950 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 15 



blind to their own interests. No, they will 

 patronize companies like those whose letter 

 is given above. 



A DEAD-BEAT LIST OF HONEY-BUTEHS. 



General Manager France is doing a 

 good thing in collecting a list of no-pay cus- 

 tomers, and placing the same before the 

 members of the National Bee-keepers' Asso- 

 ciation who may call for it. The information 

 given by this no-pay list may more than 

 make up for the annual membership fee of 

 $1.00 for a good many years; or, to put it in 

 another way, this is only one of the many 

 ways that the National can save its members 

 the small fee asked for membership several 

 times over. Mr. France is doing a good 

 work, and he should have the support of all 

 right-thinking bee-keepers. It goes without 

 saying, that any one who has had any experi- 

 ence with a no-pay customer should send the 

 name in to General Manager N. E. France, 

 Platteville, Wis., with a brief statement of 

 the facts. 



CHEMISTS WHO HAVE DONE A SERVICE TO 

 APICULTURE. 



France is mourning the loss of three of 

 the really great men of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury — all three being chemists of the premier 

 rank — Berthelot, Moisson, and Curie. The 

 latter was a native of Poland, but a French- 

 man by education and adoption. Both 

 Berthelot and Moisson rendered excellent 

 service to the bee-keepers of all countries. 

 It was Berthelot who showed how artificial 

 glucose could be detected in adulterated 

 honey by detecting the traces of minerals 

 due to the use of mineral acids on starch, 

 and also by the presence of dextrine; and, if 

 these were not pi'esent, by its want of taste. 

 The great chemist was at the time, 1878, in 

 charge of the pharmacy of the Central Hos- 

 pital of Paris. 



Moisson invented a method for detecting 

 the presence of ozokerite in beeswax, which 

 at one time threatened the industry by its 

 wholesale adulteration of the product of the 

 apiax'y. This is of more importance to the 

 bee-keepers of Europe than with us, for they 

 pay far more attention to this production of 

 wax than American bee-keepers do. Dealers 

 were in the habit of adulterating beeswax by 

 the addition of ozokerite to the extent of 30 

 per cent, and yet guaranteeing the same to 

 be pure beeswax, and no one at the time 

 could actually detect the fraud till Moisson 

 attacked the problem. One very important 

 fact he demonstrated was that beeswax is 

 completely soluble in sulphuric acid, where- 

 as ozokerite, paraffine, or ceresine was not. 

 For these facts we are indebted to M. Rons- 

 seray in L'ApicuIteiir. These two men are 

 deserving of great praise in thus allying 

 themselves with the side of common honesty. 



after many fruitless attempts the idea was 

 abandoned. It has been revived within the 

 last five or six years; but so far nothing defi- 

 nite has been accomplished, unless it has 

 been in the case of that mammoth cage of 

 Mr. Davitt, as reported in the Bee-keepers' 

 Review. In looking over our back volumes, 

 looking for something else, we ran across an 

 editorial item in our issue for April 15, 1882, 

 and the same is reproduced here: 



Last season Dan White took all the wingless queens 

 he found, tied a delicate silk thread around their bod- 

 ies, hitched it to a tall pole, when the drones were 

 out thick, and let them buzz round with the stumps 

 of their wings. Three out of ten were fertilized, an^ 

 he has them laj'ing now. 



Mr. White is one of our substantial bee- 

 keepers, and he would never report any 

 thing of this kind unless itwei'e true. He is 

 still a bee-keeper, making a specialty of pro- 

 ducing an extra quality of extracted honey. 

 The item is interesting, not only because it 

 is true, but because there are possibilities 

 along the line of "hitching up" several 

 queens to a long pole by means of a silken 

 thread, and leaving the pole in a yard where 

 a lot of selected drones are allowed to fly. 

 But the question might be raised, "What ad- 

 vantage would be secured over the natural 

 way of queen-mating?" It is well known 

 that queens and drones both may fly some 

 distance from the home yard. This increases 

 greatly the possibilities of queens mating 

 with undesirable stock from the woods, or 

 bees of other yards where no attempt is made 

 at the selection of drones. Tying the queens 

 up and causing them to mate while so tied 

 may enable one with a good strong glass to 

 witness more minutely the operation. 



The account of Mr. White's experience is 

 here reproduced in order that some of our 

 readers may test the matter again; and in- 

 stead of a long pole would it not be more 

 feasible, on a perfectly still day, to elevate 

 the hitched-up queens by means of a toy rub- 

 ber gas-balloon? After the thing has been 

 up an hour or two pull it down. Perhaps 

 some one with more time and enthusiasm at 

 his disposal than we have can try this out 

 and report. Or is there some one since Mr. 

 White's eai'ly experiments who has tried 

 something of this kind? 



ARTIFICIAL FERTILIZATION OF QUEENS. 



Some years ago thei'e was considerable 

 discussion as to whether queens might not 

 be mated in a small cage or in a room; but 



RULING ON HONEY-LABELS BY THE SECRE- 

 TARY OF AGRICULTURE; LABELING 

 HONEY IN GENERAL. 



It appears that a letter was addressed by 

 the General Manager of the National Bee- 

 keepers' Association to the Secretary of Ag- 

 riculture, James Wilson, asking for a ruling 

 on certain labels and the labeling of honey 

 in general. (See "Information Bureau No. 

 5" put out by the Association.) As the re- 

 ply contains much valuable information we 

 take pleasure in presenting it here: 



Department of Agriculture, 

 Washington, D. C. 

 3fr. iV. JS. France: — I do not see that any objection 

 can be made to the form of seal label which you sub- 

 mit. In regard to the shipment of honey without 

 label, I may say that you do not violate the law in so 

 doing provided it is pure honey and not something 

 other than what it is sold for. If the honey is shipped 



