13 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 1. 



common cane sugar. We know that certain dis- 

 eases, like diabetes and Bright's disease, are now 

 more common than of old, and we also know that 

 no revolution in food regimen lias been so marked 

 and startling as that from honey to cane sugar. 

 We eat the latter in exfe/t.so, and have to do what 

 tlie bees did for our away-back ancestors, wiio ate 

 few sweets otlier than honey. Thus no one need or 

 should ol).iecttothe assertion that honey is digested 

 nectar. First, because it is truth; and, secondly, 

 because this very digestion is in every way whole- 

 some and desiral)le. 



The nectar from whi(;h honey comes is very vari- 

 ous in its origin, and doubtless quite varied in its 

 nature. Bees get the nectar from flowers, from 

 sap, from fungi, from fruit, and from various 

 insects. While l)ees get the most of tlieir nectar 

 from flowers, they often get not a little from extra 

 floral glands, as in the case of tlie cotton, the cow 

 and partridge peas. Maple and other saps furnish 

 not a little nectar, and so are far more culpable 

 than our good friend Hasty, for they gave tlie bees 

 pure cane sugar years ago, while Hasty only sug- 

 gested it in tliis year of our Lord 1891. The sap 

 from stubble often yields very abundant nectar, as 

 do such fungi as ergot, and the bees have no scru- 

 ples against it, for they gather, digest, and store it, 

 and it is honey. The secretions from insects are 

 treated in the same way. In some cases the result- 

 ant honey is dark, rank,.and unlit for table use; but 

 in other cases it is delicious, and could not be told 

 by the chemist, nor even by the connoisseur, from 

 even tlie best of honey from nectar of our best 

 reputed blossoms. Now, if only that is honey which 

 is derived from the nectar of flowers, what shall we 

 call all the other ? Indeed, the most of our honey 

 is composite in make-up and in origin. Very much 

 of that which is transformed flower-nectar is largely 

 mixed with that of many different sources. Not 

 infrequently the bees visit groceries, cane-syrup 

 factories, and the maple-bush, and thus appropriate 

 cane sugar unmixed. It is impossible, even if desir- 

 able, to secure any honey that we can insure entirely 

 from flowers. 



It follows from the above, that any artificial ad- 

 mixture of glucose or other syrup witli lioney 

 makes it a compound that is not honey. It is a 

 mixture of honey and syrup, and is in part a sub- 

 stance tliat has not been digested Ijy the bees. It is 

 an adulteration. 



From the above, it would follow that honey se- 

 cured by feeding any nectar is still honey. Is tliere 

 any avoiding this conclusion ? If we feed honey, 

 no one would question the fact that tlie resultant 

 product is honey. But the bees may have secured 

 the nectar of this same honey from maple sap, from 

 fruit, from the sorghum-factory, or elsewhere. It 

 is nectar digested, or transformed, by the bees, and 

 so it is honey. It may be very undesirable honey, 

 but still it is honey. ^ 



Suppose, then, that glucose or cane syrup is fed: 

 I think we must pronounce the resultant pr. duct 

 honey. It is digested nectar. But this does not say 

 that it is good' or even marketable honey. I am 

 very certain that lioney from commercial glucose 

 would not be good. The bees do nut like it, will 

 refuse it if any other nectar is at command; will 

 die if fed it exclusively and continuously. If mixed 

 with honey it is easily detected by the chemist, and 

 so any such adulteration can be detected, punished, 

 and so prevented. If fed to bees, I doubt if it could 

 be made a success; and as all such production 

 would be confined to bee-keepers, it would cease, as 

 it would not be to the honey-producer's interest to 

 create an unworthy product and injure his own 

 business. Such honey would be palpably unwhole- 

 some; and as 1 bi'lieve it could be detected, it would 

 be possible to prevent its production, should this be 

 necessary. Honey, then, from feeding glucose 

 would still be honey, but it would be inferior, un- 

 wholesome, and so its production could be and 

 should be prevented. As it could probably be de- 

 tected, it could be prevented, should such a course 

 be necpssHry, which, from the nature of the case, is 

 not probable. 



Honey from feeding cane suaar is quite another 

 thing, "it is honey, and, so far as we yet know,— 

 indeed, there is no reason to think otherwise,— it is 

 entirely wholesome. It is exactly like the honey 

 from flowers, except it lacks some of the aromatic 

 flavoring substances, which exist in very minute 

 quantities. If fed slowly it would be well reduced 

 by the bees, and I believe few would prom unce it 

 even an inferior honey. Mr. Larrabee fed our bees 



twenty-three pounds of honey in one night last 

 June. This was extracted the next day, and my 

 students— a large class— all pronounced it undoubt- 

 edly honey, aiid of excellent quality. A lady of my 

 household— the best Coufc I ever had— upon being 

 told what it was, said it had the real honey flavor 

 unniistakalily, but was mild and pleasant. It is in- 

 teiestiiig that the chemists analyzed this and class- 

 ed it with samples of clover and basswood honey of 

 most superior quality. 



Yet the honey was rapidly stored, and would cer- 

 tainly have oeen more like most honey from flower 

 nectar had it been stored in five days instead of one. 



If, then, honey from this source is entirely whole- 

 some, of which there can be no doubt; if it is so 

 excellent 1 hat forty persons engaged in the study of 

 honev pronounce it honey, and excellent in quality, 

 and if our best chemists class it with the best of 

 honey from the choicest honey-plants, does it not 

 stand to reason that it can be, may be, and, shall we 

 say, ought to be, a product with no tarnished fame 

 or reputation? If, upon furtiier investigation, it 

 proves to be insipid and inferior, then it will be for 

 the interest of bee-keepers, the only ones who can 

 produce it, to see to it that no such article is pro- 

 duced and put into the market. If, as some of our 

 best bee-keepers believe, it is superior as a food for 

 bees, may we not, from parity of reason, conclude 

 that it ranks high as a table commodity ? 



Mr. Larrabee finds that he can dilute extracted 

 honey with 12 per cent of water, and feed it with a 

 slight profit with foundation in the sections, and at 

 a greater profit if he uses partially filled sections. 

 He estimates the extracted honey at eight cents per 

 pound, and the comb at fourteen cents per pound. 

 If the points made above are well taken, then the 

 profit from feeding cane syrup, with granulated 

 sugar at five cents per pound, would be consider- 

 ably increased. I do not wonder that, in these try- 

 ing seasons, Mr. Hasty's mind turned in this direc- 

 tion. Surely this is a matter that may well be dis- 

 cussed. Let us not cry knavery or fraud, from 

 imagined dangers, but candidly investigate the 

 matter; and if this course does offer a right and 

 justifiable means toincrease our profits, let us adopt 

 it. If, by experience or argument, we can find any 

 valid objection to it, then let it, with all adultera- 

 tion and with glucose honey, be condemned, for- 

 bidden, and the practice of producing it prevented. 



[I have little to say by w^ay of reply to the 

 above. If anybody besides Prof. Cook himself 

 had told me that he (Prof. C.) wrote the last 

 paragraph (on p. 11), 1 shouldn't have believed it. 

 As it is. I am afraid our old friend will have to 

 stand alone in his new departure; at least, I 

 sincerely hope there is not another bee-keeper 

 in the United States who will stand by him 

 when he countenances or indorses the idea of 

 putting on the market, in a wholesale way, as 

 honey, an article that has been produced by 

 feeding bees sugar. No one at the convention 

 at Washington indorsed it in the least; and 

 both Prof. Wiley and Prof. Riley expressed 

 themselves emphatically, that cane sugar fed 

 to bees would not make honey. Providing all 

 Prof. Cook says is true, bee-keepers would have 

 to buy sugar to feed their bees while they were 

 getting a honey-crop ; whereas, by the usual 

 way the material of which honey is made costs 

 us nothing; and my experience is, that bees will 

 gather more pounds in the natural way than 

 they will take from a feeder— at least, I have 

 never been able to make a colony take as many 

 pounds from a feeder as the same colony would 

 gather from natural stoies during the height of 

 the honey season. Now, does Professor Cook 

 really mean to say that 100 lbs. of sugar syrup 

 fed to the bees at night will be found 67 per 

 cent glucose next morning ? 



Prof. Wiley denied emphatically, before the 

 whole convention (in answer to a question put 

 by myself), that the bees could convert cane su- 

 gar into glucose, by taking il from a feeder and 

 depositing it in the combs. He did say. how- 

 ever, that some recent experiments seemed to 

 show that a large per cent of the cane sugar 

 might be changed to hwert sugar; and when I 

 asked him whether invert sugar was the same 



