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307 



EDITOB. 



VoLXXIY, May 9, 1888, No. 19. 



Give IIS of your sunshine, 

 O ! .vn bonny spring, 

 Of your golden treasure, 

 Days of sunlight bring. 



Come and deck with beauty 

 Hill and valley fair. 

 Every swaying tree-top. 

 Every meadow bare. 

 Robe all with beauty rare. 

 Acrostic. —Lizzie Godfrey. 



Cbriiiit Ilefbre Pilate, a painting by 

 Munkacsy, the famous Hungarian artist, is 

 on exhibition at Central Music Hall, Chi- 

 cago, where it may be seen during the day 

 and evening for several weeks. It meas- 

 ures 18x25 feet including the frame, and 

 contains nearly forty life-sized figures. 

 When gazing at the picture as it stands 

 draped on the stage, in the large hushed 

 hall, one almost waits to hear words issue 

 from the canvas, so very realistic does the 

 scene appear. 



Honey on tlie Bill of Fare.— F. 

 A. Huntley, in the Minnesota Farmer, says 

 about the future of honey consumption : 



Bee-keeping was one of the first rural 

 occupations. At the time when man first 

 conimenced to stir the soil for his daily 

 bread, bees were managed for domestic use, 

 to furnish the only product then known and 

 used exclusively as a sweet. The discovery 

 of sugar making supplied a cheaper staple, 

 which placed honey among the luxuries. 

 For hundreds of years such has been the 

 state of the honey trade. Now we see ad- 

 vanced bee-keeping increasing the produc- 

 tion to an extent that will soon place honey 

 on the regular bill of fare of the most un- 

 pretentious hotels. ' Indeed, we should see 

 it there to-day. 



The way to do it, is for bee-keepers and 

 others to call for it when at hotels. " Mine 

 host " will provide whatever is demanded. 

 If honey is not required, it will not be 

 provided. 



l.et Statistics Alone.— H. M. Moyer, 

 of Berks County, Pa., writes as follows, for 

 publication, on the subject indicated in the 

 heading : 



To get governiental statistics through the 

 assessors may be good for some, but I am 

 sure tor the majority of bee-keepers it is 

 not a good thing. If the assessors do such 

 work they will surely tax the bees. We 

 have tn pay enough tax without the bees in 

 such a poor locality as this. There are 

 enough, without the bees, in the United 

 States to pay taxes for. It is not pleasant, 

 when we have not money enough to pay for 

 other things. Why should bee-keepers pay 

 a tax when the poultry-keepers do not ? In 

 some places they pay taxes, but in general 

 they do not. What is the taxable value of 

 a colony of bees ? Somewhere I have read 

 that it is $2.00. They generally sell them 

 tor .$10.00 ; to value them to the assessors at 

 $2.00 does not look honest ! In Pennsyl- 

 vania we must make an affidavit as to the 

 value (if all our taxed articles, and to tax 

 colonies of bees at S8, SIO, or 812 would 

 make too much tax. If you will work for 

 the benefit of bee-keepers in general, let the 

 governmental statistics and assessors alone. 



Evidently Mr. Moyer does not understand 

 the object of obtaining statistical informa- 

 tion. He thinks, perhaps, that what is de- 

 sired, is pronjpted by idle curiosity ; or, 

 peradventure, for rivalry as between States 

 or localities— to show which are the greatest 

 honey-producing localities, or to indicate 

 which are the most important in the in 

 dustry of bee-keeping. But such is very far 

 from the facts in the ease. 



It has been fully demonstrated that in- 

 formation concerning the supply of any 

 commodity is of .special value to its pro- 

 ducers in fixing the prices at which such 

 products may be put upon the markets of 

 the world. 



Not only is it desirable to know the num- 

 ber of persons engaged in the production of 

 honey, and the number of colonies of bees 

 they keep, but also the amount of the an- 

 nual product of marketable honey (both 

 comb and extracted), and also of beeswax. 



Such information, furnished at the right 

 time, would be of great value to those who 

 are engaged in the industry of honey-pro- 

 duction. The fear that assessors would tax 

 the colonies of bees is not worthy of con- 

 sideration. The blanks issued by many of 

 the States for obtaining statistics are totally 

 independent of the taxing blanks ; and 

 whether bees are to be taxed or not is de- 

 termined by the laws of the State, and not 

 the whim, of the assessor. 



It is all very well to say, "Let statistics 

 alone !" but when the bee-keepers in con- 

 vention assembled appointed committees to 

 attend to the matter, map out plans and put 

 them into operation— they, in their united 

 wisdom, evidently thought that the statisti- 

 cal information was worth obtaining, and, 

 if obtained, it would be of much value to 

 the industry at large. 



From the efforts put forth this spring it 

 has been ascertained that the loss during 

 the past winter was only 15 per cent, and 

 that the prospect for a good honey crop is 

 very fair 1 Is this not worth knowing ? 

 Many think so, even if Mr. Moyer does 

 not! 



Diabetes and Sugar-Eating. — 



Mrs. H. Hills, of Sheboygan Falls, Wis., on 

 April 26, 1888, writes us as follows on the 

 above-named subject : 



In the Union Signal published at Chicago, 

 dated April 19, 1888, James Clement Am- 

 brose remarks as follows : 



In every ten cases of diabetes nine are 

 the result of sugar-eating, and honey is a 

 more unwholesome sweet, for with the 

 sweet the bees gather more or less of the 

 volatile oils at the base of the flowers, many 

 of which oils are poisonous. 



Is this not some " wily " fellow's talk ? 



Yes ; of course it is. We have consulted 

 with many physicians, and with one accord 

 they deny the wily assertions of Mr. Am- 

 brose. Diabetes is not caused by sugar- 

 eating or honey-sucking. It is a disorder 

 of the general system from the non-assimi- 

 lation of food, leaving an excess of animal 

 sugar in the blood and secretions. Although 

 its cause and cure are not fully known, yet 

 it can be controlled to some extent by a 

 careful diet, clothing and warm baths. 



The ingeniously-worded statement of Mr. 

 Ambrose, about honey being poisonous is 

 too absurd for anything. For fifty centuries 

 it was about the only sweet used by man, 

 and is still a prominent ingredient in all 

 the best and most potent medicines ! Such 

 a statement as that made by the Union 

 Signal is of the most stupid and preposter- 

 ous character ! 



Xlie Best Advertising- medium. 



—The Bee-Keepers' Review for April states 

 that while its advertisement has appeared in 

 all the principal bee-papere. that of all those 

 who have answered it, ihree-fourths say that 

 they saw it in the American Bee JonRNAL I 

 Straws show wiiich way the wind blows. As 

 a means of plaelnp anything of value before 

 bee-keepers, the American Bee Joxtrnal 

 stands at the head. The BBST is the cheapest. 



The above paragraph, which we published 

 last week, Mr. Hutchinson de.sires to have 

 amended thus : " Of all those who men- 

 tion where there they saw his advertisement, 

 three-fourths state that they saw it in the 

 American Bee Journal." 



Since we have been asking our readers, 

 when answering advertisements, to say 

 where they saw them, our advertisers are 

 very well pleased, and the "old reliable" 

 gets full credit for its excellence as an ad- 

 vertising medium. 



Evei-y Fritit <Sro-»ver should have a 

 few colonies of bees, in order to insure the 

 more perfect growth of the crops. The bees, 

 while gathering honey, carry the pollen 

 from flower to flower, and thus fertilize the 

 bloom, spread the growth, and multiply the 

 fruit. 



The ■Wroiiglit-Xacks or clout nails 

 used by Mr. Shuck for nailing honey-boards 

 are ?s inch, not % as stated on page 295, at 

 the bottom of the first column. It was a 

 tpyoiraphical error. 



IToiir Full .Iddress, plainly written, 

 is very essential in order to avoid mistakes. 



