322 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



The point I make is just this : The 

 energy and piisli put into the queen 

 business of late — wliich energy was 

 absolutely requisite to success, and 

 then only the shrewdest business 

 men could, if honest, make a living 

 by rearing these cheap queens — have 

 so cheapened the price of queens that 

 there is no general demand for any 

 other. But decided improvement can 

 only come by tlie utmost pains in 

 selecting breeding stock, both drones 

 and queens, whicli in case of drones is 

 very difficult, and requires the great- 

 est tact, patience, and persistence. 

 Now this very dirticulty makes it nec- 

 essary to have every inducement 

 tlirovvn in the way to incite any bee- 

 keeper to undertake it. The pros- 

 pect of a dollar or a little more for 

 queens thus bred, would not onlv of- 

 fer no such inducement, but would be 

 the best possible extinguisher of all 

 enthuiasm. More than this, to breed 

 the ideal queen, will require such a 

 rigorous weeding out that only a 

 small proportion of the queens reared 

 will be suffered to live. To support 

 a family, tlie breeder of cheap queens 

 must sell every one, and will then 

 have great reason to rejoice if his 

 ledger account shows a credit bal- 

 ance. In testing, Mr. H. only waits 

 to see if the requisite number of 

 bands are present. I would have him 

 wait to see if the requisite number of 

 eggs, bees and pounds of honey were 

 forthcoming, and then when such as- 

 surance was gained, I would pay him 

 $10 for the queen and make money, 

 while I would lose in the majority of 

 cases to pay $1 for the present queens. 

 In buying several to test the matter, 

 not however of Mr. II., I have won a 

 blank at each venture. 



Why did Avery & Murphy produce 

 such a nnignilicent herd of cattle V 

 Only because they took the greatest 

 pains to secure the best material to 

 breed from, and then used the best 

 judgment and most consummate 

 skill in crossing. Why did 25 cattle 

 bring $50,000 at the recent sale at 

 Chicago y For the same reason. Why 

 the exercise of the skill and cautionV 

 Only because of the prospective 

 thousands at future sales. 



Unless there is some money-influ- 

 ence to induce to more time, caution, 

 and painstaking in breeding bees, 

 then truly the bee of the future, which 

 should and will be as great an advance 

 on the bees of to-day as are our im- 

 proved cattle, hogs, etc., upon those 

 of the last generation, will not lind its 

 advent in this generation. The only 

 chance to escape this conclusion is for 

 some bee-keeper to set to work — as I 

 would do could I give time to it, and 

 had I capital to warrant the under- 

 taking—and work to advance his 

 bees, with no thought of present pro- 

 fit, to spare no time, no pains, no 

 study, no money to secure the ideal 

 bee, and then create his own market 

 by distributing his bees to the enter- 

 prising bee-keei)ers of the country, 

 asking them to test them and then 

 pay accordnig to tlie worth of the 

 bees. In this way he could hope in 

 time to get pay for his time and labor, 

 and would have the satisfaction of 

 being classed with Bates and the 



Booths. Have we any, D. A. Jones, 

 that can afford to undertake this 

 work y 

 Ag'l College, Lansing, Mich. 



History and Composition of (iliicose. 



The following is an interesting 

 article by Jas. R. Nichols, M. D., edi- 

 tor of the Boston Journal ofCheniisti-y. 

 to which we would call particular at- 

 tention : 



It cannot be a mere matter of chance 

 that substances used as food by men 

 and animals are some of them sweet 

 and others acid, or that some are 

 svveetene<l with sucrose (cane sugar), 

 others with glucose (grajje sugar), 

 and still others with levulose (fruit 

 sugar). There is a wonderful adap- 

 tation of means to ends throughout 

 nature. The sweet sensation is gen- 

 erally agreeable, as has been before 

 stated, but it must be modified and 

 adjusted, else it would become repul- 

 sive. If ourfruits were all sweetened 

 with pure cane sugar in differing pro- 

 portions, they would lack a certain 

 zest, due to a peculiar sweetness 

 which they now possess; or, if our 

 grapes did not form an exception to 

 other fruits in the method of sweet- 

 ening, they would not be the delicious 

 fruit so universallyesteemed. Ai)ples, 

 pears, peaches, and most other fruits 

 are sweetened with levulose, or what 

 may be regarded as a mixture of suc- 

 rose and glucose ; and differing varie- 

 ties hold unlike proportions, giving 

 in conjunction with malic acid ami 

 certain essences the nice shades of 

 flavor observed. The manufacture of 

 sugar is not set up in fruits until the 

 period of maturity is nearly or quite 

 reached, and then" the process is usn- 

 allv a, gradual one. 



The grape vine and fruit do not 

 possess the power of grouping the 

 atoms of hydrogen, carbon, and oxy- 

 gen so as to form molecules of suc- 

 rose ; the result of their work is con- 

 fined to glucose. Hence a grape is 

 never excessively sweet, or it does 

 not reach a degree of sweetness be- 

 yond what glucose can furnish. If a 

 grape were a solid mass of sugar it 

 would not be very sweet, as the sugar 

 is incapable of conveying to the taste 

 any intense sensation. Every one 

 who has tasted old or well-dried 

 raisins has observed the hard lumps 

 of sugar which frequently form, of 

 considerable size, under the skin 

 covering. These are lumps of glucose 

 which result from the evaporation of 

 the moisture in which it was held in 

 solution in the grape. These lumps 

 are deficient in sweetness, as has been 

 observed from the earliest times. If 

 this substance was supplied in large 

 quantities from grapes or raisins, it 

 would sell at a low price in the mar- 

 ket. If a grocer sold it for pure sugar 

 (cane sugar), it would probably come 

 back to him again, and he would 

 rightfully be charged with fraud. No 

 shrewd dealer or manufacturer would 

 sell it by itself as sugar, but those dis- 

 honest in the trade would mix it with 

 cane sugar, and thus dispose of it 



with less risk of exciting suspicion. 

 This is now a form of fraud of enorm- 

 ous magnitude, as will be presently 

 shown. 



During the wars of Napoleon I., 

 early in the present century, he 

 established the famous Contiiiental 

 blockade, by which all products of 

 England and her colonies were ex- 

 cluded from the markets. Tliis of 

 course nuide sugar scarce and dear in 

 France, and stimulated search for 

 products which might be substituted. 

 The grape crop of France was 

 enormous, andas commerce was de- 

 stroyed it was useless to make wine ; 

 so attention was turned to extracting 

 the sweet principle of grapes. Syrups 

 and sugars were made from grape 

 juice in large quantities, and Napoleon 

 ordered it to be u.sed in the palace as 

 an encouragement to its production. 

 He issued several decrees in regard 

 to its manufacture, and the celebrated 

 chemists of the time, Proust, Berthol- 

 let, Parmentier, iind others, were 

 kept busy striving to perfect the pro- 

 ducts. Montalivet, the great minister 

 of the interior in Napoleon's cabinet, 

 in one of his reports, states that it has 

 been ascertained that the grape sugar 

 equivalent of cane is a little over two 

 and one half to one. This is no: far 

 from correct. 



Thus it is shown that the chemists 

 of France were making glucose more 

 than seventy years ago from grapes, 

 and if they had known that it could 

 be made as well from jiotatoes, corn, 

 or any other cheap substance holding 

 starch, the discovery might have re- 

 tarded the great progress that soon 

 followed in producing cane sugar 

 from beet juice. 



It was as early as 1747 that Margraff 

 nuide his experiments showing that 

 beets contained sugar, but it was not 

 until Achard, the son of a French 

 refugee in Prussia, took up the sub- 

 ject, and published the astonishing 

 results of his researches, that it ex- 

 cited public attention. The differ- 

 ence between the two forms of sugar, 

 that from grapes and that from beets, 

 was easily seen, and Napoleon's atten- 

 tion was called to it by his corps of 

 illustrious chemists. He immediately 

 gave himself to the work of creating 

 and perfecting this new industry, and 

 in 1812 he had the satisfaction of 

 learning from the reports of his minis- 

 ter of the interior that 334 factorie.s 

 in the empire were producing an- 

 nually 7,700.000 pounds of beautiful 

 cane sugar from beets. This seems 

 almost like the work of magic, and 

 illustrates the greatness of the man 

 whose power was felt in every part of 

 the civilized world. 



The early attempts to extract sugar 

 from beets in Na]ioleon's time were 

 made subjects for fun and ridicule. 

 The Emperor himself did not escape 

 the lampoons of the wits of th" age. 

 A caricature was exhibited in Paris, 

 in which the Emperor and the baby 

 King of Rome were the prominent 

 characters. The Emperor was repre- 

 sented as sitting in the nursery with 

 a cup of coffee before him, into which 

 lie was squeezing a beet root. Near 

 him was seated the King of Rome 

 voraciously sucking a beet root, while 



