293 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 15. 



[Dr. Miller is a great lover of roses. He grows 

 lots of them around his place, and in all proba- 

 bility he is nearer the truth than the Express. 

 —Ed.] 



Mk. Editor, on p. 261 you grant the addition 

 of a chemical to prevent granulation would not 

 be adulteration if the chemical were expensive 

 and not much of it used. Don't you grant any 

 thing of the kind. The addition of a pound of 

 chemical at $100 a pound to a ton of honey would 

 be adulteration, providing that addition injures 

 the quality of the honey. But then, there isn't 

 much danger of that sort of adulteration. 

 [Yes, if it injures the honey; but, as you inti- 

 mate, the chemical probably will never be 

 found.— Ed.] 



Canada is crowing over California anent 

 adulteration laws. The California law prohib- 

 its any thing but " the natural product of the 

 bee," and Canadian Bee Journal says that le- 

 galizes glucose honey or any thing the bees will 

 store. The Canadian law (in prospect) prohib- 

 its any thing produced from " substances other 

 than those which bees gather from natural 

 sources." Skylark hurrahs for Canada. I con- 

 fess I don't see such an immense chasm be- 

 tween "the natural product of the bee "and 

 what they "gather from natural sources." 



Whole- WHEAT FLOUR is a grand thing, but 

 altogether too expensive. Costs 4 cts. a pound 

 in Marengo. Chance for some philanthropic 

 work " along this line," Bro. Root. [Why, 

 bless your heart, doctor, the philanthropic work 

 is already done— see page 270 of our last issue. 

 You can surely buy wheat in Marengo at not 

 much more than a cent a pound; then with a 

 hand-mill of almost any kind you can make 

 big wages by grinding your own whole-wheat 

 flour. A large-sized hand cotfee-mill, such as 

 you see at almost any grocery, makes this flour: 

 and some of the friends tell us that the Wilson 

 bone-mills do tiptop. I suppose you have that 

 wind-mill by this time that I so strongly in- 

 sisted upon, on the summit of that hill, and 

 that should do the grinding. If you do not 

 like that way, use the brake-stock you men- 

 tioned in our last issue. — A. I. R.] 



I CALL THE EDITOR to Order. On p. 2()8 he 

 says clover or linden extracted ought to bring 8 

 to 9 cts. The highest quotations, page 245, 

 leaving out California, make an average of only 

 7 cts.; and when commission, etc., are counted 

 out, 5 will be a good deal nearer the mark than 

 8, to compare with his 4-cent. syrup. [You seem 

 to assume that I had reference to extracted 

 honey; but if you will refer to page 69 again 

 you will see that I said only " honey." How- 

 ever, that matters little, for I meant extracted; 

 but the argument I used would have been more 

 forcible had I used the word comb; and then 

 the margin of profit between syrup at 4 cts. and 

 comb honey at 12 and Ki cts. would be consider- 



ably greater. While my price— 8 to 9 cents— is 

 perhaps a cent too high, yours is too low. You 

 figure the current price as quoted in our last 

 issue. I was figuring on the usual current 

 price that holds just as the first clover and 

 basswood honey is put on the market; because, 

 by the Boardman plan, one can get honey on to 

 the market a week sooner than by the old plan; 

 and the first honey on the old market always 

 brings a considerably higher price than that 

 which comes a week or two later. And another 

 thing, you know I have been an advocate of 

 selling honey around home, and thus doing 

 away with the great loss in commission, freight, 

 leakage, etc. While it costs something to sell 

 at home, higher prices may usually be obtained 

 for all that. Taking it all in all, I do not think 

 I was so very far out. In fact, I did not make 

 my point nearly as strong as I might have done 

 if I had referred to the bee-keeper's profit be- 

 tween syrup at 4 cts. and comli honey at 12.— 

 Ed.] 



Water-white honey is talked about, even 

 in the columns of market quotations; but, 

 really, is there such a thing as water-white 

 honey? Better be honest and call things by 

 their right names. ["Water white " is a com- 

 mon form of exaggeration, so common in the 

 English language. For instance, when a horse 

 dashes by, it is "going like lightning." When 

 it is raining pretty hard, " it pours;" when a 

 room is a little colder than 70° F., " it is freez- 

 ing," and when honey is lighter in color than 

 the average basswood or clover of the East, the 

 Californians,*naturally enough, say it is " water 

 white." They have used this term to us a good 

 many times, but we have never considered it 

 literal. Whenever they have thus designated 

 their sage we knew they meant Dest quality 

 light honey, and no confusion ever resulted, so 

 far as we were concerned. But nevertheless 

 the term is slightly misleading, and might 

 sometimes cause dissatisfaction with certain 

 buyers. r Granting that it is defective, what 

 other term would yoii^ use? If you simply say 

 "white," or "light," it would mean that the 

 honey was no lighter than clover or basswood, 

 which is not true. Here in the East, in speak- 

 ing of clover and basswood honeys, we define 

 them as white honeys, when, in fact, we do not 

 strictly mean that. We speak of the white 

 man, the yellow man, the red man. The ad- 

 jectives are not strictly accurate, and yet they 

 are accepted and properly understood.!? Com- 

 mission merchants and honey-buyers all over 

 the country define clover and basswood as 

 "white." No one, however, thinks this is an 

 exaggeration; and the term " water white " for 

 sage honey, which is still whiter than clover, Is 

 not more of an exaggeration, surely. The fact 

 of the matter is, the terms "water white" and 

 " white " are accepted, and it would be a hard 

 matter to change, even if they ao'e wrong. — Ed.] 



