THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



355 



August frosts in northern, western 

 and southern sections, and a general 

 cold wave may occur toward midsum- 

 mer. 



4. The autumn months will con- 

 tinue moist. September will probably 

 give rains and floods in western Cana- 

 da and in western and southern sec- 

 tions of the United States. October 

 will be much the same, with early 

 cold and snow falls. November will 

 begin the winter of 1882-83— a winter 

 likely to be memorable on account of 

 its exceptionally heavy snow falls iind 

 very cold weather over tlie whole 

 Northern Ilemisjihere. That a " cold 

 and wet summer is invariably followed 

 by a cold and stormy winter," is a 

 truth now so well proven and borne 

 out by the testimony of past records 

 that we cannot lightly put it aside; 

 and if we liave good and sufficient 

 grounds for predicting the former — 

 as we most assuredly have at this 

 time — it is but right that we should 

 warn the people of the latter in good 

 season. 



5th and last. Tlie season will prob- 

 ably be the first of a couple of wet 

 summers, and as 1882 so is 1883 likely 

 to be. But here we must stop for the 

 present. Henry G. Vennor. 



cent., while the mixture of spar 

 showed but 16 to 20 per cent. Imita- 

 tion flour is used to increase the 

 weight of genuine flour by mixture. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



Adulterated Flonr.— New cases of 

 fraud are almost daily being brought 

 to notice— not only in America but 

 in Europe. We hope the day will 

 soon come when we may have a con- 

 gress of nations who will agree upon 

 the main features of a law to be rec- 

 ommended to the law makers of each 

 Country to stop the nefarious busi- 

 ness of adulteration, which has now 

 become so universal. From a foreign 

 exchange we extract the following on 

 the adulteration of flour : 



The usual mode of adulteration is 

 to use oxide of zinc. German chem- 

 ists have found 3 to 3. .5 per cent, of 

 oxide of zinc in bread, yet zinc and 

 copper may be discovered to a certain 

 degree in bread baked witli old wood 

 that has been covered with tlie.se 

 metals, the wood readily impregna- 

 ting itself with these mineral ele- 

 ments. 



Flour is also adulterated with spar 

 (baritza), plaster of Venice, chalk, 

 pulverized stone, etc., thus increasing 

 the weight. Exportations have been 

 made from Netherlands of so-called 

 imitation flour, made of crushed spar 

 and plaster of Venice. These expor- 

 tations were made to such an extent 

 that the Prussian minister of com- 

 merce found it necessary to publish 

 a warning against the production. It 

 was observed that the mixture of 

 plaster of Venice amounted to 30 per 



Hiimoroiis. — " Bill Arp " writes the 

 following to the Southern Cultivator. 

 It is a " good hit " on old-fashioned 

 bee-keeping : 



" When I hear the horn blowing, 

 and the tin pans beating, and the bells 

 a ringing, I know what is the matter, 

 and so I drop everything and go to 

 the house to hive "tlie bees. It is a 

 wonder that all this fuss don't drive 

 them clean away, but it don't seem to 

 effect 'em one way or anotlier. If 

 they have made up their minds to go 

 they are going, ami vicy voorcy. I've 

 saved every swarm this spring with 

 very little trouble. We don't run 

 much science on bees at my liouse — 

 haven't got time. These fancy hives 

 are all right, I reckon, for educated 

 bees witli an educated manager to 

 watch 'em and look after "em every 

 day. but they don't suit me nor my 

 oki-fasliioneil bees, and I don't want 

 to be bothered with the little insects 

 very much, nohow. Nevertheless, we 

 are educated to some extent and don't 

 use tlie old hollow gum like our 

 fathers did. I make a plain box gum 

 with an upstairs and a little door on a 

 hinge to tlie second floor, and I put a 

 little box with a glass front in tliere 

 and it is no troal>le to take it out 

 when tliey All it with honey. I make 

 no movable frames. My hives are 

 open at the bottom and set upon little 

 bits of iron, or liig nails, or even little 

 rocks at the corners, so there is no 

 crack or joint for tlie moth to lay in. 

 In the winter I let the hive down on 

 the plank to keep the cold out. I have 

 liad "very good luck this way and not 

 much trouble. Bees are very much 

 like the liumaii f;unily. The queen is 

 the head of tlie house and has power 

 and authority, and fares sumptuously 

 every day ; but like all great potenta- 

 tes she lives shut up in her palace and 

 has a guard to protect her, and hardly 

 ever gets out to enjoy tlie sunshine or 

 the flowers. Sorter like the King or 

 the Queen, or tlie Czar, or even the 

 President, for somebody is always on 

 the lookout to shoot 'em for some- 

 thing or for nothing, and it don't 

 matter which. Then there are the 

 big, fat, lazy drones that lie around 

 and eat and sleep and have to be sup- 

 ported and don't do a lick of work, 

 and we can pick out just such folks 

 in this subloonary world who don't 

 contribute a tiling to the public good 

 and never earn an honest dollar, but 

 are always foraging on somebody, 

 swindling, gambling or speculating, 

 and when they get ready to die they 

 can't recall a single benefit they have 

 conferred upon mankind. Then there 

 are working bees that gather all the 

 honey and make all the comb, fill all 

 the little cells and store it away for 

 winter, and they are never idle, and 

 wliat they work for they will defend 

 and protect. Just so with the labor- 

 ing classes who toil and sweat in the 

 field and work-shop, and in the mines, 

 whose constant labor supports and 



sustains the world — who live hard and 

 humble, and see tlieir earnings go 

 into the coffers of the drones and 

 speculators, but still work on for 

 more. 



The working bees tolerate their 

 drones for a time and support 'em, 

 and init 'em out of the way for anoltier 

 set of the same sort. Folks don't do 

 that, but I am not sure they oughtent 

 to. The books tell us that tlie dili- 

 gent labor of one man can decently 

 support 8 people — provide 'em with 

 good food and comfortable clothing, 

 and its a fortunate tiling that it is so, 

 for they have it to do and more too, 

 for those who actually work have to 

 keep up the nabobs who don't, and 

 supply 'em with (iiiery and foolish- 

 ness. My native bees don't seem to 

 like these fancy hives, forsomeof 'em 

 left 'em last spring and those that 

 didn't, got eat up by the moths. Most 

 all tliese new things have to be nursed 

 up, and dandled up, and fondled up, 

 and made fine and slick, and then 

 they are put oft' im llie fancy folks at 

 fancy prices, and ever arid anon a 

 foolish poor man, like myself, gets 

 taken in." 



A German Apiary. — Mr. Alfred 

 Neighbour, of London, England, at- 

 tended the Austro-German Congress 

 of Bee-Keepers at Cologne, and then 

 visited Mr. A. Schlosser, at Ehren- 

 feld, who was awarded a silver medal 

 at the Congress for his large collec- 

 tion of honey and splendid colonies of 

 bees. Mr. Neighbour thus describes 

 his visit to Mr. Schlosser : 



He is a fruit-grower on a large 

 scale as well as an apiarist, and has a 

 commodious house and garden. We 

 were at once conducted to his bee- 

 house, which is in the form of across, 

 having 4 doors. Each one of the four 

 wings projects nearly 11 feet, and is 

 tlie same in breadth, w'licli, adding 

 the space of tlie interior, gives a di- 

 ameter from door to door of about 33 

 feet. One-half the space of the inter- 

 ior is required for the necessary man- 

 ipulations, the other half to the right 

 and left is occupied by the hives. The 

 first shelf is about 2 feet from the 

 floor, the second tier is the same dis- 

 tance above, and the third is 2 feet 

 higher. The hives are " Meliring's" 

 twin-frame hives, and of much the 

 same construction as Dzierzon's, ex- 

 cept that the colonies are side by side, 

 not end to end as is the case with the 

 latter. J^ach shelf accommodates four 

 twin colonies, so that the openings 

 are cut in the boarding for eight en- 

 trances ; thus there may be 24 colo- 

 nies on eacli of the eight sides. This 

 pavilion therefore holds when filled 

 192 colonies of bees. At the time I 

 was there many colonies were away at 

 the moors, consequently only a few 

 were to be seen. The house is closely 

 boarded and lias a tiled roof. There 

 is no admission of light except when 

 the doors are thrown open. The 

 hives open at the back, and are there- 

 fore easily manipulated without mo- 

 lestation by robber bees. Escape for 



