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An extract from the American Qroccr 

 was read, in which it was stated that 

 in New Jersey 42 samples of bottled 

 honey was analyzed, and it was ascer- 

 tained that out of 31 samples put up 

 by packing houses, only six were pure. 

 The samples purchased of farmers, 

 however, were all pure. 



Mr. Root^ — I fear there is a mistake 

 about some of those samples examined. 

 The State Chemist of Ohio says that it 

 is a difficult matter to tell when honey 

 is adulterated. Bees gather every 

 variety of honey. 



Mr. Aspinwal'l — With the polariscope 

 you can detect the presence of 5 per 

 cent, of glucose. A point in the article 

 just read is, that the honey procured 

 of dealers was nearly all found to be 

 adulterated, while that purchased of 

 bee-keepers was all pure. There is a 

 law against adulterating honey, and 

 can we not induce the State chemist to 

 analyze honey sold on the market ? 



The question of " Artificial Fertiliza- 

 tion " was on the programme, but N. 

 W. McLain, who was to lead it, was 

 unable to be present, owing to illness. 

 A letter from him was read, express- 

 ing regrets at his inability to be there. 



Mr. Aspinwall — When a bee has lost 

 its hair on its thorax, it is diseased, 

 and the malady is termed bacillus de- 

 cappillis. There are isolated cases in 

 man)' colonies, but the disease does 

 not spread. 



Mr. Root — In "the nameless bee- 

 disease " the members of the colony 

 become weak, have shiny backs, and 

 many die. New queens have to be in- 

 troduced. 



Mr. Aspinwall — The introduction of 

 new queens is a great secret of success 

 in bee-keeping. A queen hatched this 

 season should never be kept over the 

 next. 



At this point a recess was taken 

 until 9 a.m. 



LIGHT IN CELLARS. 



Value of Light in the Bce-Cellar 

 in tlie Winter. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY T. F. BINGHAM. 



Thinking that some of the readers, 

 in the near futin-e, may have a few 

 colonies of bees to winter, and for 

 which they do not wish to spend much 

 money to make a cellar or cave, not 

 even to render their ordinary cellar 

 dark and unpleasant to use for the 

 ordinary family purposes, I have de- 

 cided to state a few points perhaps 

 overlooked by bee-keepers, in regard 

 to light in the cellar as a means to the 

 paramoimt purpose of healthfully win- 

 tering bees. 



In this article it is not the intent to 

 exhaust the evidence, neither to estab- 

 lish the theory thus far among scien- 

 tific bee-keepers not mentioned as a 

 possible factor to successful wintering. 

 I shall simply state that I have been in 

 the habit of wintering part of my bees 

 in cellars at various times and in vari- 

 ous-places, according to circumstances. 

 However radical I may have been, 

 only in one instance has the ordinary 

 stereotyped rules been disregarded by 

 me, so far as darkness was concerned. 

 I have in all cases absolutely excluded 

 light from my cellars except in one 

 case, when I wintered successfully a 

 few colonies in Allegan, Mich., in a 

 very light cellar, where vegetables 

 were kept for the daily use of a large 

 family, composed mostly of children, 

 who went when they pleased into the 

 cellar for apples, etc. 



The point that i wish to bring out 

 conspicuously is, that light is essential 

 to the welfare of all warm-blooded 

 animals, to which rule bees are in no 

 wise an exception ; neither are plants. 

 It will of course be at once assumed 

 that in order that bees may be quiet, 

 human ingenuity must exclude from 

 them all light as the first and prime 

 essential. 



" Habit," the lamented Artemus 

 Ward said, "is a bad habit." While 

 in a certain sense his statement is cor- 

 rect, I shall not presume that the many 

 gifted bee-keepers and writers who 

 have, and now do a.dvocate wintering 

 bees in dark cellars and eaves, do so 

 simply out of respect to the time-hon- 

 ored custom, without giving all the 

 accessories, which they so explicitly 

 explain, due thought and considera- 

 tion. No ; but on the contrary, their 

 articles seem exhaustive, and so far as 

 a recapitulation of the accidents and 

 purposes which have come under their 

 consideration goes, the evidence and 

 conditions given leave little room for 

 reasonable diflerence of opinion. 



The fact still stands out boldly, that 

 perhaps the one most important factor 

 entering into the proper statement of 

 the wintering problem has been hither- 

 to omitted, viz : Light. Light in the 

 cellar ; light in the hive, and light in 

 the swaying trees. 



Having so far outlined what I wish 

 to be understood, allow me to give a 

 pen-and-ink sketch of the few of my 

 bees now in the cellar, to illustrate what 

 has been written : 



My cellar is Gi feet high, and 30 

 feet square, and under my house where 

 we live. This cellar has three ordinary 

 three-pane double cellar-windows, one 

 on the east side, one on the south, and 

 one on the west side. These windows 

 render the entire cellar comparatively 

 light. The walls are of stone, plastered 

 with hydraulic cement mortar. Around 



the cellar on all sides a row of 2-inch 

 drain-tile are laid a few inches below 

 the level of the cellar, and leading out 

 below the house, to drain the cellar 

 (which is nicely accomplished). 



The cellar bottom is covered about 2 

 inches deep with dry sand. This sand 

 is used in preference to cement, as I 

 regard it as being more healthful to 

 the family and the bees. Every spring ■ 

 this coat of sand is removed, 'and a 

 new coat returned in its place. Of 

 course the cellar is sweet. It is also 

 cool in summer, and warm in winter, 

 as the entire bottom plays its part in 

 radiating and absorbing the heat. 



On the east side of the cellar, facing 

 the east window, and about 10 feet 

 from it, are three rows of hives, six 

 hives in each row, piled one above the 

 other, three high. Eighteen colonies 

 of bees stand facing the east window 

 squarely. Each hive has an entrance 

 23 inches long facing the window. The 

 bees are at liberty to take in all the 

 light thei-e is, and the light is ample to 

 read by. 



They have all the daylight and brill- 

 iant light in the morning when the 

 sun shines obliquely through the win- 

 dow into the cellar. The bees are at 

 liberty to fly also, but few, however, 

 take such lilierty ; when they do, they 

 head to the hive as if in the open air, 

 and after a short fly, they dart to the 

 window, where, of course, they die. 



It will be said that the cellar is cold 

 or the bees would not keep so still. 

 The temperatiu-e has averaged, up to 

 date (Jan. 17), 45p or more ; only once 

 has it touched 40 J, and then only for a 

 few hours ; while most of the time it 

 has shown 50°. 



It is not as a matter of convenience 

 that these bees are placed as they are. 

 They have been so placed, because I 

 believed daylight essential to the wel- 

 fare of the bees. Next May, when the 

 clover blooms, I shall know how well 

 my belief was founded. Should it 

 prove well founded, a valuable experi- 

 ment will have been made public ; as 

 it will then be reasonable to keep a 

 few bees in an ordinary cellar. It is 

 verj' pleasant to be able to see how the 

 bees are doing, without the aid of a 

 lamp. 



To the bee-keeper having a fertile 

 imagination, a long list of desirable 

 features can be made possible in the 

 " light " of the light cellar, as well as 

 in the light of these experiments. 



In this article no eflbrt has been 

 made to show that perhaps five months 

 in a dungeon may be as detrimental to 

 bees as to human lieings ; neither that 

 the absence of light for so long a per- 

 iod may or may not be as detrimental 

 to bees in a cellar as a much greater 

 degree of cold in the sunlight. Neither 

 has it been the part of this article to 



