who knew the law 

 and had the courage to enforce it." 



We certainly hope that Mr. Chapman is the right man 

 for the place. If he proves so to be, he will find strong 

 support among the bee-keepers of the State, who are anx- 

 ious that he shall apply the law against the shameful adul- 

 teration of honey, particularly here in Chicago where the 

 most of the adulterating is done. 



Alfalfa, Grasshoppers, Bees : Their Relationship, is the 



title of a bulletin of the Department of Entomology of the 



University of Kansas. The author is Prof. S. J. Hunter, a 

 young man who made an excellent impression upon the 

 national convention last year at Omaha. The pamphlet 

 contains 152 octavo pages, and is a beautiful specimen of 

 the typographical art, containing a large number of fine 

 illustrations, mostl3' original. Eighty pages are devoted to 

 bees, with some special attention to alfalfa as a honey- 

 plant, and the advantage of bees to alfalfa. Alfalfa con- 

 tinues to secrete nectar as long as the blossom flourishes, 

 and does its best under circumstances which tend to give 

 the plant most vigorous growth. On dry upland the bees 

 neglect it. Beginning with June it yields honey three or 

 four months. 



A careful comparison of two fields similarly situated 

 except that only one of them had the visits of bees, showed 

 65 percent more seeds on the alfalfa visited by bees. 



A plate gives six kinds of honey in test-tubes, showing 

 the comparative degrees of light and shade. Alfalfa is a 

 little darker than white clover. The lightest of all is a 

 mixture of alfalfa and melon bloom. Sweet clover is the 

 darkest of all except knotweed. Basswood, like alfalfa, is 

 darker than white clover. In other States the compari-son 

 might be different. 



Something like a condenst treatise on bee-keeping is 

 given, the first part evidently being written by one who got 

 his information at second hand, and not always from the 

 most reliable source, as when it is said, " Should the colony 

 be deprived of its queen, the workers hasten the appearance 

 of a new queen bj- tearing down the partition walls between 

 three surrounding cells, taking the contents away and leav- 

 ing one egg to be fed for the throne." But these are minor 

 blemishes. 



Forty pages are occupied with plain and simple instruc- 

 tions for the beginner in bee-keeping, being written by a 

 practical bee-keeper of experience, A. H. Dufl^. Mr. Duff 

 writes as one evidently familiar with practical bee-keeping, 

 and some of his ideas may be given at another time. Prof. 

 Hunter has done a good work. 



The Age of Brood. Combs that may be reacht without 

 unfitting them for good service is a matter in dispute. 

 Some think they should not not be more than five j-ears old, 

 while others think they should never be discarded on ac- 

 count of age. In Apiculteur, a foreign bee-paper, is re- 

 ported a hive of combs that had been in constant use for 30 

 years, the combs being very dark, and bending easily with- 

 out breaking. The bees reared in them showed no signs of 

 deterioration. 



The Honey Season for 1899 is thus commented upon 

 by Editor Root in Gleanings in Bee-Culture for July 1 : 



So far reports are very meager, and such as have 

 alreadj' come in do not indicate any very great show of sur- 

 plus for most localities. There will be more of a crop than 

 last year, but even then probably below the average. The 

 season seems to be late everywhere, and basswoods are only 

 just beginning to open in nianj- places. So far reports 

 seem to indicate that Colorado will more than hold her own. 

 In California there will be a verj- light crop — less than a 

 quarter. We have received letters from Wisconsin, Iowa, 

 and Tennessee, indicating no honey : but for Wisconsin, at 

 least, it is a little early to forecast the crop. In New York, 

 reports indicate that there will be a fair crop of clover and 

 basswood, which will, no doubt, be followed by the usual 

 flow from buckwheat. From Michigan we have some bad 

 reports as well as good ones. N. E. Doane writes that wil- 

 low-herb has " about had its run." and this is usually one 

 of the unfailing sources of honey. Byron Walker, of Michi- 

 gan, writes much more encouragingly. The nectar-flow in 

 and about Medina, while better than last j-ear, will be 

 rather light. Mr. Burt will get a superof comb honey from 

 each one of his 300 colonies. 



The conditions in the latter part of May and early part 

 of June, while very favorable, have been rather unfavor- 



