160 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



May 



If the inspector is not to be "the 

 sole judge as to whether or not dis- 

 ease is present" pray tell who is to 

 be the judge? Who is the judge in 

 the case of glanders in horses or tu- 

 berculosis in cattle if not the officers 

 designated by the law? To say 

 that "under such a law healthy colo- 

 nies of bees may be destroyed with no 

 protection for the beekeeper," is no 

 more true than to say that healthy 

 horses and cattle may be destroyed 

 with no protection for the owners 

 under the laws now prevailing for 

 the control and suppression of dis- 

 eases among horses and cattle. 



The comparison of the apiary in- 

 spector to a policeman who "is only 

 called when you have committed a 

 crime or are suspected of malicious 

 intent" is, I think, an unfortunate 

 one. Also it implies that the rank 

 and file of beekeepers are a rather 

 ignorant lot of people. My experi- 

 ence lead., me to believe that not one 

 person out of a hundred holds any 

 such view of the inspector when he 

 appears at his place, and if the man 

 is possessed of a little ordinary com- 

 mon sense he understands the situa- 

 tion when it is explained to him by 

 the inspector. During the four 

 years of my experience as inspector 

 we have met with serious objection 

 from less than one half of one per 

 cent of the owners of all the apia- 

 ries examined in the State during 

 that time, and only one of these ob- 

 jectors could be classed as among 

 those who look upon the inspector 

 as a "policeman," and this poor fel- 

 low was mentally deranged, having 

 formerly been for a little while an 

 inmate of an insane asylum. 



Surely every one will agree with 

 Mr. Pellttt when he says, "What 

 does it profit to burn up one man's 

 bees and leave a similar condition 

 across the fence untouched?" But 

 the remedy for such a condition is 

 to change the inspector, not the law. 

 The question touches only on the 

 incompetency of the inspector and 

 has absolutely nothing to do as to 

 what the law in the case should be. 

 All officers are expected to perform 

 their duty, but in case one fails we 

 do not immediately begin to agitate 

 to have all authority taken away 

 from the office. 



I am not inclined to disagree with 

 what Mr. Pellett says in opposition 

 to a quarantine law if he means a 

 "quarantine against the sale of honey 

 from infected areas." But Minne- 

 sota has a law that quarantines an 

 infected apiary so that the owner can 

 in >t "sell, barter or give away or re- 

 move to another location without 

 the consent of the inspector any 

 bees, honey or appurtenances from 

 an apiary known to be infected with 

 contagious disease, etc. My depu- 

 ties have instructions to always give 

 consent to the sale of the honey 

 after notifying the owner to be 

 careful not to allow it to be exposed 

 where bees can get access to it. I 

 could relate many instances where 

 this section of the law which forbids 

 the sale or removal of bees, hives, 

 combs, etc., from an infected apiary 

 without the consent of the inspector 

 has been a very great help in the 



control of the disease in this State, 

 and I am very sure that the beekeep- 

 ers of Minnesota would not agree for 

 a moment to have this section or any 

 other section of our law repealed. 



When Mr. Pellett says, "The ques- 

 tion has been discussed with many 

 of the most successful inspectors and 

 all have been disappointed in what 

 they have been able to accomplish 

 under these laws," does he mean to 

 imply that "all these inspectors" be- 

 lieve that it is best to "make the 

 office a purely educational one?" If 

 this is the case, we ought to know it, 

 and know the reasons why they 

 do. If we are going to have a dis- 

 cussion regarding the laws necessary 

 for the control of foulbrood let me 

 suggest that it be along constructive 

 lines rather than along destructive 

 lines. It is very easy to tear down 

 but not so easy to build again. I 

 think we should go very slow in the 

 wholesale condemnation of the pres- 

 ent laws. Why not consider one 

 thing at a time as for instance the 

 quarantine law. Again conditions 

 may so differ in the various states 

 that what is a good law for one 

 state might not be equally good for 

 another. Let us go slow, fellow 

 beekeepers, before we pull down 

 what has taken so much work to 

 construct. 



Minneapolis, Minn. 



bor's disease. I maintain that under 

 the laws now on the books in sev- 

 eral States it would be easily possi- 

 ble for a misguided inspector to ruin 

 the beekeepers in his territory, and if 

 reports are correct this very thing 

 has happened in many cases. The 

 beekeeper needs to be protected 

 against an incompetent inspector as 

 well as from disease. 



FRANK C. PELLETT. 



The Other Side of the Question 



A Reply to Mr. Blaker 



MR. BLAKER has evidently over- 

 looked the point of the arti- 

 cle which he criticises. Had 

 he read carefully the closing para- 

 graph he would have noted that I do 

 not propose to do away with the law 

 which requires the proper attention 

 to diseased colonies, but to leave 

 the enforcement of the law in the 

 hands of the officers whose business 

 is law enforcement. The foulbrood 

 laws were designed to protect the 

 beekeeper, and to centralize too 

 much authority in the hands of one 

 man is to create a greater danger 

 than is offered by disease. It should 

 be the business of the inspector to 

 locate disease and prescribe its treat- 

 ment. It should be the business of 

 others to enforce the law. The in- 

 spector should be an educational 

 officer. 



A recent number of the Western 

 Honeybee made the statement that 

 European foulbrood and unwise in- 

 spection had reduced the number of 

 colonies in one California county 

 nearly SO per cent. The writer has 

 heard it charged in some cases that 

 healthy bees have been destroyed by 

 the inspector. The law gave the bee- 

 keeper no protection in such a case. 

 There are cases reported where bees 

 were destroyed by an inspector to 

 get them out of the way of some- 

 body's range. Whether these things 

 have happened or not, it is plain 

 enough that they might easily hap- 

 pen under authority of present laws. 

 There is no reason why the laws 

 might not be so drawn as to give the 

 beekeeper full protection in his prop- 

 erty rights as well as from his neigh- 



Use of the Hydrometer in Commer- 

 cial Beekeeping 



By Isaac Hopkins 



AT your request, I am pleased to 

 furnish you with some par- 

 ticulars of the use now made 

 of the hydrometer in New Zealand 

 beekeeping, and its advantages. In 

 times past, and even at present in 

 some countries, beekeepers have 

 largely depended upon "rule of 

 thumbs" methods for deciding im- 

 portant questions in connection with 

 their business; purely guesswork, 

 in which the results might or might 

 not prove correct. Take, for instance, 

 the tests I have seen advocated in a 

 leading bee journal for deciding as to 

 whether a sample of liquid honey is 

 ripe or not. They were given in all 

 sincerity and practiced by some in 

 the absence of a more reliable meth- 

 od. One was to nearly fill a clear 

 glass with the honey to be tested, 

 leaving an inch or two of air space 

 below the cover or stopper; turn the 

 jar quickly upside down, and accord- 

 ing to the rate at which the air bub- 

 ble ascended; so the ripeness or oth- 

 erwise of the honey was determined. 

 Another plan, and this was advocated 

 not long since in a bee journal by a 

 not obscure beekeeper, was to test 

 the honey for its viscosity or sticki- 

 ness between the thumb and finger; 

 if very adhesive it showed good con- 

 dition, if otherwise its ripeness would 

 be doubtful. 



Now, it could never have occurred 

 to these advocates that the tempera- 

 ture of the honey would make a big 

 difference. On a cold day, the honey 

 being denser than on a warm day, 

 the air bubble would ascend much 

 slower, and the viscosity would be 

 greater, so that by either of these 

 tests the same honey might be 

 judged as ripe or unripe, according 

 to the temperature of the honey 

 when tested. 



Then, again, in the making of 

 honey vinegar, it is commonly recom- 

 mended to test the strength of the 

 liquid b}' putting an egg or sound po- 

 tato in it; when the egg or potato 

 floats showing a small disc above 

 the surface it is strong enough ; if 

 they sink more honey must be added. 

 The same test is advocated for 

 honey mead, but as the strength of 

 the liquid needs to be greater, a 

 larger disc of the egg or potato must 

 show. These tests are more or less 

 guess work, as on the size of the disc 

 the amount of honey in the liquid 

 depends. The least variation in size 

 of disc makes a big difference in the 

 calculations. 



Now, there need be no guess-work 

 at all with regard to honey, vinegar 



