546 
INVERT SUGAR 
plicated domiciles of the early days with 
moth-traps, porticos, and the like. 
It is another improvement to have the 
hive-body and supers of the same dimen¬ 
sions and the same depth, except in the 
case of half-depth supers. In a word, the 
modern hive is made up of multiples of 
parts that will fit each other in any com¬ 
bination, permitting of any degree of ex¬ 
pansion and contraction to accommodate a 
large or small colony. This feature of in¬ 
terchangeability is prized almost as much 
as any one single invention, barring only 
the four great inventions first mentioned. 
It might be interesting and perhaps en¬ 
lightening to some would-be inventors to 
record here a list of the inventions that 
have died a natural death. Some of these 
at the time were heralded as revolutionary; 
yet they never “revolutionized,” but, on 
the contrary, sickened and died, as thou¬ 
sands of others had done. It is well that 
they did. 
As an example of this may be cited 
the case of the Heddon divisible brood- 
chamber hive that was exploited by Jas. 
Heddon from 1884 to 1890. He believed 
that it was possible to handle hives in 
smaller sections in place of frames. The 
idea was so alluring and .the principle so 
successfully pushed that large numbers of 
beekeepers adopted it; but in practically 
every case those same beekeepers latei 
complained of poor seasons and of small 
crops. Mr. Heddon apparently lost sight 
of the importance of large hives, and for a 
period of from 1885 to 1890 his followers 
were almost compelled to go out of busi¬ 
ness, because of what they believed was a 
failure 'due to the peculiar seasons, but for 
what is now known to have been due to tbe 
brood-nest being too small, resulting in too 
small a force of bees. As will be seen un¬ 
der the general discussion of Hives a good 
queen will occupy about double the capac¬ 
ity of what Mr. Heddon thought would be 
the correct size of his double brood-cham¬ 
ber. 
It is but fair to say to inventors that a 
patent or patents on any invention or im¬ 
provement relating to bee-feeders, methods 
of wiring frames, or foundation-fasteners, 
are generally a waste of time, and can only 
lead to disappointment. There is a large 
list of patents in the Patent Office covering 
all forms of bee-feeders, not one of which 
is equal to any of the unpatented feeders 
described under the head of Feeders. In 
the same way it is a waste of time to try to 
invent a beehive, something new and better 
than those that are generally accepted by 
the fraternity at large. Every conceivable 
form of hive has been made the subject of 
a patent. With perhaps a dozen import¬ 
ant exceptions there is hardly a patent on 
bee-fixtures that is worth the paper on 
which it is printed: and the beginner, at 
least, will be very wise if he accepts the 
standard hive and appliances which are de¬ 
scribed in this or any standard work on 
bees. It is true, patents will be granted on 
almost anything; but any one who is famil¬ 
iar with patent claims knows that they can 
be and usually are so loosely drawn that 
they are worthless. The poor inventor sup¬ 
poses that because he has been granted a 
government parchment a fortune awaits 
him. But he is doomed to disappointment 
as sure as fate. See Patents, elsewhere. 
INVERTING.— See Reversing. 
INVERT SUGAR.— Chemically consid¬ 
ered, this is a mixture of equal parts of the 
two sugars, dextrose and levulose, coming 
from the inversion or breaking down of 
sucrose. In common terms, sucrose is the 
ordinary white sugar of commerce, such as 
beet sugar or cane sugar. This breaking 
down of sucrose occurs when it is dissolved 
in water and boiled. The action then is 
very slow; but by the addition of a very 
small percentage of any acid the action 
is made more rapid. Hence, in the com¬ 
mercial preparation of this product white 
sugar is dissolved in water, then tartaric, 
acetic, phosphoric, or hydrochloric .(muri¬ 
atic) acid is added and the whole boiled. 
Of the two sugars of invert sugar, dextrose 
is easily crvstallizable, while levulose re¬ 
mains a liquid under most conditions, but 
on long standing and under concentration 
the dextrose will crystallize out. As re¬ 
gards sweetness, dextrose is not so sweet 
as sucrose, while levulose is much sweeter; 
hence invert sugar is generally said to be 
sweeter than sucrose. 
The preparation of invert sugar from 
sucrose by using water and tartaric acid 
was patented a number of years ago by 
Herzfeld in Germany. The proportion he 
