14 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



THE 8UGAB HONEY DISCUSSION HAS GONE EAR 

 ENOUGH AT PRESENT. 



I said I had more articles on sugar honey 

 that would be published in due time. Per- 

 haps their authors are wondering why they 

 are not. The reason is that the bee-keeping 

 public is opposed to the discussion. An ed- 

 itor has an opportunity that is accorded to 

 no other, to v)lace his finger upon the public 

 pulse. In the hundreds and hundreds of let- 

 ters that have come to me in the past month, 

 and from the bee - keepers that I have met 

 at three conventions of a National charac- 

 ter, I have learned that there is a strong op- 

 position against even the discussion of the 

 raising of honey by feeding sugar to bees. 

 In some instance this opposition amounts to 

 a bitter rage. Some of you may remember 

 the pains that I have taken in the past to 

 learn what course in the getting up of the 

 Review would be the most acceptable. Well, 

 when it has been shown to me so clearly that 

 this discussion is distasteful to the majority, 

 what folly to force it upon these unwilling 

 readers. I have several most excellent arti- 

 cle upon this subject. One from Mr.Dag- 

 gitt, in which he calls attention to the fact that 

 it is the floral flavor of honey that gives it 

 its chief value. Illustrations and evidence 

 are given at length. Again, this very morn- 

 ing,Ihave received from Frank S. Aby, Direc- 

 tor of the Histological Labratory of the Iowa 

 State University a most able paper discuss- 

 ing the question most throughly from sci- 

 entific ethical and economic standpoints. 

 He supports Prof. Cook and says that theop- 

 psition comes from the ignorance of bee- 

 keepers on chemical and physiological points. 

 It seems a pity that this subject cannot be 

 throughly and calmly discussed in all of its 

 bearings, but with the present feeling, its 

 continuance would only stir up bitterness, 

 and I think that the best thing that can be 

 done is to drop it right where it is, at least, 

 for the present. 



THE OEANE AND BINGHAM SMOKERS. 



At the Mich. State Bee-Keepers' Conven- 

 tion, held in Lansing, a little more than a 

 month ago, Mr. Bingham showed a smoker 

 of exactly the same siz° as the one Mr. Crane 

 sent me. It also had a bellows the same size 

 as the Crane. His object was to show me 

 that his smoker had a stronger blast than 

 the Crane. The Bingham smoker certainly 

 had the stronger blast. Mr. Bingham's idea 

 is that the friction of the air in the tube, and 



the two turns that it is compelled to make, 

 robs the air of its force. It seemed to me 

 that if all of the air in the bellows were forced 

 into the fire barrel, the blast would be just 

 as strong, although there might be more ex- 

 penditure of force by the operator in over- 

 coming the friction. The fact remained, 

 however, that the blast of the Bingham was 

 the stronger. It seemed to me that this was 

 scarcely a fair test, as a smoker is used filled 

 with af hes, coals and fuel. When the air is 

 called upon to overcome this obstruction, I 

 felt sure there would be a re-action from the 

 Bingham, through the "cutoff," and that 

 the blast from the nozzle would be weaker. 

 We stuffed the barrels of each smoker with 

 wads of paper, and yet the blast of the Bing- 

 ham was the stronger. Of course these 

 tests were not exact. There was no instru- 

 ment with which to test the strength of the 

 blasts, and the Bingham smoker was new, 

 while the Crane was old and composed of 

 parts of several smokers i)ut together, the 

 obstruction caused by filling the smokers 

 with paper could not have been exactly the 

 same, the barrel of the Crane was rough 

 from being covered with soot, while that of 

 the Bingham was new and smooth. Allow- 

 ances ought to be made for all of these 

 things, yet the fact that the Bingham gave 

 the stronger blast in all the conditions ought 

 not to be overlooked. Mr. Bingham attrib- 

 utes the stronger blast to the lack of friction 

 caused by the tube and turns of the Crane 

 and to the air that is drawn in by the cur- 

 rent in its passage from the bellows to the 

 fire barrel. 



I took the Crane and Bingham smokers 

 with me last week over to the Ontario Bee- 

 Keepers' convention and let Mr. Cornell 

 take them. He is going to try and secure 

 the use of an instrument for testing the force 

 of blasts of air and test them together with 

 a smoker of his own that is arranged with 

 tubes between the bellows and the fire bar- 

 rel after the manner illustrated in the Octo- 

 ber Review, page 259. He will make a new 

 barrel for the Crane, so that the soot will not 

 have any effect in the trial. 



I suggested that the smokers ought to be 

 filled with planer shavings the same as when 

 in use. Mr. Cornell admitted that that 

 would be the fairer way were it not that it 

 would be impossible to fill the smokers ex- 

 actly the same, that is, so that the obstruc- 

 tion would be exactly the same in each. I 

 will admit that this is true, but the obstruc- 

 tion would be so nearly the same, that in 



