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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



ness profitable. These men, it seems, 

 generally affect to ignore written or 

 printed experience or suggestions; 

 they have " no use " for book bee- 

 keeping and then wonder why the bee 

 business don't pay. J. II. B. 



Care of Comb Honey.— J. L. Bowers 

 writes to the Mainland Farmer the 

 following on the care of comb honey : 



Do not on any account store honey 

 in a cellar, the dampness causes it to 

 sweat and tlien the cappings will 

 break and you have a lot of ruined 

 honey. Our honey room is in the 

 second story of our house and will 

 hold two tons. It is 6x10 feet and 9 

 feet high, with two doors, one on each 

 side ; one opening from the hall, tlie 

 other opening into a room over a 

 porch. This room has one window. 

 Here we put our honey first to let it 

 harden, keeping this room light, after 

 exposing to the light about two weeks, 

 we place it in the honey room. Never 

 on any account place more than two 

 boxes on top of one another, but 

 place shelves above each other on 

 the order of a library. If little red 

 ants bother honey, place the honey on 

 a bench and put each leg or foot in a 

 pan of water, and my word for it, if 

 you keep water in the pans, no ants 

 will botlier the honey. Our honey 

 room is as dark as anything can be 

 made to be. 



Honey Ants Employ Slaves.— The 



Scientific American contains the fol- 

 lowing concerning some curious hab- 

 its of honey ants: 



Sir Jolin Lubbock's extraordinary 

 book on "Ants, Bees and Wasps," 

 will amaze readers. Fancy ants hav- 

 ing slaves! Fancy these proverbial 

 examples to the sluggard keeping cer- 

 tain insects as we keep cows, and 

 building sheds over them, and keep- 

 ing others as pets ! The aristocracy 

 of ants seem to have all the vices 

 which brought antique monarchies to 

 destruction. Sir .John writes soberly, 

 as a philosopher should, and weighs 

 his words no doubt, which makes his 

 conclusions the more astonishing. 

 The author quotes some of Iluber's 

 experiments, the value of which he 

 has himself tested. The bloated ant 

 aristocrats, it is said, " have lost the 

 greater part of their instincts; their 

 art, that is, the power of building; 

 their domestic habits, for they show 

 no care for their young, all this beiug 

 done bv the slaves; their industry, 

 for they take no part in providing the 

 daily supplies ; if the colony changes 

 the situation of its nest, the masters 

 are all carried by the slaves on their 

 backs to the new one ; nay, they have 

 even lost the habit of feeding. Ru- 

 ber placed thirty of them with some 

 larvie and pnpa; and a supply of honey 

 in a box. At first,' he says, ' they ap- 

 peared to pay some little attention to 

 the larva>.; they carried them here 

 and there, but presently replaced 

 them. More tlian one-half of the 

 Amazons died of hunger in less than 

 two days. They had not even traced 

 out a dwelling; and the few ants still 



in existence were languid and with- 

 out strength. I commiserated their 

 condition, and gave them one of their 

 black companions. This individual, 

 unassisted, established order, formed 

 a chamber in the earth, gathered to- 

 gether the larva?, extricated several 

 young ants tliat were ready to quit 

 the condition of pupje, and preserved 

 the life of the remaining Amazons.' 

 This observation has been fully con- 

 firmed by other naturalists. How- 

 ever small the prison, however large 

 the quantity of food, these stupid 

 creatures will starve in the midst of 

 plenty rather than feed themselves. 



I have, however, kept isolated 



specimens for three months by giving 

 them a slave for an hour or two a day 

 to clean and feed them ; under these 

 circumstances they remained in per- 

 fect health, while, but for the slaves, 

 they would have perished in two or 

 three days." 



Superiority of Italian Bees. — Mr. 



J. B. Mitchell, in the Ilawkinsville 

 (Ga.) Dispatch, gives the following 

 brief but comprehensive summary of 

 the superior qualities of the Italian 

 bees: 



Their good qualities are now con- 

 ceded by all who have tried both 

 varieties under similar circumstances, 

 and they are rapidly taking the place 

 of the blacks in all parts of the 

 country. 



They are more active than other 

 bees, making three flights in the time 

 that the black bees make two; they 

 are more hardy, working earlier and 

 later, and in cooler weather; they 

 gather honey from flowers that are 

 not frequented by black bees ; their 

 queens are more prolific, so that they 

 may be increased much faster with 

 safety ; they gather more honey and 

 give more swarms in the same length 

 of time, and are more gentle and 

 easily handled than the black bees. 



Their chief point of excellence, and 

 one that is worth everything to bee- 

 keepers in the south is, that they 

 readily and successfully defend their 

 liive against the depredations of the 

 bee moth. A strong colony of Ital- 

 ians is worth more as a protection 

 against this pest than all the moth- 

 proof hives and moth traps that were 

 ever invented. 



Congress and Adulteration.— 



The Grange Bulletin remarks thus on 

 the subject of adulteration of food and 

 the necessity of Congressional legis- 

 lation on the matter: 



AVe see a step taken in the right 

 direction, and as it should be, when 

 the courts maintain the dignity of the 

 people in carrying out the prevailing 

 sentiment in putting down the adul- 

 teration of food. Good-bye to glu- 

 cose, oleomargarine and other dirty 

 frauds now being practiced on the 

 people in almost every conceivable 

 form, much of which is of a danger- 

 ous character as well as poisonous, 

 and should be stamped out of exis- 



tence. We think the day not far dis- 

 tant when it will be done. When 

 such a grand State as Missouri takes 

 hold of the matter in her courts, as 

 they have done, and pronounces it 

 wrong, let all the States follow suit. 

 Our National Congress should be up. 

 and doing something to protect her 

 citizens from such outrages as havfr 

 been practiced on them. We ask, 

 vi'hat is Indiana doing to put down 

 such dangerous articles as artificial 

 honey so often made from chemicals, 

 and butter of grease, and that, too, of 

 the dirtiest kinds, and sold for a genu- 

 ine article; and many other articles, 

 we could mention? Let the people 

 be in earnest about this matter. 



HealUifulness of Honey.— An Ex- 

 change makes the following remarks, 

 on this subject : 



Americans are lovers of sweets and 

 consume an average of 40 pounds or 

 more of sugar for every man woman 

 and child of our population. To. 

 meet this demand, millions of dol- 

 lars' worth of sugar are imported an- 

 nually, and millions of dollars' worth 

 of honey are allowed to go to waste- 

 for the want of bees to collect and put 

 in proper shape for the use of man. 

 It is not as generally known as it 

 should be that honey may be em- 

 ployed for sweetening purposes in- 

 stead of sugar, for most of the pur- 

 Soses for which the latter is used. 

 lut could we supply it to the extent 

 of diminishing our imports of sugar 

 to one-half their present proportions, 

 and millions of dollars would be 

 saved for the purposes of business in, 

 our own country. But far above all 

 money considerations would be the 

 use of a pure sweet upon the health 

 of the people instead of tlie vile com- 

 pounds now sold as sugar and syrups. 

 The healthfulness of honey as foodi 

 has been admitted from the earliest 

 writers down through the centuries to 

 the present time. Hence we have 

 nothing to fear from the free use of 

 honey, while recent developmenta 

 show we have much to fear as to health 

 in the use of adulterated sugars and 

 syrups. But the price of honey in the 

 past lias had much to do in the keep- 

 ing it from the tables of men of lim- 

 ited means, who did not possess the 

 workers to collect and store it for 

 them. Honey is a vegetable produc- 

 tion, appearing in greater or lesa 

 quantities in every flower that nods 

 to tlie breeze or kisses the bright sun- 

 light in all this heaven-favored land 

 of ours. It is secreted in the flower 

 for the purpose of attracting insects, 

 thus securing the complete fertiliza- 

 tion, of the female blossoms. Hence 

 it follows that all the honey we can 

 secure in the hour of its pi-esenoe ii» 

 the nectaries of the flowers, is clear 

 gain from the domain of nature. 



^" Our new location, No. 925 West 

 Madison St., is only a few doors from 

 the new branch postoftice. We have 

 a telephone and any one in the city 

 wishing to talk to us through it will 

 please call for No. 7087— that beinR 

 our telephone number. 



