454 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



July 20, 1899. 



Report of the Chicag'o Bee-Keepers' Convention. 



BY HERMAN F. MOORE. 



THE fourth regular meeting- of the Chicago Bee-Keepers' 

 Association was held June 1, 1899. The attendance was 

 small, considering that the secretary mailed about 250 

 invitations to bee-keepers in and near Chicago. Attention 

 was called in the notice to a donation of $9.00 which the 

 association had received. This sum was to be used in pay- 

 ing a year's dues for the first 18 bee-keepers joining after 

 the receipt of the notice. In such a case, SO cents from a 

 new member pays two years' dues. Some new members 

 were received at the meeting. 



In spite of the small attendance, the discussions were 

 very interesting, and participated in by all present. 



The committee on resolutions reported for consideration 

 a resolution inviting the United States Bee-Keepers' Asso- 

 ciation to meet in Chicago in 1900 ; a resolution urging all 

 our members to join the United States Bee-Keepers' Asso- 

 ciation ; a resolution thanking Mrs. Stow, Mr. York and 

 Mr. Moore for their present of $9.00, and for the able man- 

 ner in which they represented the bee-keepers before the 

 United States food investigation committee. The said reso- 

 lutions were all unanimously adopted. 



The association discust at length the question of amend- 

 ing the constitution. The following amendments were pro- 

 posed, and the secretary was instructed to give notice of 

 the same to all members, according to the constitution : 



Amendments: Strike out the clause which reads, "Only 

 bee-keepers resident in Cook County are elig^ible to office." 



Amend Art. III. making tiie membership fee SI. 00. 



Amend Art. VII, making times of meeting " first 

 Thursday in April, and first Thursday in November." 



Amend Art. V, changing word " December " to " No- 

 vember," for election of officers. 



On motion, it was ordered that the September meeting 

 be devoted to amending the constitution only. 



" Our success in wintering " was now made the subject 

 for discussion. All the members reported heavy losses, 

 some more than half. Honey-dew stores seemed to be the 

 cause in a number of cases. 



Mr. George \V. York addrest the meeting on the work 

 of the Senate pure food committee. He was of the opinion 

 that the information collected by it will be of the greatest 

 benefit to bee-keepers everywhere. 



Mr. Edward N. Eaton, a well known chemist and spe- 

 cialist in honey analysis and investigations, also addrest the 

 association in an interesting and acceptable manner. 



A paper was read by the secretary on current topics, 

 and, on motion, it was ordered publisht. 



The association then adjourned to the September meet- 

 ing. Herman F. Moore, Sec. 



Mr. Moore on Current Bee-Topics. 



Your secretary has been requested to address j'ou on 

 current topics of special interest to bee-keepers, and espe- 

 cially to our own Chicago Bee-Keepers' Association. This 

 is the day of organizations (wisely or unwisely), and bee- 

 keepers must organize, and, being organized, carry out the 

 best and largest plans for their chosen vocation. 



The pure food investigation recently had in our midst, 

 by the United States Senate committee, must be productive 

 of much good. The people will awake to the necessity of 

 legislation that shall require truthful labels on all articles 

 of food, and the absolute prohibition of injurious chemicals 

 or adulterations. Doctors, chemists, pharmacists, merchants, 

 manufacturers, apiarists, etc., one and all recommended the 

 enactment of such a national law. 



You will see at once the necessity for it, when told that 

 the investigation showed a very large part of all pepper sold 

 is ground buckwheat hulls ; ginger is ground tarred rope ; 

 flour is ground stone and clay ; powdered sugar is corn- 

 starch ; butter is tallow and lard ; lard is cotton-seed oil and 

 paraffine; horse-radish is turnips ; and three-fourths of the 

 alleged liquid honey on the retail market is composed partly 

 of glucose. 



John Ruskin says: "I know hardly anytliing more 



strange than that you recognize honesty in play, and you 

 do not in work. In your lightest games you have always 

 some one to see what you call fair-play. In boxing you 

 must hit fair, in racing start fair. Your prize-fig'hter has 

 some honor in him yet ; and so have the men in the ring 

 around him : they will judge him to lose the match by foul 

 hitting. But your prize merchant gains the match by foul 

 selling-, and no one cries out against that. You drive a 

 gambler out of the gambling-room who loads dice, but j'ou 

 leave a tradesman in flourishing business who loads scales ! 

 For, observe all dishonest dealing is loading scales. What 

 does it matter whether I get short weight, adulterated sub- 

 stance or dishonest fabric ? The fault in the fabric is in- 

 comparably the worse of the two. Give me short measure 

 of food and I only lose by you; but give me adulterated 

 food, and I die by you." 



In the midst of all this pure-food agitation, we as bee- 

 keepers, as representatives of a most honorable business, 

 have a duty to perform both for our fellow apiarists and 

 also for the general public — the consumers of our products. 



Let us say that as for us, we henceforth set our faces, 

 like flint, ag-ainst the continuance of fraudulent adultera- 

 tion of honey. Remember, that in this conflict with fraud 

 and misrepresentation, the people are with us as a unit. 

 The great people, the consumers of everything, are more 

 suspicious than ever before of the food they are buying, 

 aiid are firmly determined to know the real composition of 

 everything they eat. This is only right and proper, for in 

 many cases health, or even life itself, may be lost by in- 

 attention to these matters. 



The United States Bee-Keepers' Association, with 

 which most of you are perfectly familiar, has determined to 

 stop all illegal adulteration, sophistication and substitution 

 in the honey-business. This determination is most com- 

 mendable, especially as we remember that half a million 

 producers of honey and thirty-five million consumers of 

 honey, as food and medicine, are directly interested in this 

 question. 



A very old saw runs : " Pay your money and take your 

 choice," whereas too often people have paid their money 

 for honey to find that the dealer had chosen glucose for them. 

 The far-reaching effects of such a transaction may not be 

 apparent to a careless observer. When a pound of unsatis- 

 factory, fraudulent mixture is sold to a customer, a pro- 

 ducer of pure honey has lost a sale of a pound of good 

 honey. But more than this, the said customer, on finding 

 his purchase unsatisfactory, at once objurgates all honey 

 and honey-dealers, and eats no more honey in his family 

 for a year. He would have purchast nine pounds more of 

 good honey in the year; so that the sale of a pound of mix- 

 ture (glucose and something else) has defrauded the honest 

 apiarist out of the market for ten pounds of genuine honey. 

 This is no fairy-tale. The writer can affirm the truth of 

 the statement in the light of over ten years of close busi- 

 ness relations with family consumers of real honey. 



The United States Bee-Keepers' Association has now 

 about SCO members. It is necessary that the number of 

 members be increast to 1,000 before the aforementioned 

 plans can be carried out to the fullest extent. It will cost 

 much money and labor to prevent effectually the adultera- 

 tion of honey. Many samples must be collected, many 

 chemical analyses must be made and paid for, and the war 

 against fraud must be carried on sternly for months, it may 

 be years, before the enemy is finally beaten. 



There is no way in which a dollar will go so far and do 

 so much good as in paying a year's membership in the 

 United States Bee-Keepers' Association — to Eugene Secor, 

 Treasurer, Forest City, Iowa. 



Certain amendments to our constitution have bee.n 

 recommended for our consideration by the executive com- 

 mittee. One makes any member residing in Cook County 

 or not eligible to office, and another changes the annual 

 fee to $1.00 a year. The executive committee realizes that 

 in a great city like this, where both aims and expenses are 

 high, the annual fee of $1.00 each will no more than suffice 

 to pay necessary running expenses. If the annual dues 

 could be made $5.00 instead of one, it would conduce greatly' 

 to sociability and the more effective protection of the in- 

 terests of our members. An annual banquet and an annual 

 picnic would be occasions of great pleasure to our members,, 

 and be the means of drawing tighter the fraternal bond. 



It seems advisable for our association to extend an in- 

 vitation to the United States Bee-Keepers' Association to 

 hold their regular meeting in 1900 in Chicago. Their 1899 

 meeting will be held in Philadelphia, in September, 

 which will, no doubt, be an occasion of much pleasure and 

 profit to bee-keepers. 



