834 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Wavelets of News. 



Larval Food. 



I am glad to hear Mr. Cowan's book 

 praised. It is excellent. He gives the 

 history of most of our discoveries, and 

 withholds no credit. He does not say- 

 that the upper head glands secrete the 

 larval food, but, as I showed by actual 

 experiment a year ago, the larval food is 

 really chyle, or a product of true diges- 

 tion in the true stomach. I fed bees 

 syrup with pulverized charcoal in it, and 

 found the latter in the royal jelly. This 

 could not occur if royal jelly were a 

 secretion. — A. J. Cook, in Oleanings. 



Honey as a Tape-Worm Remedy. 



The most successful pumpkin-seed 

 remedy is made as follows : 



Peeled pumpkin-seeds. ... .3 ounces. 



Honey 2 " 



Water 8 



Make an emulsion. Take half, fast- 

 ing, in the morning, remaining half an 

 hour later. In three hours' time two 

 ounces castor oil should be administered. 

 Used with great success. — Medical Brief. 



Aroma and Color of Honey. 



By the color of the honey and the 

 aroma therefrom, an experienced bee- 

 keeper can determine the source from 

 whence it came. Thus, it is very easy to 

 tell buckwheat honey by its very dark 

 look, and by its strong and pungent 

 odor. 



Honey-dew has the same dark look, 

 but lacks the odor or aroma. In fact, 

 there is little or no aroma about honey- 

 dew. For this reason no bee-keeper 

 need be deceived as to the source of such 

 odorless honey. 



Aroma is a term employed to designate 

 those substances, the extreme minute 

 particles of which are supposed to affect 

 the organs of smell so as to produce 

 peculiar odors. The particles diffused 

 through the atmosphere and affecting 

 the olfactory nerves — if the theory of 

 particles of matter be correct — must 

 indeed be extremely minute, yet not so 

 much so, but what we easily detect the 

 smell from a field of any honey-bearing 

 plant or flower. These odors have 

 generally been supposed to depend upon 

 essential oils. — G. M. Doolittle, in the 

 Bund Home. 



Honey Vinegar. 



One pound of honey and one gallon of 

 water are the proper proportions to 

 make a good vinegar. That is, 29 

 pounds of honey will make (water 

 enough being added to fill a regular 32 

 gallon barrel) one barrel of the best 

 vinegar. 



The vessels used to make it in are 

 common alcohol barrels, which are found 

 at drug stores. Saw out one of the 

 barrel heads, and paint the outside to 

 prevent the iron hoops from being 

 destroyed by the vinegar. The barrels 

 and vinegar are kept in the cellar, so 

 covered with burlap as to keep the dust 

 out and let the air in. 



One year converts this water and 

 honey into the choicest vinegar. More 

 age will make it sharper, or more acid, 

 but at one year old it is fine enough for 

 any use. Sweetened water from wash- 

 ing honey drippings is the most common 

 waste of the apiary, and to utilize it, is 

 presumed to be the desirable matter in 

 fonnection with honey vinegar. With 

 the low price of honey, bee-keepers may 

 find a reasonable outlet for some of their 

 poor honey, such as is unfit to sell as an 

 article of delicate luxury for table. — 

 Nebraska Aiiriculturist. 



Carefully Bred Bees. 



There is a great difference between 

 the worth of bees that have been bred 

 up for many ycctrs by a skilled apiarist 

 and those that are in box-hives, that 

 have never given any surplus. I should 

 prefer the former at a good price instead 

 of the latter as a gift. 



The Italian bees are superior to the 

 blacks in every way, unless it is in cap- 

 ping the honey to show white. I some- 

 times think this is caused by their 

 working on the alsike and other plants 

 that the native bees are unable to obtain 

 honey from on account of their inability 

 to reach it. Probably the honey 

 gathered from the same flowers by each 

 race would show the same. They are 

 never idle. 



I have observed them when taking 

 flights in mid-Winter busily engaged in 

 house cleaning when colonies of natives 

 close by the side of them were only 

 enjoying themselves on the wing. Their 

 marked superiority is more noticeable 

 during poor seasons. Some think the 

 progeny of cross-bred queens equal to 

 full blood Italians. I prefer the pure 

 Italians in every respect, as they cross- 

 breed soon enough with neighbors' bees. 

 — J. H. A., in Stockman. 



