THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



47 



production of comb houey cau readily sc lect, 

 after a good yield from white clover, linden, 

 or any other source of white honey, a larpe 

 proportion of sections that are almost, if 

 not quite perfect in every respect — such 

 honey, in fact, as would be graded No. 1 ac- 

 cording to the Northwestern scale. It pays 

 to have such a grade ; and any one who un- 

 derstands selling honey can readily get a 

 fancy price for it. With this grade added I 

 would not have much fault to tind with the 

 .Vlbanj system of grading. 



There are excellent reasons for the estab- 

 lishment of a superfine grade of honey, and 

 there are also good reasons for using names 

 or letters, instead of numbers, to indicate 

 the grades, though I have always used num- 

 bers for all but the best, which I call "extra 

 select," following with immbers 1. '1 and 3. 

 My system of grading might be formulated 

 about as follows, using letters advocated by 

 the Albany committee : 



EXTRA SEJ.EC'T. 



Light-colored honey, of i<ood flavor; (.•oinh.s 

 stiaight, well built out, of even thickness, and 

 nearly uniform weight, attached to the section 

 on all sides ; all cells sealed, with white cappiugs, 

 and with both combs and sections unsoiled by 

 travel-stain or otherwise. 



•A' GRADE. 



Light-colored honey, of good flavor; combs 

 straight and well built our, with cappiugs white, 

 i>r but slightly amber colored ; one face of each 

 comb perfect in appearant-e, fully sealed, except 

 the line of cells -(.ucliiiiH the wood. The other 

 side shall be peifec* in color and sealing, t>r 

 nearlj so, anti section not badly soiled. 

 ' C ' GRADE. 



Houey of good quality. In this grade slmll l>e 

 placed all irregular combs, or those containing 

 pollen, and all in which the capping is dark or 

 considerably soiled. Sections must be nearly 

 filled, with few or no unsealed cells. 



• M ' GRADE. 

 In this grade shall be placed all honey of infer- 

 ior quality, all combs containing much pollen, 

 or badly travel-stained, or otherwise objection 

 able. Sections must be at least three-fourths 

 full, with one side sealed. 



The above is tny system of grading — what 

 I use in actual practice. I do not expect 

 that it will satisfy everybody. In fact, I 

 think we shall find it hard to establish any 

 system that will be satisfactory in all parts 

 of the country. This is evident when we 

 see that the Eastern men want the saffron- 

 colored comb of the Mississippi bottoms 

 placed in the third grade, while the men who 

 produce it insisted at Chicago that it ought 

 to be graded No. 1. The Eastern men, too, 

 want buckwheat honey graded by itself, 

 though they do not seem to care about other 

 kinds. I believe there is but little buckwheat 

 honey produced in the West, though there 

 are other kinds that deserve to be graded by 

 themselves quite as much as buckwheat. 

 As buckwheat honey is well known to the 

 trade, it might be well enough to keep it in 

 a grade by itself, though no doubt much 

 honey is sold as buckwheat that was never 

 near a buckwheat field. But if we decide 

 that there may be a first, second, and third 

 grade of each kind of honey, as was voted 

 at Chicago, we do away with one of the 



principal objects of grading, and open the 

 way to almost as many disputes and differ- 

 ences of opinion as were possible under the 

 old system— or lack of it. 



It will be difficult lo make some bee keep- 

 ers understand why their first class honey, 

 gathered from atitumn wild fiowers, should 

 bring a lower price than another man's 

 second or third class clover, although the 

 commission man understands it perfectly. 

 Would it not be better to put it in the second 

 or third grade on the start, and so class it ? 

 Again, it is indisputable that the selling 

 value of comb honey depends more upon its 

 appearance than any other one quality — 

 provided, of course, it has not an actually 

 disagreeable taste. The kinds of honey are 

 legion. Unless a man is familiar with all 

 these varieties, which is something hardly 

 possible, how is he going to be able to make 

 a guess at the value of honey offered him 

 from another locality 'i Even if he is famil- 

 iar with the kind of honey offered, there is 

 much chance for misunderstanding, for the 

 average bee keeper is very much at sea with 

 regard to the sources from which his honey 

 was gathered. Moreover, there are very few 

 localities where an.\ one variety of honey 

 may be secured free from admixture. The 

 varying nature of this admixture so changes 

 the character of the honey, that what passes 

 for white clover honey in one locality may 

 be a very dift'ereut article from the white 

 clover honey of somewhere else. 



If honey is graded according to my rules, 

 and a sample of the honey sent in a small 

 vial by mail, the purchaser may know just 

 what to expect, or the commission man will 

 be better able to inform the intending ship- 

 per what his honey will bring. 



Dayton, 111., Jan. !S. J. A. Green." 



Commenting upon this article the editor 



of Gleanings says :— 



"On the first page of this issue, J. A. 

 Green offers some good suggestions on 

 grading. Before reading his article, how- 

 ever, our idea was to use the Chicago system 

 as the basis, calling the first grade " Fancy ; " 

 second grade "A," and the other grades by 

 the letters of the alphabet in their order. 

 The Chicago scheme of leaving out color as 

 a quality in eich grade, we thought a good 

 one, leaving the matter of color to be decided 

 entirely by the kind of honey. For instance, 

 a fancy buckwheat could come under the 

 highest grade ; but the the name " buck- 

 wheat " would describe a dark honey. But 

 perhaps there is a difficulty here. The gen- 

 eral public, and many of the commission 

 houses, probably would not know what is 

 meant by "Fancy" or "A" grade smart- 

 weed or Spanish needle honey ; and they 

 would be utterly in the dark as to what 

 would be their resiiective colors. The trade 

 calls all white honeys clover : that is, it pre- 

 fers to do so, as its customers are n..,t ac- 

 quainted with the many sources : but when 

 a honey is described as "white," it has some 

 signiticatice. ( )n the whole, then, we would 

 indorse Green's system. It seems to be an 

 improvement on both the Chicago and Al- 

 bany classifications. We should be glad to 



