Ni-. 6. DEPARTMENU OF AGRICULTURE. 335 



So accustomed bavo we become to tbe use of sugar that we are 

 likely to consider it an indispensable article, wbereas for thousands 

 of years sugar was unknown, honey being almost the sole sweet until 

 within a few centuries, and many are now living who remember the 

 time when the now commonly known granulated sugar was too high 

 in price to be used as at present, daily in the poorest families. It 

 were better for the health of the nation if in this respect we could go 

 back to the former times, making honey take the place, at least 

 partially, of sugar. 



As a medicine, honey formerly filled a large place, and is still 

 esteemed. In cookery, it has the distinct advantage over sugar that 

 it has an afliuity for moisture, and so honey jumbles and other 

 dainties prepared with honey will keep months or years, whereas 

 the same articles made with sugar would be dry and soon unpala- 

 table. 



BEES AS HONEY-GATHERERS. 



For obtaining honey, we are entirely dependent upon the honey-bee. 

 The amount to be obtained from bumblebees is so small as to be un- 

 worthy of consideration. Strictly speaking, the bee does not gather 

 honey, but nectar. Compared with honey, nectar is a very insipid af- 

 fair, and the bee performs the part of both cook and chemist in evap- 

 orating it down to the proper consistency, changing its cane sugar 

 to grape sugar, and adding a minute quantity of formic acid. Flit- 

 ting from flower to flower, busily gathering a very small quantity 

 from each, never stopping to rest on a flower but for a fraction of a 

 second, it fills its honey sac and hastens home to add its quota to the 

 general store. 



One uninformed would hardy credit the bee with the amount of 

 labor performed and the distance traveled to obtain a load of nectar. 

 Instead of searching for jjlunder near its hive, it often flies half a mile, 

 a mile, two miles, and some believe that it goes from three to six miles 

 from choice. A colony of bees, that is a family of bees occupying 

 a single hive, may be kept on a very small piece of land, say two 

 to four square feet, but if its flight were confined to that, or to an 

 acre, or even ten acres, it would die of starvation. Of course, 

 the case would be different if the ground were closely occupied with 

 some great yielder of honey, such as buckwheat. 



Taking the State of Pennsylvania as a whole, it is doubtful that 

 there are many places where it would be prudent to put more than 

 one hundred colonies in a single apiary. More than that would over- 

 stock the field. If now we estimate that the bees skirmish in all di- 

 rections to a distance of two and one-quarter miles from home, the 

 total territory occupied will be a little short of sixteen square miles 

 — just about 100 acres to each colony. 



