52 THE FLORIDA BUGGIST 
their stores of honey is not infrequent. Several years ago I cut 
down four bee trees during one morning, securing therefrom 
about one hundred pounds of honey. If bees do so well wild, 
it is certain that by intelligent effort the honey production here 
in Florida could be made profitable. In California, where con- 
ditions for honey making are no better than here in Florida, in 
my opinion not nearly so good, there were produced in 1915, 
600 car loads, or 15,000,000 pounds. 
Most people have the idea that honey can be used only as 
syrup or in the comb to be eaten raw. Experts in nutrition 
in the United States Department of Agriculture have gone 
fully into the subject, and declare that with butter at forty 
cents a pound, a pound of honey at seventeen cents will be 
found equally economical as a source of energy. You can get the 
Department’s Bulletin No. 653 entitled ‘“Honey and Its Use in 
the Home’”’, which is-free, by writing to the U. S. Department of 
Agriculture at Washington. Information can also be secured 
from Wilmon Newell, Plant Commissioner, Gainesville, Florida, 
who has had a wide experience in bee culture. 
Bees serve a good purpose besides the production of useful 
food. They are essential to the proper pollination of fruit 
trees. It is a well known and long established truth that the 
nectar, odor and bright color of the flowers are simply means of 
attracting insects in order that the fertilizing pollen may be 
carried from flower to flower. The honey bee is chief among 
insects for this purpose. It is the most easily controlled of all 
insects to do this necessary work. 
It is of interest to know that Florida holds the world’s honey 
producing record. In support of this claim I will quote from 
a report by P. J. Wester, formerly horticulturist of the U.S. D. 
A. Plant Introduction Station at Miami but now horticulturist 
of the Philippine Bureau of Agriculture, as follows: “It is 
worthy of note that the world’s record for honey production 
is held by the sub-tropical state of Florida. The 103 colonies of 
an apiarist there, known to the writer, averaged about 298 
pounds of honey per colony one year, and one produced the 
astonishing amount of 496 pounds.” 
The average yield per colony for Florida for 1917 was 86 
pounds, which was almost twice the amount per colony produced 
in most of the other states during the same year. So the man 
in Florida who has a hive of bees, especially at the present time, 
is not likely to get “stung’’. 
