106 
THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL. 
obtained. One gentleman (the President of 
the Michigan Association) jokingly said that 
no one would believe I had been to the States 
if I returned to England without boasting 
about something, and he further said if I 
came to him I could boast I had seen the 
apiary where nearly lib. of honey per hive had 
been obtained this year. From Mr. Heddon’s 
I went to Chicago, and met an old friend, Mr. 
Newman, who showed me over his place, which 
is in the city. Unfortunately, I did not let 
him know when I was coming, and, conse- 
quently, he was unable to get any beekeepers 
to meet me, but he was most hospitable, 
taking me for a five hours’ drive through the 
city, and showing me all the lions of the 
place. From there T went to see Mr. Dadant. 
lie is a Frenchman, who settled in America 
some years ago, and, with Lis son, carries on 
the business of beekeeping. They also make 
a large quantity of comb foundation. Last 
year they turned out 70,0001bs. of foundation, 
but this year not more than 50,000lbs, as the 
season had been such a bad one. It is the 
best natural-based foundation I have seen in 
America. They melt about 3000lbs. of wax 
at a time, arid in this way are able to get the 
color uniform. The foundation most in de- 
mand in America is the natural-base founda- 
tion made on the Van der Voort machine. 
They also produce a large quantity of ex- 
tracted honey, and a little comb honey. They 
work the extracted honey just as we do, by 
storifying or putting one hive on another. 
Their hive is a little larger than the Lang- 
stroth hive, with supers about six inches 
deep. These frames are used for extracting. 
They have *00 hives now. This year has been 
a very bad year, they having obtained only 
90001 bs. of honey. I think the bad season is 
demonstrated by the fact that their issue of 
foundation this year has been 20,0001 bs. less 
than last year’s. From the Dadants’ I went 
back to Chicago, and spent a little more time 
at Lancing. From there we travelled on to 
Toledo to see Dr. Mason. He was out, but he 
visited me in the evening, and we had a chat 
about bees and other matters. I found him a 
very nice, agreeable gentleman, quite well up 
iu bee matters. Mr. Cutting, Secretary of 
the Michigan Association, who is a very smart 
and energetic worker in our cause, accom- 
panied him, and I regretted time did not per- 
mit me to stay longer to visit them. From 
Toledo we passed on to Medina, where we saw 
Mr. Root and his son, Ernest. Mr. Root is the 
editor of Gleanings, and he and his son made 
our stay there most pleasant. They are both 
very intelligent and anxious to pick up infor- 
mation. We spent a very agreeable time at 
Medina. Mr. Root is a very different kind of 
man to what I had pictured him. He is short, 
thin, and seems quite worn out with work. He 
has worked extremely hard, and has succeeded 
better than anyone else on that side of the 
ocean in popularising beekeeping and creat- 
ing a demand for appliances. He employs 150 ' 
hands making nothing hut hives and appli- 
ances. Everything is turned out on a large 
scale. He has machinery for doing almost 
everything, and it was quite a treat going over 
his large factory and his yard. I met one or 
two Englishmen employed there, who seemed 
well satisfied with their lot. I found men 
j hard at work when T visited the manufactory, 
| one making the metal corners for the frames 
was stamping them out by a very ingenious 
machine for the purpose. At Mr. Root’s, as I 
had my microscope with me, I was enabled to 
clear up some points respecting foul brood. 
He knew all about foul brood practically, but 
had not been able to make any close investi- 
gation of it microscopically. I must tell you 
that wherever I went I found the microscopes 
in use inferior to that I had with me. Even 
Professor Cook had not seen the germs them- 
selves, although he had a mounted slide con- 
taining specimens. When I showed him the 
bacillus under my microscope with a one- 
twelfth Powell’s oil immersion, he was much 
interested. There was no instrument in the 
College with such magnifying power. Mr. Root 
told me he had never before seen foul brood 
in its different stages. The disease over there 
is exactly similar to what we have here. 
From Mr. Root’s we went to several other 
places, Niagara among the number, and after- 
wards met by invitation the Canadian bee- 
keepers at a large meeting and exhibition of 
hives and honey in Toronto. The exact quan- 
tity of honey exhibited I cannot remember, 
but the figures were given in the British Bee 
Journal. The exhibits of two hive-manufac- 
turers, the D. A. Jones Company and Messrs. 
Gould, occupied a great deal of space, but the 
honey wag rather crowded, like the Canadian 
exhibit here, which militated against the at- 
tractiveness of the show. The clover and 
lime honeys were excellent. As regards the 
lime honey I think it is superior to ours, the 
Canadian climate being better suited for its 
production, but clover honey is as good here 
as over there. They had an extraordinary, but, 
to my mind, somewhat objectionable, way of 
selling honey at the show. A section was cut 
into four pieces, and each piece offered for 
sale separately, five cents being charged for a 
quarter. You would see people distributed all 
over the show biting at these pieces of comb, 
and eating it as they walked along. By this 
method a large quantity of honey was got rid 
of, but it was not pleasant to see the peoj)le 
pushing about in a crowd and messing each 
other with the sticky substance. I expressed 
my opinion at the time to some of the bee- 
keepers, but they assured me it would he im- 
possible to sell the honey at that exhibition 
on any other plan ; and as the all-important 
object at those shows is to sell the honey, I 
suppose the custom is likely to continue. At 
this meeting I had the opportunity of seeing 
a large number of the Canadian beekeepers. 
