THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



I said the consumer alone was really in- 

 terested. But I was hasty. I, we will say, 

 make a business of producing for sale fine 

 comb honey from clover and basswood only, 

 but Tom, Dick and Harry start a business 

 of feeding sugar and produce a counterfeit 

 of my product and invade my market and 

 tacitly sell their counterfeit as in all respects 

 like mine. Would not I be injured ? A lit- 

 tle later it begins to be whispered that much 

 of the honey sold in the market is not the 

 genuine product of flowers. The communi- 

 ty looks askance at me as I attempt to find 

 sale for my honey, sales fall off and the mar- 

 ket price drops. Am I not unjustly dam- 

 aged ? 



If the production of sugar-honey is to be 

 undertaken largely I cannot escape the 

 opinion that each section should be stamped 

 sugar honey, at least until it wins a position 

 equal in all respects to that from the flowers. 



But all would not do that. The fact that 

 the honey cannot be distinguished makes it 

 all the more dangerous. It is indeed a diffi- 

 cult question and the result cannot easily be 

 foreseen. 



HOW WOULD IT AFFECT THE MARKET ? 



How the feeding of sugar for the produc- 

 tion of honey would affect the market price 

 is another serious question. If it should be 

 found profitable and be largely undertaken 

 it would be easy in the present state of 

 things to overstock the market which with 

 inevitable competition would, maybe, large- 

 ly reduce the price, cutting down not only 

 the profits of this but destroying also those 

 of the ordinary apiarist. 



On the other hand it may be that in time 

 honey made from sugar would take first 

 rank and be considered the most desirable 

 of all honeys and possibly so increase the 

 demand that prices would not suffer at all. 

 These are knotty questions which experience 

 alone can finally settle. 



IS IT PKAOTIOAL ? 



It will be admitted no doubt that the great 

 mass of bee-keepers could never be induced 

 to think of undertaking such a business. 

 One hundred dollars cash down for six bar- 

 rels of sugar vetoes any proposition to move 

 in that direction. A suggestion that fifteen 

 dollars be used to purchase a barrel of sugar 

 to prevent a risk of twenty-five or thirty col- 

 onies starving would scarcely be listened to, 

 much less put in practice, less still would 

 they think of spending money to feed the 



bees to get them in good condition to gather 

 the nectar when it should come, for, beside 

 the money for the sugar, there are the stove, 

 and the cans, and the pails, and the feeders, 

 and the intermittent labor of adjusting the 

 feeders, of boiling; and feeding and then of 

 gathering and putting away securely all the 

 necessary paraphanalia. All this is too 

 formidable for bee-keepers who are not 

 specialists. Besides many of them sell good 

 comb honey for ten cents per pound and 

 when a " sum " is worked out to discover 

 the margin of the profit, the matter is finally 

 settled for them. This will be all the better 

 for the rest, it may be said. But will there 

 be enough left to make the business respec- 

 table ? 



CONCEKNING THE PEOFIT. 



It is made a question, I notice, whether 

 there is any certainty of a profit in feeding 

 sugar for comb honey. The majority would 

 fail, no doubt, as they would in any other 

 given business. Would it be made profita- 

 ble, and could it be made profitable, are dif- 

 ferent questions. To the former, generally 

 speaking, " no " would be the proper answer, 

 but the latter may require a different re- 

 sponse. Into the determination of this many 

 considerations must enter ; such, for in- 

 stance, as these : How many pounds of 

 syrup of the weight of well ripened honey 

 would one hundred pounds of sugar make ? 

 W'hat proportion of this can be secured in 

 the shape of comb honey ? What proportion 

 goes to produce wax ? What to feed the 

 bees ? What into the brood chamber ? And 

 would a dollar's worth of sugar produce a 

 dollars worth of bees ? An intricate set of 

 questions indeed which only careful experi- 

 ments can fully answer. Under the most 

 favorable circumstances consistent with the 

 welfare of the colony (for I cannot think the 

 editor's experiment cited in the October Re. 

 VIEW could have been conducted with any 

 regard to the prosperity of the colony.)* I 

 have found that in feeding back honey one 

 will get about three-fifths of the weight of 

 the amout fed in comb honey, but probably 

 on the average one-half would be as much as 

 could be expected. Suppose now that the 

 feeding were conducted on a scale large 

 enough so that the cost of the comb honey 

 produced, outside of the sugar to be fed, 



* The feeding was done by colonies that had 

 been hived on six L. frames, and the brood 

 chambers were not further contracted. The 

 colonies were certainly improved both as regards 

 populousness and stores for wintet.— Ed. 



