THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



339 



I will say in conclusion that I have 

 never yet bought a jsound of glucose, 

 except I have done it in buying adul- 

 terated cane sugar, or in adulterated 

 syrup, purporting to be pure sugar, 

 home drip, or some such name. Let 

 us continue to make every effort to 

 have the liees put up their honey in 

 an attractive form, seeing to it that 

 they have ample pasturage of white 

 and red clover to work upon as a 

 main reliance, and that every thing 

 about the apiary is kept neat and 

 clean, and that thelioney is taken off 

 before the bees soil it by crawling 

 over it with their dirty feet, and my 

 word for it, tliere will be a demand 

 for all the honey we can get at re- 

 munerative prices, although it is 

 clearly understood that it is an article 

 of luxury. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



Bees Wintered in a Greenhouse.— 



Mr. A. Pettigrew, in the London 

 Horticultural Journal, remarks as fol- 

 lows : 



Can bees be wintered in a green- 

 house with the doors of their hives 

 open ? .Yes ; we have kept weak col- 

 onies in a greenhouse during the win- 

 ter and spring months. Many Amer- 

 ican apiarists winter their colonies in 

 dark cellars, but there the bees have 

 no light and never leave their hives to 

 tly about. At Sale I placed colonies 

 in a greenhouse with a span-roof, 60 

 feet long and 12 feet wide, and there 

 let them fly as much as they liked. 

 On the lirst day or two of their con- 

 finement, many of the bees flew 

 against the glass and became bewild- 

 ered, and some were lost. The bees 

 that flew against the glass became fa- 

 tigued and rested on the sill of the 

 greenhouse. Many of the bees on tlie 

 sills gathered together in clusters, 

 when they were carefully picked or 

 swept up and carried to their hives. 

 In a few days the bees became accu.s- 

 tomed to their confinement, and flew 

 backwards and forwards in the green- 

 house without attempting to fly 

 against the glass. In placing bees 

 under glass a little care and attention 

 are necessary for a few days. By 

 placing a dish of broken honeycomb 

 near the doors of the hives the bees 

 smelt the honey on coming out, and 

 many of them commenced to carry it 

 into their hives. By removing the 

 honey to a greater distance the bees 

 soon become acquainted with their 

 new home and its immediate sur- 

 roundings. When bees are in a green- 

 house they seldom leave their hives 

 till the thermometer rises to about 

 50^. When the mercury ranges be- 

 tween 50-" and 60- the bees find every 

 flower, and delight to work upon 

 Chinese primroses. The gardener at 

 Worsley Hall 10 or 1.5 years ago 



placed a colony every season in his 

 early peach house, and valued the 

 services of the bees there very much, 

 for they never failed to set a good 

 crop of fruit. 



Bees Resenting an lusiilt. — A corre- 

 spondent of the Courier, Boulder, 

 Colorado, remarks thus on the sub- 

 ject : 



Bees by nature possess the acute tem- 

 perament and sensitive nerve work 

 of the higher order of creation. So 

 susceptible are they that the presence 

 of a stranger is at once understood by 

 them, and don't you forget for a mo- 

 ment that there are thousands of tiny 

 eyes watching for the first break of 

 hostilities. The native or black bee 

 is more aggressive than the Italian, 

 but the latter, when the warwhoop is 

 raised among them and fully aroused, 

 are hard to subdue, and they never 

 forget tlie intruder who has grossly 

 insulted them. Instances are known 

 where one member of a family where 

 bees are kept has been a perpetual tar- 

 get for their darts on account of some 

 misunderstanding, and the other 

 members were allowed the freedom of 

 the apiary unmolested. Bees think a 

 great deal of their liberty, and cannot 

 be forced. They must be handled 

 with tact and average intelligence, so 

 as not to interfere with their business, 

 for, when angered, they are as persis- 

 tent in revenge, as when distilling the 

 rarest bloom. 



Artificial Com)) Honey.— Speaking of 



this foolish but oft-repeated story 

 concerning artificial comb made of 

 parafline and filled with glucose, the 

 California Apiculturist says : 



" Never can human ingenuity fix 

 up honey in such shape ttiat it will 

 closely or otherwise resemble the 

 product of the honey bee. Why, the 

 presumption is preijosterous, and we 

 shall dismiss the subject with all the 

 contempt imaginable for the origina- 

 tor of the hoax, who has been seeking 

 to injure the bee-keeping industry." 



Oleomargarine. — The Planters^ Jour- 

 nal makes the following observa- 

 tions : 



The light made in St. Louis by the 

 regular butter dealers against the ole- 

 omargarine venders is waxing warm. 

 A private detective of ex-Chief-of- 

 PoliceMcDonough's agency, has been 

 investigating the manufacture of but- 

 ter sold in that city, and, according to 

 a report made by him, a good deal of 

 the butter consumed in St. Louis is 

 made from the carcasses of dead ani- 

 mals picked up off the streets by the 

 dead animal contractor. According 

 to his story, dead animals are bought 

 in East St. Louis of the dead animal 

 contractor ; they are cut up, the fat 

 separated, cleansed by a chemical 

 process, the oleomargarine extracted, 

 colored, packed, and sent to some 

 point down the river. There it is 

 marked" Goshen butter," and shipped 



back to St. Louis dealers. Th* de- 

 tective bought a lirkin of this "Goshen 

 butter " from the manufacturer, and 

 under Governor Johnson's instruction 

 carried it to a chemist, and the analy- 

 sis shows conclusively that the alleged 

 butter is made from animal fat. The 

 sale or manufacture of oleomargarine 

 is prohibited by the laws of this State 

 but no arrests have been made. 



Madeira Wine from Honey.— The 



following process is translated by 

 New Remedies from the Pharm. 

 Ilandelsblatt, and is given by a reno- 

 vated authority on bee-culture, who 

 pronounces the product as exactly 

 similar to Madeira, and to be a royal 

 beverage : 



Mix 2.5 pounds of honey in a bright 

 copper boiler, with 50 quarts of soft 

 water, boil gently and skim. After 

 half an hour add gradually .3 pounds 

 of finely powdered chalk, under con- 

 stant stirring. A tough mass will 

 rise to the top, which is to be skimmed 

 off, and when no more of it makes its 

 appearance, the liquid is poured into 

 a wooden vessel, where it is allowed 

 to cool and settle. The liquid is then 

 poured off from the sediment (chalk), 

 transferred to the boiler, mixed with 

 6 pounds of finely-powdered, well- 

 burnt charcoal, and boiled gently for 

 2 hours. It is then transferred again 

 to the wooden vessel (which has been 

 cleaned) allowed to cool, and filtered 

 through a bag of felt or flannel. The 

 liquid is again put into the boiler and 

 heated to boiling. The white of 25 

 eggs having been beaten to a foam 

 with water, is now gradually added. 

 The coagulation of the albumen en- 

 velopes the residuary fine particles of 

 coal and other impurities which rise 

 to the top, whence it is skimmed off. 

 The chalk removes the acidity and 

 the charcoal destroyes the waxy taste. 

 After the albumen has been removed, 

 the liquid is kept gently boiling for a 

 short time, then allowed to cool, and 

 poured into a small cask, which must 

 be filled so that a small empty space 

 remains below the bunghole. This is 

 covered with a piece of clean linen 

 nad the cask left to itself until fer- 

 mentation has set in. The liquid is 

 then clarified in the cask in the usual 

 manner, and filled in bottles. It keeps 

 well for over .50 years. The cellar 

 should be cool, having a temperature 

 of ,39 to 40 degrees P., and the bottles 

 should be kept buried in moist sand. 

 —Scientific News. 



For Ornament and Honey. — The 



Bural New Yorker observes as fol- 

 lows : 



There are some apiarists who, in 

 setting oul plants for bee pasturage, 

 would like something ornamental as 

 well as useful. This they will find in 

 the Cordate Bocconia (B. Cordata) a 

 hardy species from China, bearing 

 large panicles of small, white or pale 

 rose-colored flowers. Two other spe- 

 cies, B. Japonica and B. Phacelia, are 

 also good honey plants. 



