16 
ADULTERATION OF HONEY 
or two section boxes, bad considerable trou¬ 
ble in keeping the bees in tbe hive, espe¬ 
cially when the young queen went out to 
mate. Accordingly it was found necessary 
to make the baby hives much larger, with 
frames 5% x 8 inches, and two nuclei to a 
hive. See Queen-rearing. 
With these there will be much less trou¬ 
ble from swarming, provided that they 
have some brood and honey and are not 
too strong, and provided also the queen 
is taken out as soon as she is laying. 
ABSCONDING FOR MORE SATISFACTORY 
QUARTERS. 
There is still another kind of absconding 
that seems to be for no other reason than 
that the bees are displeased with their hive, 
or its surroundings, and, at times, it seems 
rather difficult to assign any good reason 
for their having suddenly deserted. We 
have known a colony to swarm and desert 
their hive because it was too cold and 
open, and we have known them to desert 
because the combs were soiled and filthy 
from dysentery in the spring. We have 
known them to swarm because their en¬ 
trance was too large, and, if we are not 
mistaken, because it was too small. 
We have also known them to swarm be¬ 
cause they were so “pestered” with a 
neighboring ant bill — see Ants — that they 
evidently thought patience ceased to be a 
virtue. 
ABSCONDING IN THE SPRING. 
They often swarm in the spring where 
no other cause can be assigned than that 
they are weak and discouraged, and in such 
cases they usually try to make their wav 
into other colonies. While it may not always 
be possible to assign a reason for such be¬ 
havior with medium or fair colonies, one 
may rest assured that good, strong colo¬ 
nies, with ample supplies of sealed stores, 
seldom, if ever, go into any such foolish¬ 
ness. 
It seems to occur just at a time when 
their owner can ill afford to lose a single 
bee, and worse still, only when his stocks 
are, generally, rather weak) so that he dis¬ 
likes to lose any of them. In this case 
they do not, as a general thing, seem to care 
particularly for going to the woods, but 
rather take a fancy to pushing their way 
into some of the adjoining hives, and, at 
times, a whole apiary will seem so crazy 
with the idea as to become utterly demoral¬ 
ized. 
A neighbor, who made a hobby of small 
hives—less than half the usual size—one 
fine April day had as many as 40 colonies 
leave their hives and cluster together in all 
sorts of promiscuous combinations. To say 
that their owner was perplexed, would be 
stating the matter very mildly. 
Similar cases, tho perhaps not so bad, 
have been reported from time to time, ever 
since novices commenced to learn the science 
of bee culture; and altho cases of swarm¬ 
ing in the spring were known once in a 
great while before the recent improve¬ 
ments, they are nothing like the mania that 
has seemed to possess entire apiaries— 
small ones—since the time of artificial 
-swarming and honey-extractors. 
ACTIVITIES OF BEES.— See Bee Be¬ 
havior. 
ADULTERATION OF HONEY. — The 
adulteration of this product dates back 
many years, but the methods of detecting 
the same are of comparatively recent date. 
Aecum, in his “Treatise on Adulterations 
of Food and Culinary Provisions” (one of 
the earliest works devoted to food adultera¬ 
tion), published in London in 1820, does not 
cover the subject of honey. Hassall in his 
“Adulteration Detected,” published about 
1855, mentions honey. His examinations 
were made with the microscope, and he was 
able from the pollen to tell the kinds of 
flowers visited by the bees. He also noted 
crystals of sucrose intermingled with those 
of dextrose when a honey was evaporated 
to a crystallization point. In his later 
editions he gives methods for detection 
of sucrose and also commercial glucose. 
Tbe two works cited above were written in 
England. Hoskins in his book, “What to 
Eat,” possibly the first book on food adul¬ 
teration written by an American, and pub¬ 
lished in Boston about 1861, states that 
“Factitious and adulterated honey is very 
common in our markets. The substances 
used are generally ordinary sugar, made 
into a syrup with water, and flavored with 
different articles. This preparation is usu¬ 
ally mixed with genuine honey, and so 
extensive is this practice that very little 
‘Strained Honey’ can be found which is 
