Part 1

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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES. Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal= signs.

Published every Wednesday, by THOMAS G. NEWMAN, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR, 974 WEST MADISON ST., CHICAGO, ILL.

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For the American Bee Journal.

Pure Liquid Honey in Glass Jars.

CHAS. DADANT.

Under this heading I find an article from Mr. W. M. Hoge, who says that he has invented a way of preparing liquid honey so that it will not congeal. He adds that this discovery will be beneficial to bee-keepers, and he explains how we will profit by it. The tendency of honey to candy, for all the adulterators of honey, has proved to be a great impediment; while, for the producers, it is a good characteristic, for it is the best stamp that a bee-keeper can put on his product—a stamp that the adulterators are unable to counterfeit.

Now that the consumers at large begin to give their preference to candied honey, the adulterators, seeing their sales decreasing, try to invent some means to stop this result, and incite us to help them to continue their fraudulent practice.

Let us remember that the candying of honey is the best test of purity thus far; that, by preventing honey from candying, we lower it to the level of glucosed honey; and that, as long as liquid honey can be found on our markets, we will be compelled to compete with adulterated honey, for the profit of this adulteration will always tempt the unscrupulous dealers, while we will be unable to compete with them for the price.

A few years ago we could find liquid honey, in glass jars, in every good grocery. Three years ago I produced, at the Western Illinois and Eastern Iowa Convention, held at Burlington, Iowa, one of these bottles, bought in St. Louis, labeled “Pure Extracted Honey, from John Long, New York.” Mr. Hoge, who resided in New York at that time, probably knows “John Long.” This “pure honey” was analyzed by an expert chemist and found mostly glucose. These jars and tumblers are now of slow sale, for the consumers begin to have confidence in candied honey. We are, therefore, in a fair way for selling our product. Let us go on, and turn the cold shoulder to the advice of those who have, so far, caused more prejudice than profit to bee-keepers.

Mr. Hoge, who has visited the old continent, knows, as well as I do, that in Europe liquid honey is unsalable, for the consumers are accustomed to buying candied honey. Let us persist in our efforts to educate the people on this question, and we will drive all spurious honey from our markets.

Hamilton, Ill., Feb. 2, 1881.

For the American Bee Journal.

Colchian Honey.

REV. W. BALLENTINE, A. M.

I see in the BEE JOURNAL, under the above caption, a question from Mr. H. G. Colwell, of Columbus, Ohio, relative to the effects of honey eaten by the Grecian troops, under Xenophon, as they passed through Colchia in their famous retreat homeward. In regard to this, you propose a query, “Why did the ancient Colchian honey cause the above disorder?” I have frequently had my attention turned to this subject in reading Xenophon's Anabasis in the original, from which the extract by Mr. Colwell is taken. From the best sources of information at my command, the following seems to be the most rational.

The honey of Asia Minor in many localities appears to be gathered from the flowers of the order Apocynoceæ, or dog's-bane. Of this order, Prof. Wilson, in his botany, page 588, observes: “These plants possess active, and often suspicious qualities, residing in the white juice with which the order is pervaded, and in the seeds, which are often deadly poisons. The alkaloid _strychnine_, or _strychinea_, one of the most violent poisons, is the active principle of the Strychorea Nux-vomica, of India. It is sometimes administered as a medicine, but with doubtful success; a single seed of one species is sufficient to kill 20 persons. The order is generally emetic.”

In corroboration of this, I will give you the opinion of the celebrated Ainsworth, who traveled over the route of the Grecians, and took notes of all the localities and incidents recorded by Xenophon. He observes that “this fact of the honey of Asia Minor being, in certain places, and at certain seasons, of a poisonous nature, was known to all antiquity, and is very common at the present day, so much so, that I have known the peasants to inquire if we would prefer the bitter or the sweet honey, for the honey so qualified has a slight, but not unpleasant, bitterness, and is preferred by many, from producing, when taken in moderate quantities, the effect of slight intoxication. Pliny notices two kinds of honey, one found at Heraclea, in Pontus, and another among the Sanni or Mocrones. The first he supposed to be produced by a plant called Ægolethron, or goatsbane; the second by a species of rhododendron. Dioscorides, Diodorus, Siculus and Aristotle, all notice the honey of Heraclea Pontica. The celebrated botanist, Tournefort, ascertained on the spot, that the honey of bees feeding on the Azalea Pontica, as also on the Rhododendron Ponticum, possessed mischievous properties; but as the bitter and intoxicating honey is found in many parts of Asia Minor, where these plants do not flower, it is extremely probable that these peculiar properties are further derived from the flower of the Nerium Oleander, or common rose-laurel, the leaves of which are known to be acrid and poisonous. The natural family to which the rose-laurel belongs (Apocynaceæ) is distinguished by plants endued with dangerous and fatal properties, and these act on the nerves so as to produce stupefaction. Rhodoraceæ also possesses narcotic properties, but in a less marked degree.”

It appears from this, that the honey gathered by the bees from these poisonous plants, possessed some of the inherent qualities of the plants themselves, and operated like a narcotic or opiate on the nerves, producing stupefaction and intoxication. If you see proper you can give the above a place in the Weekly, with which I am, so far, very well pleased.

Sago, Ohio.

For the American Bee Journal.

Combined Summer and Winter Stand.

H. L. PENFIELD.

The engraving shows a perspective view of a combined winter and summer stand, which I put up to accommodate 12 hives of the standard Langstroth pattern. It is constructed as follows: Put in the ground 9 oak posts 4 × 4 inches, for a frame to nail the 14 foot boards to—3 posts on each side, and 3 between these, set in the ground 18 inches. The ends are 9 feet wide, which I find gives ample room to manipulate the bees between the rows of hives, the operator being in the shade, and not in front of the entrance of the bees, which seldom bother me. The sides front east and west. The ends are open during the summer, and the north end boarded up in winter. We use millet hay for protection, filling in spaces between the hives, and over and under them, almost filling up between the rows, clearing away enough in front of the entrance for the bees to take a flight when the weather permits.

This protection keeps them quiet, and storms beat on the shelter and on the millet hay. Of course, this is not a water-proof shelter or cover, and I do not think one is needed. It is advantageous to have an opening in the apex of the roof; this plan of having one roof higher than the other secures it with the least expense. It is curious to notice how the bees fly out of these spaces marked A, A (as both ends are open) while the operators manipulating the hives. Sixteen boards 14 feet long and 1 foot wide cover it, and with the 9 posts and 4 2 × 4 studding to set the hives on, and short pieces to set on top of the posts to nail the roof to, complete the lumber bill.

Hunnewell, Mo.

For the American Bee Journal.

Foul Brood, and Its Causes.

H. L. JEFFREY.

You ask for my observations on foul brood regarding the cases noted in the BEE JOURNAL. There are many who, I know, will disagree with me, but nevertheless, it seemed to come from no other source. The largest case of it was 25 colonies in one apiary. Ever since the year 1873 they had been wintered in the cellar, in a sort of room fitted up especially for them. They were usually put in about Nov. 25, and taken out about April 1st to the 20th, according to the season. This receptacle was directly under the living room, which was kept very warm. The bee-room was generally quite dry, and towards spring would stand from 45° to 50°, which would let the bees have from 60° to 80° in the hive, or perhaps 90°, causing the cluster to spread, and there was always a good supply of brood in the combs when taken from the cellar, and generally a considerable number of young hatched bees. So far everything was as good as could be asked for, and every good bee-keeper will say this could not have anything to do with foul brood; perhaps not.

These same hives, with more space and more surface of comb than a 10 frame Langstroth hive gives, were put into the cellar with all their combs in place, with a box 6 inches deep below the hive, and another above filled with straw, or with a top story filled with rags, old clothes and pieces of carpet or straw. The full complement of combs was left in the hives, regardless of the strength of the colonies, and they were then set on their summer stands without using division boards, or any contraction of combs. After setting out they were generally fed liberally every night to induce breeding, which is a good plan if properly handled, but in this case it helped to breed the disease, and it did do it to the fullest extent. Why? First, a small colony should not be given any more combs than it can cover, either in summer or winter. If the hive is too large, insert a division on one or both sides; if on both sides, let one of them be at least half an inch shallower than the hive, then if the numbers increase, they can crowd outside of it.

Second, if they are wintered indoors, in a hive full of combs, take away all you can before they are set out in the spring, even if you have to feed to prevent starvation.

Third, if you do winter indoors on a full set of combs, do not commence feeding regularly, to induce breeding, as soon as set out, though it be the 25th of April or even the 1st of May.

In the case mentioned the consequences were: In the weak colonies some of the bees died in the combs and contracted some moisture, consequently would mold. Some strong colonies would do the same, but many of the dead bees would be thrown down. The cellar had a drain 100 feet long, with a fall of 5 feet, to keep the cellar dry, and a ventilator 3 feet above the house-sill outside, at the south. The ventilator opened on warm days, consequently a draft of warm air, fire in the room above, temperature in the bee-cellar raised, cluster of bees spread, queen goes to laying, honey consumed, brood reared and old bees wearing out; all of these conditions are the requisites of good, strong, healthy colonies, and they are just as surely the forerunners of first-class cases of foul brood every time.

I know that 99 out of every 100 bee-keepers will differ with me, but go through the colonies with me 10 or 15 days after setting out on the summer stands; suppose in that time we have had 2 or 3 good flying days; the feeding induced the queen to lay more rapidly and forced the cluster to spread; the eggs hatched into larvæ; on the pleasant days the old bees flew out but forgot to fly in again, thus diminishing the cluster; then there came 2 or 3 stormy days in succession, cold and chilling; the cluster contracted as well as diminished in numbers; the minute larvæ starved and dead, and some, perhaps, that are advanced to capping; another flying day, and their numbers are more reduced. The dead bees in the combs putrefy, and you have for your pains a first-class case of foul brood in the near future. Many will shake their heads, but I saw the colonies, and in 3 years I saw the 25 and their increase decreased to 17, the 17 and their increase decreased to 9, the 9 down to 2, and the 2 went, in the spring of 1880, “where the woodbine twineth.”

Woodbury, Conn., Feb. 26, 1881.

For the American Bee Journal.

Early Importations of Italian Bees.

REV. L. L. LANGSTROTH.

I can probably give, better than any one living, the history of the first efforts made to introduce Italian bees into this country; as I knew well the late Messrs. Samuel Wagner and Richard Colvin, and Messrs. S. B. Parsons and P. G. Mahan, who, with myself, were the first to import them. Messrs. Wagner and Edward Jessop, both residents of York, Penn., received from Dzierzon, in 1856, a colony of Italian bees which had starved on shipboard. Mr. Wagner's letter to me, August, 1856, and given the next spring, in my 2nd edition on bees, is the earliest notice, published in this country, of the Italian race of bees. Messrs. Wagner and Colvin, subsequently, bought a few queens of Dzierzon, which were consigned to the care of the surgeon of a Bremen steamship, who had been carefully taught what precautions to use for their safety. Fearing that the bees might sting his passengers, the captain would not allow them to be put on his vessel.

“In the winter of 1858-59,” (I quote from Mr. Colvin's able article on beekings, in the Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for 1863, page 530,) “another attempt was made by Mr. Wagner, Rev. L. L. Langstroth, and myself. The order was placed in the hands of the surgeon of the steamer, to whose charge the bees were to have been committed, but in consequence of his determining to leave the ship, the effort failed.[A] Subsequently arrangements were made, in the latter part of that year, and we received 7 living queens. Only two or three young queens were reared by us during that fall and winter, and in the following spring we found that all our imported stock had perished. In conjunction with Mr. Wagner, I determined to make another trial; the queens, however, did not arrive until June, 1860.”

[Footnote A: Mr. Colvin, having formed the acquaintance of the German Captain, not only convinced him that the bees could not escape to injure anyone, but inspired him with a strong desire to be the first to bring over in his own vessel, this valuable race of bees. It would require quite a volume to tell, at length, what sacrifices of time were made by Messrs. Wagner and Colvin, to secure these bees.]

Our queens, which came in 1859, were in charge of a German resident of Brooklyn, N. Y., who was returning home from a visit to his friends, and to whom Mr. Wagner had given very careful directions how to care for them. This person, learning that Mr. Mahan had expressed the intention of having the honor of landing, in America, the first living Italian bees, and desiring, as he told me, to secure this honor for us, communicated Mr. Mahan's intention to the captain, who, as soon as the gang-way was in place, was the first person to step ashore, proclaiming with a very loud voice: “These are the first Italian bees ever landed on the shores of America!”

In the spring of 1856, Mr. S. B. Parsons, of Flushing, L. I., invited me to visit him, and advise with him as to the best way of managing his Italian bees. On my way, I called upon Mr. Mahan, who was joint owner with me of a large interest in my patent hive. He gave me a very graphic account of his visit to the apiary of the Baron Von Berlepsch, from whom he obtained a queen, and supplied me with a few Italian workers for Prof. Joseph Lidy, that he might determine how the length of proboscis, in that variety, compared with that of the black bee. On arriving at Flushing, Mr. Parsons showed me five hollow logs, or “gums,” placed in an old bee-shed. It was a warm, sun-shiny day, and I saw only an occasional bee flying out from one of the hives. These colonies had been purchased in Italy, carried safely on the backs of mules over the Alpine passes, to Genoa, from which port they were safely shipped to New York; but by a succession of mishaps, four of them died at Flushing. The fifth contained a mere handful of bees, with their queen, which I introduced to a colony of black bees. It is hardly necessary to say that none of these hives were ever in the same vessel with Mr. Mahan.

On the 18th of April, the steamer Argo arrived in New York, after a tedious and stormy voyage. Mr. Herman, a German bee-keeper, and author of a work on the Italian bee, who had been furnished with a large sum of money by Mr. Parsons to buy Italian bees in the best districts of Italy, and who had agreed to bring them over in the original hives, and breed queens for Mr. Parsons, _was not on board_, but in his place, a young Austrian, by the name of Bodmer. On the 19th, as soon as the bees were allowed to be landed, they were carried to Flushing. The small boxes in which they were put up were in three different packages, one of which was consigned to the U. S. Government, one to Mr. Mahan, and one to Mr. Parsons. As the Austrian said that he knew, by examination on shipboard, that the bees were in a very bad condition, and many of them already dead, and, as the day was very pleasant, they were all examined under my personal supervision, and I can assure Mr. Robinson that every colony consigned to the Government and Mr. Mahan, was dead. A few, only, of those marked for Mr. Parsons, had living queens, some of which soon died, and in a short time he found himself the possessor of only two queens, one of which was the queen found alive upon my arrival at Flushing.

By my advice, Mr. Wm. W. Cary, of Coleraine, Mass., a very skillful bee-keeper, and a thoroughly trustworthy man, was sent for by Mr. Parsons. One of the queens was entrusted to his care, on the premises of Mr. Parsons, and the other to Mr. Bodmer, some distance off, who did not raise queens enough even to pay for the black bees and honey which were purchased for his use; while Mr. Cary Italianized a large apiary for Mr. Parsons, besides filling all his orders for queens.

One hundred and eleven queens were carried to California, by Mr. A. J. Biglow, 108 of which reached there in good condition. This small per cent. of loss was, in part, owing to the skillful supervision of Mr. Biglow, and to the purifying flight which, by my advice, he gave them on the Isthmus of Panama; but all his precautions would have been of no avail but for the judicious way in which they were prepared by Mr. Cary and himself, for so long a voyage. The bees sent to Mr. Parsons were in cigar boxes, into which the combs were merely crowded or wedged: the loosening of the combs on so rough a voyage killed some of the queens, while others were drowned, with their bees, in honey; and others, still, starved from the boxes being over-crowded with bees. It is hardly necessary to contrast Mr. Biglow's success with the heavy losses sustained for years by those who imported bees from Europe. The result of Mr. Parsons' dealings with Herman were, that for $1,200 advanced to him, he had only 2 queens to show. The next season Mr. Bodmer, having learned how to pack bees for a sea voyage, brought over a number of queens in good condition, for Mr. E. W. Rose, but was very unfortunate in the management of them. Herman came, some years after, to this country, and was employed by a friend of mine in Philadelphia, to purchase for him, in Italy, a large number of queens. The return voyage was long and stormy, and every queen died on board the steamer.

Oxford, Ohio, March 5, 1881.

For the American Bee Journal.

A Good Way to Promote Bee-Keeping.

WM. F. CLARKE.