July 7, 1904. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



471 



sensitive palate, yet remains true, and will stand the test. 

 None of us, however, are likely to deny that when the aver- 

 age retailer, with little or no experience in this direction, 

 undertakes to liquefy honey, evil results are almost a fore- 

 gone conclusion. It may be fairly good, but too often the 

 " bloom " has departed. 



That the change which honey undergoes by overheating 

 is important the polariscope proves. Long-heated honey 

 not granulating tends also to show that the nature is 

 changed ; its color, flavor, and aroma, as we know, may also 

 be lost. 



Perfectly grained honey is also a safeguard against 

 adulteration. Under the circumstances, a system of mark- 

 eting extracted honey which would overcome the necessity 

 of passing honey through the dangerous stage of liquefying 

 woujd be an advantage. 



In the production of honey we should guard against 

 mixing in extracting, of inferior and better grades of honey. 

 In almost every case it results in a reduced total return of 

 dollars. Second-class honey should be kept and sold sep- 

 arately. 



To produce and sell honey intelligently we must under- 

 stand its nature. Honey is more than a sweet. Sole- 

 leather and beef-steak, without our present knowledge of 

 chemistry, are alike, yet it would be a difficult matter to 

 convince even a hungry man of this. Within the last two 

 years Prof. Shutt, of the Dominion Experimental Farm, 

 Ottawa, Canada, has discovered that the past methods of 

 analyzing honey are faulty, and we may reasonably hope 

 that the stage of perfection has not yet been reached. 

 Honey has, in addition to water, saccharine matter and 

 formic acid, a volatile oil distilled by the blossom which 

 secretes the nectar. The power of these essential oils can 

 be best understood when we remember that in Eastern 

 countries certain plants yield an oil which, consumed, pro- 

 duces death. It is this oil, volatile in its nature, which j 

 gives honey its aroma. We detect this agency in the blos- 

 som, in the field, when we lean over the hive in manipula- 

 tion, again as we extract, and, last but not least, we know 

 the delicious and often delicate flavor possessed by honey 

 fresh from the hive. 



It is desirable to retain as much as we can of this for 

 table use. Assuredly, why should we follow blindly the 

 lead of those who have gone before, and expose our ex- 

 tracted honey to the atmosphere, thus losing what, in ray 

 estimation, is so desirable to deliver to the consumer? 

 There is so much to learn about the ripening process nectar 

 undergoes in the hive. I see questions which, for their 

 solution, require the careful expert and original thought of 

 the bee-keeper and the chemist, the solution of which ques- 

 tions will be of practical and lasting benefits to the bee- 

 keeper and consumer of honey. 



The bee-keeper gets only a small percentage of the nec- 

 tar the bees gather. The brood is fed, the heat and energy 

 of the bee has, through food, to be provided for ; the brood 

 has to be warmed, and the process of ripening through 

 raised temperature and the fanning of atmosphere in and 

 out, all has to be done at the expense of food consumed. 

 We masticate food and change starch to sugar. By the 

 addition of certain secretions in this, the food undergoes 

 the first stages towards digestion. The bees by nature are 

 compelled to gather nectar a little at a time ; they again 

 transmit it to fresh bees at the threshhold of the comb ; 

 again, as it is moved about from cell to cell in the process 

 of ripening, in all these, as in the slow process of mastica- 

 tion, the honey is being inverted, and in honey we have a 

 partially digested, or predigested, food ready for assimila- 

 tion. No other sweet on earth can boast of this in its favor. 



The above processes, properly carried out, are done at a 

 great loss in quantity from what is first gathered, but it is 

 the machinery power, the coal, if you will, to produce the 

 energy required to gather, change and seal this food in its 

 stages from nectar to our valuable food — honey. At no 

 stage should this process of ripening, etc., in the hive be 

 stopped by the bee-keeper ; to do so must work injury to our 

 market. 



Again, if we do not know wherein our goods are supe- 

 rior to others, which at first glance appear to be the same, 

 and are ?iot cheaper, but a less price, how can we expect to 

 sell them to advantage, and do them justice? There is 

 simply no answer to the question. We must understand 

 their powers of merit, and have faith in them. Possessed 

 with that conviction we can hope to convince others. 



Think of a butcher, a dry-goods drummer, the hard- 

 ware man, acting in that capacity for a horse-dealer, the 

 dairyman pointing out the merits of fruit, or the poultry- 

 man sent as an expert to find a market for cheese and but- 



ter, and you have a spectacle of what every Dick, Tom and 

 Harry is expected to do for honey. Even our governments 

 are guilty of such actions. It is often done unthinkingly, 

 but the consequences are disastrous to our honey market. 

 Bee-keepers should combine in every large city, such as the 

 one we are meeting in (Syracuse), and have a wholesale and 

 retail establishment for the sale of honey. The retail es- 

 tablishment could have for sale articles of food, etc., in 

 which honey has been used as an ingredient. Here the 

 highest in the land could be drawn by advertising, exhibi- 

 tions of bees, their handling at certain times, observatory 

 hives and displays, setting forth the natural history of the 

 bee, and so on. Such a store, at a comparatively small out- 

 lay of cost, could be made the talk of the city, and reach 

 the most intelligent and desirable class of citizens, and 

 honey be made to reach the tables of thousands upon thou- 

 sands where the article is to-day a stranger. 



In other places arrangements could be made to make 

 the sale of honey a strong (not neglected) department of a 

 business already established, or the business in certain 

 places might only be run for a portion of the year, but 

 always have in charge a bright, alert expert having confi- 

 dence in and knowing the goods. These centers could also 

 be made centers of instruction to employes in establish- 

 ments where the sale of honey would be desirable. 



Give a proper margin to the one who sells your honey. 

 Bee-keepers as a body are much to blame for having their 

 wholesale and retail prices too close together. A retailer 

 should have not less than a margin of 20 percent. 



We, as bee-keepers, often talk as if the price was our 

 main difficulty in selling, and as if the price altogether 

 stood in the way of a larger market. I venture strongly to 

 assert this is not where more than half our trouble lies. We 

 could raise the price if we only would first improve the gen- 

 eral quality. Make stronger efforts to put the merits of 

 honey before the public, distribute it more evenly over the 

 country, and give the dealer a better margin. Does any 

 one doubt it? Eet him or her look at proprietary goods, 

 trade-marked goods, which stare us in the face on every 

 table to day. Let him consider how much of their place on 

 the market is due to real merit, and how much to advertis- 

 ing. Draw your own conclusion and doubt no longer. 



Until millions and millions of dollars worth of sugar at 

 present consumed by our people have been replaced by 

 millions of pounds of honey, we have no right to say there 

 is no market for honey. Give honey back the place it once 

 had as a sweetener, and our people will have back a greater 

 measure of health. The public must, of course, be provided 

 with what it wants, but our keynote should be to educate 

 them to use what they need, and what is best for them. It 

 is in our interest, and the interest of the people, to advocate 

 for the table either comb honey or honey that has been 

 sealed until granulated. For a fancy trade we might put it 

 into jars like cream cheese, and immediately run over the 

 top a thin film of melted paraffin, the object being to ex- 

 clude the air and retain the aroma of the hive. When 

 granulated solid, as in large barrels, the block can be cut 

 like cheese with a wire, and retailed. I know of no better 

 way of marketing, and you can in this way give a customer 

 the best value for his money. 



Unfortunately for us bee-keepers, governments do not 

 do us justice. We can form hands with you over the line, 

 which we as Canadians hope will not be efl'aced as long as 

 man's government lasts, and we can feel with you that we 

 have a grievance in common. Governments levy taxes 

 upon the wealth obtained by beekeeping, but unlike other 

 branches of agriculture, in production and marketing. The 

 past history is that in nearly every case, for political or 

 other expediencies' sake, incompetent persons have been 

 appointed in the rare instances where anything has been 

 done. The government betrays trust in this, and we as 

 bee-keepers are worse off than before. Results in experi- 

 ments have been given out where the expert bee-keeper can 

 see under the veil and gnash his teeth, that his profession 

 should be thus belittled, and the poor novice swallowing in 

 his verdancy all that comes from such a source, like the 

 blind leading the blind is brought into the ditch. 



If we want to make the best showing in marketing, we 

 must have government aid, and have the aid other depart- 

 ments of agriculture are getting — aid which a branch of 

 agriculture having power to produce wealth merits, and not 

 have our governments, by their lack of action, and even in- 

 action, blazen it abroad that bee-keeping is not worthy of, 

 or a rewarder of, the highest agricultural intelligence and 

 application. 



But this brings me to my closing remarks. 

 Beekeeping is a business ; it requires experience, appli- 



