436 



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IIog:us Honey and Cunib. 



We have the following letter from Mr. 

 W. M. Evans, relative to the manufactured 

 honey-comb story. He starts it in this 

 manner : 



Ajihekst, Va., June 23, 1888. 



Editor AivtERicAN Bee Joitrnal:— On 

 page 388 1 see that you have published some 

 correspondence, and made some statements 

 which demand a few words from me. 1 

 will try to make my remarks as " short and 

 sweet " as is possible. 



" A reward of Sl,000 to the person who 

 will furnish evidence that Comb Honey has 

 been manufactured, filled with honey and 

 capped by machinery, etc.— A. I. Root." 



Sow compare this with Mr. Doolittle's 

 statement in the American Rural Home, 

 viz: "Mr. Root, of Ohio, has a standing 

 offer of Sl,00u, for a sample of manufac- 

 tured honey in the comb." (Italics are 

 mine.) Here Mr. D. does not say a word 

 about making comb, tilling or capping it by 

 machinery. If Mr. D. sliould feed his bees 

 any mixture and cause one colony to store 

 500 pounds of comt) honey in one season, 

 would this not be " manufactured houey in 

 the comb ?" Can any sane man say that 

 Mr. Root's offer and Mr. Doolittle's state- 

 ment of it cover the same ground ? 



Tut ! Tut ! You are too fast ! There is 

 nothing in Mr. Root's challenge about offer- 

 ing a Reward of $1,000. A Reward is some- 

 thing given in exchange for goods, services 

 required, etc. He did not desire to receive a 

 sampleof bogus comb hocey ! Mr. Root's 

 words, in his card, were : 



I will pay 51,000 in cash to any person 

 who will tell me where comb honey is 

 manufactured by machinery ; or 1 will pay 

 the same sura to any one who will find 

 manufactured comb honey on the market 

 for sale. 



Is there a word aJwut Reward in that ? 

 That idea is manufactured by Mr. Evans, 

 we fear, for capital. Again, the manner of 

 wording this Reward sentence makes it 

 nonsensical. The Reward is offered for 

 evidence that "comb honey has been manu- 

 factured, filled with honey, aiid capped by 

 machinery, etc." "Comb honey" is comb 

 filled with honej', and when it is so filled it 

 cannot be ogaiTi.fiHefl with horaey, or any- 

 thing else. Mr. Evans has conveniently 

 transposed these two words from " lumey- 

 comb," as we used it in the twelfth line of 

 tlie second column on page 388. If you 

 could get "honeycomb" made, it could 

 then, perhaps, be filled with honey, etc., 

 but comb honey, being full, cannot be 

 again filled with anything ! 



The unfortunate wording of both Mr. 

 Root's and Mr. Doolittle's statement con- 

 cerning the offer, is to be regretted, because 

 it may lead to complications. It must be 

 understood that the offar of Mr. Root is as 

 stated on pase 38S in the l'2th, 13th and 14th 

 lines of the middle column, viz : that he | 

 offers S1,000 for proof "that honey-comb is 

 made, filled with glucose, and sealed up by | 

 a machine made for that piirpose !" or for, 

 proof that such bogus stuff is on the market 

 for sale. This is what Messrs. Root and 



Doolittle intended to state, even if they did 

 not do so very clearly. 



Mr. Evans then gives the following his- 

 toric account of the controversy : 



Now, at the time I wrote (May 4) to the 

 Amercnn Rtiral Home, I had never heard 

 about Mr. Root's offer, nor I did not know 

 that any one had made any such statement 

 calling for any such offer ; and, besides 

 this, I had some months before, in the same 

 paper, referred to some very remarkable 

 statements made by a Jersey and Hudson 

 River apiarist to a reporter of the New York 

 Times. One of them said that he had sold 

 that season 10,000 pounds of apple blossom 

 comb lioney ; and the other claimed to have 

 sold 30,000 pounds. At the same time I 

 offered $350 for a .5-pound box of pure apple- 

 blossom comb honey, and my offer has not 

 been accepted up to this date, and never 

 will be. 



At the time of the blooming of the apple 

 trees, the bees are not in condition, usually, 

 to gather much honey, even if the weather 

 were propitious ; and the little that is gath- 

 ered is consumed by the bees while rearing 

 the brood, so that comb honey from apple 

 blossoms is a very rare article. That ac- 

 counts for the non-acceptance of Mr. 

 Evans' offer. Reporters get things mix£d, 

 and very often convey a very different idea 

 than that which was presented by the per- 

 son interviewed. That might have been the 

 case with the Hudson River apiarists— and 

 probably it was a gross preversiou of the 

 matter as stated by them ! 



Again Mr. Evans reverts to "manufac- 

 tured honey " in these words : 



Now from Mr. Doolittle's reference to 

 Mr. Root's offer, I understood that it ap- 

 plied to adulterated, or as Mr. D. puts it, 

 " Manufactured Imney in the comb ;" and 

 you will notice that I say that " the Wiley 

 lie is true as to the adulteration of comb 

 hcmey." I wrote to Prof. Wiley to find out 

 whether he had ever stated that the comb 

 had been made by machinery, though I 

 then did not believe that he or airy one else 

 had ever made any such statement. I was 

 not "non-plused" (as you say) at all, but 

 merely wanted to get at the facts before I 

 replied to Mr. Root's card. 



To affirm that a lie is true, is equivalent 

 to saying that it was wholly false, which it 

 is, tru-ly ! 



Prof. Wiley's statement was made in 

 these words : 



In commercial honey, which is entirely 

 free trom bee-uiediation, the comb is made 

 of parattine, and filled with pure glucose by 

 appropriate machinery. 



And it is a positive falsehood which he 

 made, believing at the time (as he has since 

 stated) that it was not possible commercially 

 to imitate the comb. It was a wilful, 

 malicious, unprovoked, and deliberate false- 

 hood, and yet Mr. Evans tries to make us 

 believe that it is a true statement of fact, 

 after its author has been driven to admit its 

 untruthfulness, and to state that he had Bo 

 proof upon which to predicate it ! ! 



Now here is a bluff from Mr. Evans. He 

 says : 



You say, I "propose to fight a wooden 

 man in the shape of adulterated honey !" 

 Now if yon mean business, I will make my 

 original iiroposition a little stronger ; I will 

 wager $5,000 that American apiarists have 



adulterated their comb honey. The names 

 of those who have done so are recorded, and 

 can be published if they wish it. " Barkis 

 is willin'." " The proof of the pudding is 

 in the eating." Try me. 



The vile aspersion that "apiarists are 

 adulterating their comb honey " by feeding 

 the bees with trash, for that purpose, is too 

 base to receive attention ! It was born in 

 the addled brains of an English clergyman 

 tourist— repeated in the ears of our British 

 cousins, to their delight, as some of the 

 wonderful stories of this wonderful hemis- 

 phere of the West— and published In our 

 British cotemporary apparently for the pur- 

 pose of injuring the sale of American 

 honey in Europe ! 



Now Mr. Evans tries to cram this tissue 

 of falsehoods down our throats, and per- 

 suade us that it is an inntjcent sugar-coated 

 pill. 



True Christians are not gamblers ; they do 

 not wager, bet, lie, steal, etc. They leave 

 that to the men of low morals, tendencies, 

 and education. So we must decline to ac- 

 cept his "wager"— our principles are at 

 stake ! 



Mr. Evans becomes aggressive, and makes 

 this statement : 



By the report df the Bee-Keepers' Con- 

 vention last November, in Chicago, as pub- 

 lished in the Country Gentleman, I notice 

 that one apiarist said, that " it was none of 

 the public's business what they fed their 

 bees ;" and this remarkable statement was 

 at least endorsed by silence. Do you, Mr. 

 Editor, endorse this sentiment ? 



There, again, is a misstatement of the 

 matter presented. At the Chicago Conven- 

 tion, the subject of preparing food for the 

 bees during their winter confinement, was 

 discussed, and one member made this state- 

 ment, as quoted from the official report as 

 published in pamphlet form on pages .^0 

 and 31 : 



Bees are not natives of a northern climate, 

 and when we bring them here we may be 

 obliged to make changes in their fooil ; and 

 to say that all this must be explained to the 

 public is toolish ; that is our business. 



How different that is to the idea sought to 

 be conveyed by Mr. Evans. He tries to 

 convey the idea that bee-keepers feed the 

 bees something to have stored in the sur- 

 plus department to be sold as honey— while 

 the discussion referred to is one on the best 

 food to be supplied to bees in winter con- 

 finement to keep them from becoming dis- 

 eased, because they have been taken from 

 their natural, warm habitat to a cold north- 

 ern latitude 1 How much interest have the 

 public in such abstract discussions ? Such 

 absurd misrepresentations are certainly 

 amusing. 



From the fact that it will not pay to 

 feed the bees with glucose, or anything else, 

 to have them store it in the surplus comb, 

 there is no danger of the bee-keepers fur- 

 nishing that bogus stuff to the be«s to have 

 them store it. and then to put it upon the 

 market. Mr. Evans is, therefore, in a worse 

 plight than ever, while attempting "to fight 

 a wooden num in the shape of adulterated 

 honey " in the comb. 



