TBE beE-KUePers* review. 



Id 



have so popularized its use that the great 

 majority of our people regard it as uot ouly 

 the cheapest but the best sweet produced. 

 It is no uncommon thing to find persons of 

 mature years who never tasted honey. Of 

 course it has long ago ceased to be a neces- 

 sity in the household. 



Bee-Keepers' families may regard it as a 

 sort of necessary article for table use but it 

 is because they have become halntuated to 

 its use. If they had to buy it, very likely 

 they, too, would soon follow the general 

 practice of making syrup of sugar or buy 

 the ready made stuff sold in all groceries 

 which answers the demands of the stomach 

 for sweets about as well as vegetable oysters 

 answer the longing for the genuine bi-valve. 



Of all the humbugs palmed off on a sus- 

 ceptible and long suffering public the glu- 

 cose syrups and candies made of the same 

 material — or a cheaper and more inferior — 

 are the worst. Another reason why honey 

 is not so generally used as formerly is the 

 common belief that it is adulterated. 



And there is no use to deny the fact. I 

 frequently see in grocery stores an article 

 offered for sale as extracted honey which has 

 all the outward appearance and internal 

 evidence of being " made " in a labratory 

 very much larger than a bee's stomach. 

 Consumers buy this stuff but its use doesn't 

 popularize honey. 



Right here let me digress far enough to 

 say that in my opinion the invention of the 

 extractor was the worst improvement (?) 

 that ever happened to this industry. With 

 the advent of the extractor began the neces- 

 sity for the bee-keeper to defend the purity 

 of his product. If the article is to be pro- 

 duced hereafter in the same generous quan- 

 tities as formerly there is a rich field for 

 the labors of the Bee-Keepers' Union. Leg- 

 islation must be procured in the interest of 

 pure food. Every offender must be prose- 

 cuted to the full extent of the law. There is 

 no use trying to produce honest honey in 

 competition with syrup made of 15 ct. corn. 



Perhaps you think my liver is disordered, 

 and you may ask if there is no bright side 

 to the picture. 



To convince you that I am no pessimist I 

 have the following prescription to offer in 

 addition to the above suggestion regarding 

 legislation . 



Ist. Produce only comb honey and put it 

 np in such " taking " packages that it will 

 find its way onto the tables of those who 



can afford to pay for luxuries. That's what 

 comb honey is and always will be. 



2ud. Encourage small bee-keei)ers (the 

 adjective has reference to nwmbers of col- 

 onies.) 



If the pasturage is being reduced and 

 seasons are unpropitious a few colonies may 

 often do well where a hundred or more 

 would scarcely live. The days of special 

 bee-keeping — of large apiaries— of making 

 this the sole business — are numbered. Pos- 

 sibly there are a few localities where large 

 numbers of colonies will for a time continue 

 to yield their owner a satisfactory surplus, 

 but as our country becomes more populous 

 and its agricultural lands better tilled, the 

 number of colonies that will stock any api- 

 cultural field will be less than formerly. So 

 let us learn to combine bee-keeping with 

 some other branch of industry, utilizing 

 profitably all agricultural and ho.ticultural 

 resources. 



Forest City, Iowa. 



Dec. 9, IH'.tr). 



Notes From Foreign See Journals. 



p. L. THOMPSON. 



La Revue Internationale. — Chas. Dadant 

 says that Mr. Langstroth had proposed to 

 several bee-keeper., to experiment in feed- 

 ing bees a preparation of milk, malt, and 

 honey, in order to excite brood-rearing dur- 

 ing the absence of a flow. This idea had 

 been suggested to him by reading what Mr. 

 Cowan had written on the subject of the 

 chyle food with which the larv;e are fed. 



Alex. Astor, by mistake, left a comb con- 

 taining eggs in his workshop for sixteen 

 hours at temperatures ranging from 59° F. 

 in the evening to 50° in the morning. The 

 bees afterward raised brood and an appar- 

 ently good queen from them. 



Out of 75 bees which had lain for 20 hours 

 on melting snow, he succeeded in reanimat- 

 ing all but a dozen. 



L'Apiculteur. — Abbe Cottel found that 

 sugar syrup fed toward the end of Septem- 

 ber underwent a loss of one third in storage. 

 The colonies which stored the most develop- 

 ed the most rapidly the following spring. 



According to Aberto Vellozo d' Arauj, 

 although Portugal is well adapted to bee- 

 keeping, it has not hitherto existed there in 

 the proper sense, the only bees being in 



