March, )91S 



n I. R \ KINGS T N R K E C U L 'J' U R E 



tliat siu'li a tiMuperatun^ would be too imu'li 

 of a good tiling. — Editor.] 



* * * 



Melting old combs and scraps has been 

 quite generally considered a job to be put 

 off till the leisure time of winter. Oscar 

 Ritland says, February, page 83: "I i)refer 

 the summer time to do the work; and the 

 hotter the day the bettcM. " Aside from the 

 matter of leisure, probably everything is on 

 the side of hot weather. As the whole busi- 

 ness depends on getting up a certain amount 

 of heat, the hotter the weather the less 

 artificial heat required. One rather imjjortant 

 item is that the hotter the weather the longer 

 you can keep your mass of wax cooling, and 

 the better chance to let it clear. [The ad- 

 vantage of doing the melting during the 

 winter time is that the beekeeper has more 

 time at his disposal; moreover, there is no 

 chance of robbing, which might be danger- 

 ous if foul brood were in the combs before 

 they were rendered. — Editor.] 



* •!( * 



Stancy Puerden, please don't stop talk- 

 ing about cornmeal just yet. I was deejily 

 interested in your talk in November Glean- 

 ings. Cornmeal is practically taboo at our 

 house, and I think largely thruout this 

 region. I suspect our w^omen folk don't 

 know how to handle it. When I was a boy 

 in Western Pennsylvania, ' ' mush and 

 milk " was a staple article, and a pone bak- 

 ed in a Dutch oven under the ai?hes was not 

 to be despised. And when you talk about 

 a thin cake, " crisp and crusty," yum! yum! 

 it makes my mouth water. One objection to 

 using cornmeal is the high price of eggs; 

 and when I read aloud " hoe-cakes contain 

 nothing but meal, salt, and water," there 

 is a surprised echo, " Nothing but meal, 

 salt, and water!" which sounds the least 

 bit like saying, ' ' What does that woman 

 know about deceiit victuals, anyway?" But 

 if you keep right on I've a faint hope that 

 some day my folks may achieve a hoe-cake. 



* * * 



Geo. L. Emerson, February, page 76, says: 

 "Roughly speaking, there are some 200,000,- 

 000 pounds of honey .... an average 

 of about $20,000,000 worth of honey per year 

 in the United States. ' ' That 's figuring on 

 about 10 cents a pound as the average price. 

 Then in a footnote he says: "The prices 

 considered in this article are not war prices 

 but based on normal conditions. ' ' That 

 sounds as if ha had in mind that just now 

 we have war prices, and when the war is 

 over prices will settle back to where they 

 were before the war. Don 't think it, George. 

 In more than one way honey is now having 

 such a boost as it never had before. Much 

 is being said — outside of bee journals — about 

 the special value of honey, and in all sorts 

 of periodicals you will find 20 times, if not 

 50 times, as much in the way of recipes for 

 the use of honey as you found before the 

 war. The effect of this will not pass away 

 with the passing of the war. When the 

 war closes there will be a general settling 



of juices, and no doubt the price of honey 

 will come down; but never to the old level. 

 Don't you see? if there had been no war, and 

 honey had had the same boosting it is now 

 having, there could not have failed to be an 

 increased demand and corresponding stimu- 

 lation of prices? Well, that's just what 

 we're going to have, and there are bright 

 prospects ahead for beekeeping. [It is our 

 opinion that honey will not go down to its 

 former level even after the war is over, 

 and conditions normal. The vast amount of 

 free publicity recently given to honey will 

 keep the price up. — Editor.] 

 * * * 



It appears we're not getting along very 

 rapidly at educating the public to use the 

 term " extracted honey " when even the 

 dealers call it " strained honey," as you 

 will see by looking at Buffalo quotations in 

 " Honey Markets," January, p. 4. I've 

 heard even beekeepers say " extract hon- 

 ey," suggesting extract of honey; and in 

 the popular magazines, whenever a recipe 

 calls for honey it's almost invariably 

 '•strained honey." Can't some one think 

 of a better term than " extracted"? 

 " Liquid honey " would be just the thing 

 if honey would stay liquid, and possibly it 

 might do in spite of the candying. " Comb- 

 less " or " waxless " might be better than 

 " extracted " if " extracted " were not 

 already in use. Should we keep right on 

 trying to have * ' extracted ' ' something 

 more than a beekeepers' term, or shall we 

 use something else? 



* * * 



A New Zealand correspondent is somewhat 

 disturbed lest we be working against God 's 

 will when we try to prevent swarming, or 

 select the best queen to breed from instead 

 of allowing the bees to have their own way 

 and rear queens from all grades. Quite like- 

 ly natural swarming is the best thing when 

 bees are left to themselves, and the same 

 thing applies to queen-rearing, and I would 

 not for a minute think of interfering with 

 the natural habits of bees if I didn 't think 

 God wants me to; but I have a very distinct 

 belief that he does want me to do my level 

 best to control bees and to do all I can to make 

 them produce all the honey they will to help 

 in supplying sweets for ourselves and al- 

 lies, so as to give us strength to set the 

 Kaiser down where he belongs, even if we 

 have to set him down so hard as to make his 

 teeth rattle. My warrant for interfering 

 v.'ith the natural habits of the bees, I get 

 ■from Genesis 1:27, 28, where we are told 

 that God made man, male and female, " and 

 God said unto them, Be fruitful and multi- 

 plj' . . . and have dominion . . .over 

 every living thing that moveth upon the 

 e.arth." I take that as a direct command 

 to control the bees; for what sort of " do- 

 minion " would it be if I left them to do 

 as they please? So when I try to control 

 swarming, and breed from the best, I be- 

 lieve I am trying to do according to the 

 mind of God. 



