680 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Oct. 26, 1899. 



QEORQE W. YORK. Editor. 



PUBLISHT WEEKLY BY 



George W. York & Company, 



118 Michigan St., Chicago, III. 



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



[Entered at the Posl-Offlce 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. 



AXembersWp Fee—91-OO per Annum, 



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



Secretary, Dr. A. 15. 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 TREASnRER— Eugene Secor, Forest City, Iowa. 



VOL 39. OCTOBER 26, 1899. NO. 43. 



Note— The American Bee Journal adopts the Orthography of the follow- 

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

 ical Association and the Philological Society of England: — Change 

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

 fects a preceding sound. 



The Advancing Price of Honey Rev. E. T. Abbott 



wrote us Oct. 13, and in reference to the advancing price of 

 honey had this to say : 



I noticed what you said in your editorial on page 632, 

 about the advance in the price of honey. I had been won- 

 dering why some one did not make the suggestion that 

 honey had already advanced, as it has been bringing from 

 two to three cents more per pound this year than it has for 

 some time. They are wanting 13?+ cents by the carload, 

 for Western comb honey delivered here, and I think I could 

 have bought the same kind of honey last year for 10 cents. 

 Everything has advanced in price, and honey is no excep- 

 tion to the rule. I feel quite sure that it will continue to 

 advance until the next honey crop is harvested, and I doubt 

 very much if it is ever again as low as it has been. 



Yes, honey is honey, and worth money, this year. We 

 are glad the price has gone up to something near where it 

 ought to be, and we hope it will remain there. Of course, 

 when nearly everything else rises in price honey vcould 

 naturally go up some, too, even if there was a large crop. 

 But now that it brings a good price, every effort ought to 

 be made by producers to keep it there. It will help, next 

 year, to be careful not to rush the whole crop into one city, 

 and all at the same time. A more even distribution will 

 help wonderfully to sustain prices. Right here is a place 

 where the honey-producers themselves can help their own 

 interests if they really care to do so. 



Removing Honey Without Bee.Escapes In the Bee- 

 Keepers' Review Critic Taylor quotes F. A. Snell as saying, 

 " Before the invention of the bee-escape there was no way 



to take off honey without demoralizing the bees, unless one 

 waited until cool weather." Mr. Taylor thinks this would 

 be deplorable if true, but he has not found it to be true. He 

 says, " If all «;;«t'("riiar_)' handling of bees during times of 

 a dearth of nectar is avoided, all necessary handling with 

 judicious management may be done without educating the 

 bees up to the point of making annoying attempts at rob- 

 bing." He says rapidity is the key, two working better 

 than one — one with smoker and brush, the other to do the 

 handling, stopping for a time when the bees show undue 

 excitement. He goes to the other extreme from Mr. Snell, 

 and says, " As a rule a bee-escape is a nuisance." 



Probably there are differences in persons as well as 

 localities. Mr. Snell might be told that tons upon tons of 

 honey were taken before the day of escapes, and without 

 demoralizing the bees, and that many times in hot weather 

 a super of honey may stand exposed for hours without 

 starting robbing. On the other hand, while Mr. Ta_ylor 

 and other veterans find no use for an escape, to others, 

 probably to the great majority, it has been a boon. 



Honey for the Complexion. — F. L. Thompson, in the 

 Bee-Keepers' Review, translating from a foreign bee-paper, 

 gives this : 



" Herr Maurus says that Roumanian girls often mix 

 honey with water for washing face and hands, and affirm 

 that it produces a very fine complexion." 



Undoubtedly it would work in the same way on the 

 complexion of our American girls, should any of them re- 

 quire it. Surely, it is an inexpensive remedy. 



Getting Bees Ready for Winter.— In the October Pro- 

 gressive Bee-Keeper, G. M. Doolittle gives the following 

 directions for preparing bees for winter, especially as re- 

 gards the matter of food : 



By the time this number reaches the different readers, 

 all colonies of bees should be ready for winter, unless in 

 the most extreme Southern States. Are they thus ready ? 

 is the question each should answer. Fearing that some 

 may not be (from the many letters I receive telling of the 

 poor season, and that they will be obliged to feed), I am led 

 to urge any who have not attended to this matter of winter 

 preparation to do so at once. And I am askt to tell what to 

 feed where stores are lacking, and the person has not 

 enough to go around. In such a case I know of nothing 

 better for winter feeding than the following : 



Take any tin, iron or copper vessel of suitable size, and 

 put therein 15 pounds of water, placing the vessel over the 

 fire until the water boils, when 30 pounds of granulated 

 sugar is poured in, stirring briskly while slowly pouring, 

 so that it may not fall in a mass to the bottom of the vessel 

 and burn it before it is dissolved. Having stirred until all 

 danger of burning is over, allow it to remain over the fire 

 until the whole begins to boil again, when the vessel and 

 contents are set from the fire and five pounds of extracted 

 honey stirred in. As soon as it is so cool that you can bear 

 your finger in it, it is readj' for the bees, and can be fed in 

 any of the many good feeders in use, or you can provide a 

 feeder by using any pan, basin or can you maj' happen to 

 have, always using some grass, shavings, corncobs, etc., 

 for a float to keep the bees from drowning. 



The honey is put in the feed to keep it from turning 

 back to sugar again, and is the only sure thing to keep thick 

 sugar syrup in the liquid form that I know of. 



A Cure for Prejudice Against Bees. — Quite frequently 

 instances arise where certain neighbors of bee-keepers be- 

 come jealous, or have some differences of opinion which 

 cause them to take steps to get the bees out of the neighbor- 

 hood. In the Agricultural Epitomist of recent date we fitid 

 the following suggested cure for such prejudice or jealousy : 



Writing from Iowa a subscriber objects to a near neigh- 

 bor's bees, on the ground that they injure his grapes every 

 year. He thinks that there should be a law to prevent peo- 

 ple from keeping bees. This is an old question, and one 



