AiGUST, 1918 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



4 59 



flow, and if lie fears tliat he can not get 

 sugar to feed or has not the means to buy 

 sugar, he will be very glad to sell to the 

 other fellow who has a good crop, and who 

 will have a reserve of combs to give to 

 colonies that he can purchase at a fair price. 

 The seller and the buyer will both be bene- 

 fited. 



The difficulty of getting bees last spring, 

 with the probability that the South will not 

 be able to supply the demand next spring, 

 emphasizes the importance of getting bees 

 now when they can be secured at moderate 

 prices. Where one has a good cellar, or 

 uses modern methods of packing bees, he 

 can afford to pay a fair price; and the other 

 fellow, if he did not get any crop, and es- 

 jiecially if he has "got the blues," can af- 

 ford to sell at a very reasonable figure, and 

 will be glad to do so. 



Gleanings wishes to suggest that the buy- 

 er and seller can get together (if impossible 

 by other means) thru the advertising col- 

 umns of the various bee journals. 



IN THE LAST ISSUE we discussed a few 

 of the chief sources of sweets to which the 

 American people 



Where We 



Get the Sweets 



We Eat. 



are addicted, and 

 we pointed out that 

 the free use of 

 these is injurious. 

 Fortunately there are forms of sugar that 

 are of better value for human consumption. 

 In the United States there are probably 

 five million acres planted to apple trees, 

 more than the acreage of all other fruits 

 combined. The State of Missouri has over 

 14 million apple trees, while our own State 

 of Ohio, whicli is in the region of corn and 

 hogs, has over eight million. Add to these 

 enormous figures the crops of peaches, 

 plums, pears, cherries, berries, and citru^ 

 fruits, and it will be seen that the Ameri- 

 can people do get great quantities of natural 

 sugars, in such form that they may be di- 

 gested and assimilated readily. In addi- 

 tion to fruit sugars these foods furnish 

 nourishment of other types, including the 

 highly important fruit acids. 



It is more than a coincidence that there is 

 a close relationship between fruit growing 

 and honey production. Without the bee 

 there would be a much smaller fruit crop 

 than is now gathered, and, in all probabil- 

 ity, the bee does more good to the fruit- 

 grower in pollinating his fruit than the good 

 that the beekeeper gets from the honey 

 crop. The honeybee is, therefore, a great 

 producer of sugar, and all of it is natural 

 sugar. The amount of fruit sugar produced 

 and used in the United States cannot even 

 be estimated, but there are great quantiti'^; 

 of sugar in the 100 million dollars' wortli 

 of apples which the Ignited States produces 

 in the average vcar. 



Some of the fruits contain so much sugar 

 that it is useless to add any cane or beet 



sugar in preserving them. For example, 

 when prunes were unusually cheap a few 

 years ago in California, it was seriously 

 proposed to manufacture sugar from them. 

 Grapes are made into raisins without the 

 addition of sugar. There is also a great 

 amount of sugar in the date and the fig, 

 both of which are being raised in the Unit- 

 ed States in increasing quantity. 



The maple sugar industry was formerly 

 an important one in parts of the country, 

 and northern Ohio did not take a back seat 

 to any other part in this industry. The 

 amount of maple sugar produced is small, 

 yet it is about half that of the honey pro- 

 duction of the country. But honey produc- 

 tion may be increased, while the maple 

 sugar industry is decreasing. There has 

 been a movement on foot this year to in- 

 crease the production of maple j^rodudts on 

 account of the sugar shortage, but this has 

 taken the form of advising the tapping of 

 trees that are usually neglected, and it is 

 not seriously proposed to plant any more 

 sugar maples. 



Maple sugar is sucrose like cane and beet 

 sugar. It, however, has the advantage that 

 it contains mineral salts and other products, 

 making it a more natural sweet than its 

 more popular rivals. 



In closing the discussion of the rivals of 

 honey we cannot fail to mention the ways 

 in which honey surpasses all of these sw*eets. 

 It is a predigested sweet, putting no tax at 

 all on the digestion of those who eat it. It, 

 gives up its energy as quickly as any other 

 form of sugar, and at the same time it fur- 

 nishes a small amount of protein, consider- 

 able mineral salts, and, above all, it con- 

 tains vitamines, the products found in some 

 foods in minute quantities which further 

 the processes of growth. What more could 

 we desire in food? It is an energy food 

 and is not taken primarily for its body- 

 building properties. Yet it puts no un- 

 natural strain on the digestion, it has a 

 flavor we all know surpasses that of any 

 other sweet, it has properties which make 

 it desirable for use in baking, and it does 

 have some body-building value. 



The beekeeper ought to remember these 

 things when talking up his market. He has 

 no reason not to be proud of his product. 

 There is no talking point about any form of 

 sugar which he cannot truthfully use about 

 his product. Then, too, his is an industry 

 which uses no land useful for other agricul- 

 tural pur])oses; he does not take a valuable 

 food like corn and make it into a poor food 

 like glucose. His product in its making does 

 not deplete the soil.* 



With all of these facts at his command — 

 and all of them are facts and not fancy — 

 th£ beekeeper ought to be the best salesman 

 on earth. What more could he ask than a 

 product like this to sell? Now that the 

 demand for honey is so great on account of 

 the sugar shortage, the beekeeper ought to 

 take advantage of the opportunity present- 

 ed to talk up honey so that when the war is 



