'■^^ ^ OLDEST BEE PAPER 

 "■AMERICA 



VOL. XIX. 



CHICAGO, ILL., APRIL 25, 1883. 



No. 17. 



Published every Wednesday, by 



THOMAS G. NEWMAN, 



Editor and Proprietor, 



"Paraffine Comb" and "Glucose." 



It is trite but true, that while 

 " Falsehood rides on horseback, truth 

 travels very slowly on foot." We are 

 forcibly reminded of this upon loolj- 

 ing over the last annual volume of 

 Appleton's Cyclopedia, published by 

 D. Appleton & Co., of New York. It 

 is very evident that the compiler of 

 that volume has been imposed upon 

 by the notorious Professor Wiley, 

 who, in June, 1881, originated the 

 preposterous falsehood about " comb 

 honey " being sold in New York, the 

 combs of which were " made of para- 

 ffine, and filled with pure glucose, by 

 appropriate machinery," etc. 



On page .51, of the Cyclopaedia men- 

 tioned, while enumerating the uses to 

 which glucose had been put, we find 

 the following : 



" Glucose is used chiefly for the 

 manufacture of table syrups and can- 

 dies, for brewing, as food for bees, and 



for artificial honey 



Glucose is very extensively fed to 

 bees, which eat it with great avidity, 

 and store it away unchanged as honey. 

 It is also put up directly in trade as 

 honey— with which bees have had 

 nothing to do— being put up by means 

 of appropriate machinery into arti- 

 ficial combs made of paraffine." 



When this pernicious falsehood first 

 appeared, it was extensively copied 

 by many papers all over this country, 

 and quoted by men of learning and 

 influence, and we endeavored to 

 counteract it, by showing its falsity 

 and absurdity, and calling upon its 

 author for proof. Being hard pressed, 

 this scientific joker admitted the ab- 

 surdity and falsity of his " story," but 

 consoled himself with the idea, that 

 people in general were too thick- 



headed to see the " joke," as he stated 

 in the Indiana Fanner last June, 

 which was copied into the Bee Jouii- 

 NAL of June 14, 1882, and commented 

 upon. 



Mr. Wiley's own version of the ori- 

 gin of the story [lie], and our remarks, 

 are as follows : 



Perhaps it may be well enough to 

 give here the origin of the " paraffine 

 comb" story which has appeared, I 

 believe, in almost every publication in 

 tlie country. The original appeared 

 in the Popular Science Monthly for 

 June, 1881, in an article entitled 

 "Glucose and Grape Sugar," which I 

 contributed to that number, and on 

 page 2.54, occur the following words : 

 " Bees eat glucose with the greatest 

 avidity : or rather, they act as funnels 

 by which the glucose is poured into 

 the comb. For it is quite true that 

 the honey made by bees which have 

 free access to glucose differs scarcely 

 at all from the glucose itself. But 

 the quantity of honey which a bee 

 will store away when fed on glucose, 

 is truly wonderful. This gluttony, 

 however, rapidly undermines the 

 apiarian constitution, and the bee 

 rarely lives to enjoy the fruits of its 

 apparent good fortune. In commer- 

 cial honey, which is entirely free from 

 bee mediation, the comb is made of 

 parafline, and filled with pure glucose 

 by appropriate machinery. 



This last clause which, when writ- 

 ten, was meant for a scientific pleas- 

 antry, came near throwing the whole 

 bee world into epilepsy. It appears 

 that persons who devote themselves 

 to Bee .Journals, undergo a certain 

 cerebral inspiration which renders 

 them incapable of seeing a, joke. The 

 only point which they can appreciate 

 seems to be the sting of a bee. 



The rejoinder reminds us of an an- 

 ecdote we heard many years ago, 

 located in a rural district in Indiana. 

 A well-to-do-farmer lost a very fine 

 Ally from his pasture-lot, and after 

 several days' search found it snugly 

 tied in the log barn of a distant 

 neighbor of doubtful repute. The 

 neighbor was indicted, tried, and 

 found guilty of larceny ; when the 

 Judge asked what he had to say, why 

 sentence should not be passed, he put 

 in a plea that the animal was only 



taken for a joke. The Judge inquired 

 how far his bam was from the past- 

 ure lot, to which he replied, "about 

 5 miles." " Well," said the Judge, 

 " that is carrying a joke too far ; hard 

 labor in the penitentiary for seven 

 years." The writer above says he 

 contributed to the Popular Science 

 Monthly his "paraffine comb" story 

 [lie] about a year ago, " which has ap- 

 peared in almost every publication in 

 the country." The latter part of the 

 article, however, was only meant for 

 a scientific pleasantry. 



Do scientific men indulge in pleas- 

 antries which will cast a gloom over 

 thousands of honest producers 

 tliroughout the country, and depre- 

 ciate the value of their product by 

 creating a prejudice against it? For 

 nearly a year this scientific joker saw 

 his fabrication published in nearly all 

 the papers in the country, and reiter- 

 ated from across the ocean, and yet 

 he lacked the manhood to affirm it a 

 joke until " the Bee Journal man " 

 counteracted its influence by showing 

 the falsity and absurdity of the arti- 

 cle. Whether it be true, as has been 

 often intimated, that the story was 

 instigated by parties interested in 

 the glucose traffic, in retaliation for 

 the hostility of the bee men to their 

 frauds, we cannot affirm ; but we do 

 believe it originated with no honest 

 intention. 



Now we would respectfully call 

 upon Messrs. Appleton & Co., to make 

 the correction in the next annual vol- 

 ume of their Cyclopeedia, not only in 

 justice to themselves, but for the sake 

 of truth and right, and thereby aid, 

 as far as possible, to counteract the 

 injury they have already done the 

 honey producers of America, by giving 

 publicity to the fabrication of the self- 

 admitted inventor of the pernicious 

 falsehood ; which he says he intended 

 as a "joke" or "scientific pleas- 

 antry," but which has been taken in 

 earnest, and copied and quoted as 

 sober facts throughout the world. 



