52 



T'H® MMBMICMM mMM J©^KHM1,. 



' C'ORI^ER " 11^ HOl^EY. 



Mr. Albert H. Lind, of Fond du Lac Co., 

 Wis., has sent us tlie following item taken 

 from the New York World of Dec. 31, 1887 ; 



Kansas City, Mo., Dec. 19.— A " corner" 

 on honey exists in this section ; one firm 

 here holding nearly all of the product that 

 there is in town. The crop was a light one 

 all over the country. In this State the pro- 

 duct was not large enough to feed the bees 

 for the winter,*and honey had to be bought 

 for tliat purpose. 



The California crop was a small one, and 

 the product of the hives in Illinois and In- 

 diana was llglit. New York failed to secure 

 the usual supply, which is very large, the 

 New York crop being barely large enough 

 to supply the home demand. 



That is not much of a "corner!" We 

 might say the same of Chicago ; nearly all 

 the honey now for sale being held by about 

 two "firms!" And yet all buyers can be 

 accommodated. 



The following sensational item we take 

 from the Chicago Times of Jan. 15, 1888. It 

 is headed, " Now it is a Honey Trust^The 

 Latest Combination Proposed to Boost up 

 Prices : 



Tlie convention of honey-producers in the 

 State of New York will begin at Utica 

 Tuesday next. Three days will be occu- 

 pied in the deliberations. J. L. Scofield 

 will preside. The producers of over 5,000,000 

 pounds of comb honey and 1,000,000 pounds 

 of extracted honey as an annual crop will 

 be present. 



Among other subjects to be discussed will 

 be the shape, size, and style of the pack- 

 ages for the coming year, the price to be 

 charged to the wholesale dealers, and a plan 

 for unity of action to prevent the cheapen- 

 ing competition which has marked the sale 

 of honey during the past. 



It is proposed to form a trust, to be com- 

 posed of all the large producers in the State, 

 nominally to regulate the size of combs, so 

 as to unify the marketable packages, but 

 actually to buy up all surplus honey when 

 tiiere is a glut of production, so as to keep 

 up the price and shut out competitors who 

 might be willing to sell at a sacrifice. It is 

 expected that this plan will meet with great 

 opposition from the small producers. 



At this writing the New York Conven- 

 tion has held its last session, but we are not 

 yet advised as to the " doings " there. We 

 hope to be able to lay it before our readers 

 next week. 



The "Honey Trust" is probably only a 

 canard, but of that we shall hear more defi- 

 nitely when the proceedings are published. 

 To control, in a healthy and honorable way, 

 the honey market, is very desirable and 

 praise-worthy. 



Xlie Eclio, a nice dollar weekly news- 

 paper of Detroit, Mich., makes mention of 

 us in the following language : 



The American Bee Journai-, of Chi- 

 cago, now entering upon its 24th year in a 

 liighly successful career, is the oldest paper 

 in America devoted to the interests of its 

 special field. It is well edited in all of its 

 departments, is attractive in appearance, 

 and is a reliable authority upon the topics 

 of which it treats. 



Xlie " Wiley I je " in Knglana. 



It is exceedingly unfortunate that in the 

 absence of its editor, some one has endors- 

 ingly copied in an editorial in the BriUsliBee 

 Jounuil, the silly lies going the rounds of 

 the newspapers, about "artificial honey" 

 being made in New York, etc., a la Wiley ! 

 Did we not know that the editor, Mr.Cowan, 

 was at his winter home in Switzerland, and 

 that he therefore knew nothing of its publi- 

 cation until seeing it in the Bee Journal, we 

 sliould feel much worse about it. 



The article in question may be found on 

 page 568 of the Britisih Bee Journal for Dec. 

 28, 1887. It reads thus : 



We have noticed the ever-increasing pro- 

 duction of honey all over the world, but this 

 is not the danger the apiculturist has to 

 contend with. America and Canada may 

 collect their tons of pure nectar, and yet 

 there is room for more. By an increased 

 sale of honey our British productions will 

 come to the front; once let a man taste prime 

 honey,and he will never go back to inferior. 

 The danger we have to contend with is the 

 unprincipled scientist, the man who uses 

 his knowledge of bees for unlawful pur- 

 poses ; and further, the man who advances 

 Ills nefarious scheme without the aid of bees 

 at all. The history of the first of these in- 

 dividuals we have recently learnt from a 

 clergyman who had been traveling in the 

 far West, and visited many of the adulterat- 

 ing bee-farms. This apparent bee-keeper 

 settles down to carry out his practices in a 

 quiet place with a favorable climate ; he 

 has a large number of hives, but the pas- 

 turage of the district is quite immaterial to 

 him, as his bees have to obtain their stores 

 from large feeders placed all over the api- 

 ary. Containing what? Our informant 

 was unable to find out, as although every- 

 thing in the establishment was shown to 

 him without reserve, yet he was not per- 

 mitted to taste the contents of the vats or 

 feeders from whence the bees were obtain- 

 ing their supplies. The latter of these scien- 

 tihc bee-keepers is best described in the 

 following quotation from a magazine of this 

 mouth : " Artificial honey now made in 

 New York is so much like the genuine arti- 

 cle that only experts can detect the differ- 

 ence. It is in racks, the same as the natural 

 product, and now and then the wings and 

 legs of a few dead bees are to be seen to 

 further the deception. It can be sold at a 

 profit of 5c7. per pouud. 



As usual in such cases, a clergyman is 

 brought into it, so as to give some appear- 

 ance of truth to the story — for he " visited 

 many of the adulterating bee-farms," says 

 the article. 



It Is a base slander — a ncfariaus lie ; 

 neither the clergyman in question, nor " any 

 other man " ever visited any such " adul- 

 terating bee-farms !" They do not exist ! ! 



It is nothing more nor less than a scanda- 

 lous falsehood— the production of a sensa- 

 tional reporter's brain, written for spice,but 

 lacking even the flimsiest "thread" of 

 truth ! 



Its only possible excuse is the infamous 

 " scientific pleasantry " written " for the 

 /u?i of the thing," by Prof. Wiley— who is 

 so unprincipled as to let it " fly " on electric 

 wires to " the uttermost parts of the Earth," 

 without a word of regret, or denial ! 



When cornered by the American Bee 

 Journal he admitted that he wrote it as a 

 scientific pleasantry, never dreaming that 



any one would imagine it to be a sober fact. 

 Now the British Bee JoM7iiar republishes 

 it under the heading of " Facts." It is 

 astonishing, to say the least ! 



We have repeatedly offered large sums of 

 money to persons (one of them a clergyman, 

 too) who had repeated this story as a fact, 

 to take us to the place where these " arti- 

 ficial combs " are made, or where the 

 "adulterating bee-farms" may be found, 

 but no one can take us to them ! No such 

 places can be found ! 



Mr. A. I. Root, editor of Oleaiiings in 

 Bee-Culture, has for two years had a stand- 

 ing offer of 81,500 to any one who will point 

 out such places to him — yet there are none 

 who can do it. They do not exist ! 



Now, when honey is scarce and prices 

 high, it is just the time for putting this 

 " artificial comb honey " on the market at 

 good prices, for our British cotemporary 

 says that it is " so much like the genuine 

 article that only experts can detect the dif- 

 ference." But what are the facts ? Not 

 even a single pound of the "artificial 

 honey " can be produced ! Not even a 

 single "adulterating bee-farm" can be 

 shown ! ! 



Send your " clergyman " over here, Mr. 

 Scribbler, to point out such farms. It will 

 pay him to do so ! 



Disturbing' llees in "IViiiter. — W. 



Z. Hutchinson writes as follows on the re- 

 sults of disturbing bees in winter, in the 

 Foi-mcr's Review. He argues quite cor- 

 rectly that sometimes it is necessary to dis- 

 turb them sufficiently to find out if they 

 have suflicient food ; and that in such a 

 case it is better to examine them than to let 

 them starve : 



Many bee-keepers advise us to lock the 

 bee-eel lar,and not open it again until spring, 

 saying that the least disturbance is injuri- 

 ous to the bees. Others say that disturb- 

 ance is no injury, that the cellar may be en- 

 tered at any time with a light, the hive 

 opened, and even combs taken out witliout 

 any deleterious results following. 



In all jjrobability the cause of winter 

 losses lies in something aside from disturb- 

 ing. Improper food, or an undesirable tem- 

 perature are more to be feared than dis- 

 turbance ; if these are right, disturbance, 

 unless carried to an extreme, will do no 

 harm ; if wrong, disturbance may be, and 

 probably is, an aggravation. 



But, says one, why disturb them ? Well, 

 bees are sometimes short of stores, and bee- 

 keepers might let them starve for fear of 

 disturbing them. 



Early in winter bees go into a quiet state 

 bordering on hibernation, and this quiescent 

 state should be as long and quiet as possi- 

 ble ; towards spring breeding begins, and 

 the bees are then more active, and disturb- 

 ance would probably do less harm than in 

 the earlier part of the winter. 



It may be questioned if simply going into 

 the cellar with a light and quietly lifting 

 covers or quilts, and peeping under them at 

 the quietly sleeping bees, can be called a 

 disturbance, unless it be too long continued. 



It is, of course, a better way to see that 

 the bees have sufficient food in the fall, that 

 they are placed in good warm quarters, and 

 then let tuein alone, as nothing is gained by 

 disturbing them, but when these things 

 have been neglected, they should be at- 

 tended to, even though the bees are dis- 

 turbed thereby. 



