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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



Dec. 21, 1899. 



QEORQE W. YORK, Editor. 



PUBLISHT WEEKLY BY 



George 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. 



Org-anized 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. 



Afembership P'ee— ^I.OO per Anautn, 



Executive 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— Eug-ene Secor, Forest City, Iowa. 



VOL. 39. DECEMBER 21, 1899. NO. 51. 



Note— The American Bee Journal adopts the Ortho(fraphv uS llic f.illow- 

 ing Rule, recommended by 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, except when the "e" af- 

 fects a preceding sound. 



The rierriest Christmas of your life we wish to each 

 and every one of our readers— and many returns of the 

 merry day to all. 



" Old Qrimes is dead." So said the old poem, but by 

 referring to page 801 it will be seen that another " Old 

 Grimes "' has taken his place. Probably the latter is a sou 

 or grandson of the former. But no matter, the present 

 " Old Grimes " is a bee-keeper, and a good one, too. He 

 proposes to tell in ten or more articles " How to Get the 

 Best Out of" — the hive, a colony of bees, an apiary, a 

 smoker, a honey-house, a honey-extractor, a honey-knife, a 

 queen-excluding honey-board, and our helpers. 



Possibly there may be more than the ten articles. 

 There are two on " How to Get the Most Out of an Apiarv." 

 This series of articles will be worth many times a single 

 year's subscription to the American Bee Journal. The first 

 one of the series, which appears this week, will be followed 

 by the others in regular weekly succession. Don't fail to 

 read them carefully. 



Comb Honey in Cold Weather is the heading of a 

 timely item in Gleanings in Bee-Culture, which reads as 

 follows : 



" Be sure to warn the groceryman, or any one else who 

 handles your honey, to keep that in the comb, at least, in 

 warm, dry rooms. A room subject to freezing temperature 

 should never be used for the storage of comb honey. Freez- 

 ing cracks the cappings, and wheti the room warms up 

 again it will sweat like a pitcher of cold water on a svim- 

 mer's day. Unsealed comb honey receiving such treatment 



will also be ruined. The ' sweat ' will mingle with the 

 honey, thinning it so it will sour. The commission man is 

 supposed to know all this, while your local grocer may be 

 utterly ignorant of it." 



As we read the above paragraph we were reminded that 

 several years ago one of our local grocers, in the summer- 

 time, told us that the comb honey he had was leaking, or 

 the honej' was running out of the comb, terribU-. When 

 we askt him where he kept it, he replied, " In the refrigera- 

 tor, of course, for it would melt if outside, these warm 

 days." 



How ignorant grocers are about the goods they handle. 

 And yet, we can hardly blame them much for not knowing- 

 better concerning honey. They need to be fo/d many 

 things, and will always receive it kindly, when it is done in 

 the right way. Of course, the grocer referred to above 

 never will put honey into a refrigerator again. He knows 

 better now. 



Australian Honey. Yields. — The Australasian Bee- 

 Keeper reports that in 1898 Frank Curr's bees began stor- 

 ing in August, and continued seven months until March, 

 1899 (remember that their summer is at the same time as 

 our winter). He started with 120 colonies, increast to 145, 

 and took 47,000 pounds of honey — nearly 400 pounds per 

 colony. 



How riany Hours a Day Do Bees Work? — Perhaps a 

 goodly number would answer, that in a busy season a bee 

 works about 24 hours a daj'. If Prof. C. F. Hodge has made 

 no mistake in his observations, reported in Gleanings in 

 Bee-Culture, bees — at least some of them — don't even work 

 on the eight-hour system. He markt bees with colors, 

 watcht them from daylight to dark, and says, "No single 

 bee that I watcht ever workt more than 3^ hours a day." 

 In one case he saw a worker crawl into a cell and watcht her 

 remain there lying quietly on her back for nearly five 

 hours, and asks whether she was asleep or resting. 



The noney=Bee in American History. — The earliest 

 mention of honey in America, so far as considerable re- 

 search discloses to the writer, is in Irving's account of De- 

 Soto's wanderings. While the adventurer was at the village 

 of Ichicha, in June, 1540, his men found a quantity of bears' 

 grease preserved in pods, likewise oil made from the walnut, 

 and a pot of honey. The latter they had not before seen, 

 nor did they ever again meet with it during their wander- 

 ings. 



Some have inferred from this that the honey-bee was in 

 Florida at this period, and that it was indigenous to 

 America. But this does not follow ; first, because the vil- 

 lage in which the honej" was found was located in the coun- 

 trj' since known as northern Georgia, or perhaps northern 

 Alabama, and not in Florida ; second, the honey mentioned 

 was very possibly the product of the bumble-bee, which was 

 a native, and very widely scattered. 



Nevertheless, the honey-bee was probablj: introduced 

 by the Spanish settlers in Florida at least at a later period, 

 says the Scientific American, for Bartram, who explored 

 the country in 1773, mentions honey and beeswax as articles 

 of barter among the Indians. He speaks of honej- in so 

 many places in his book that it must have been quite com- 

 mon, and therefore could not have been the product of the 

 bumble-bee, whose store of honey is very scant. Bartram 

 was told by a physician that there were few or no bees west 

 of the peninsula of Florida, and but one hive in Mobile, 

 which latter had been brought from Europe. Traders had 

 also informed him that there were none in west Florida. 



At this period the honey-bee was common all along the- 

 eastern shore of the country, from Nova Scotia southward. 



