GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sei'T. 



Hio-M.'e'^y 'C O'l li.jit 14.^1 



\p"||0 you not think we practice what we 

 JJ teach V .Tu§t 12 days ago wo paid U^M 

 An- a marble topped stand on which to exhil)it 

 our samples of honey for sale. This table with 

 its contents was placed directly fronting- the 

 street, in the most conspicuous part of our 

 store ; and to make it more quickly catch the 

 t'ye of passers by, we purchased about 100 li)s. 

 of comb lioney at-a cost of about ~8c ; this was 

 cut out of the boxes and put on plates, Jiac per 

 11)., or 3 lbs. for fl.OO. 



'file last plateful of the lot is now on the ta- 

 h'.L', and the amount of iiiiuid honey sold during- 

 the time has been largely in excess of the comb 

 iioney. The machinery works something like 

 this :— it stands just before the large doors that 

 open out on the street — some innocent, unsus- 

 pecting individuals will ))e passing by, and as 

 they casually happen to glance into the stores, 

 they all at once stop, and linally come in to 

 admire the curious and tempting worlv of tlie 

 iiees, as everybody does. Now 8oc seems an 

 awful big price in our quiet inland town, and 

 they generally pass on, but tlie temptation is 

 oftentoo great, to give to tlae dear ones at 

 home sucli a pleasant and liappy surprise, and 

 down goes tlie dollar, while we explain that 

 we regret that it is so expensive, but that it 

 takesthe ix>es so long to build the comb, etc., 

 and by the time we in a neighborly way pro- 

 pose lending them the plate, we have usually 

 made them fully understand why comb honey 

 IS so much more expensive. 



Now this is not all ; some of the honey will 

 run out on the plate, and one must be ob- 

 tuse indeed who will not soon take a taste and 

 see that this is no l)etter tlian tlie liquid lioney 

 that we offer the year round for twenty cents 

 instead of -J5, and we have been very much as- 

 tonished ourselves to find that the honey sealed 

 up in the combs is very often not so thick, as 

 that we have extracted. In fact our candied 

 lioney taken out a year ago — ^wlien melted — is 

 niucli superior to the honey tliat runs out of tlie 

 comb wlien cutting it. Of course we shall en- 

 deavor to keep this honey table "a going," the 

 year round. 



"But have the people in your town never 

 been imposed upon by the city manufactured 

 iioney?" some one may ask. To be sure they 

 iiave not. Do you suppose stich trasli could 

 be sold in our county? Is it not your own 

 fault, fellow bee-keepers, if any sucli stuff finds 

 a purchaser in your vicinity ? 



P. S.— Tlie girls have just placed a vase of 

 flowers in the midst of tlie jars and 

 plates of honey. Perhaps we shall be obliged 

 to call on our readers for comb honey to keep 

 this new institution constantly supplied. 



pie like it, let them have it l)y all means; but 

 for the sake of the rising generation, if for 

 nothing else, do not imagine that it will l)e ad- 

 visable under any circumstances to label it 

 "honey." If it is good mixed, then i)y all 

 means mix it, and label it "Glucose and honej', 

 prepared expressly for table use, by A, B, C, & 

 Co.," etc. Has the world yet to learn that 

 there is no such thing as telling the truth too 

 faithfully to be prol:..al:)ie, in business transac- 

 tions? But about this glucose; we are deeply 

 interested, and if it can be made cheaply, wdiy 

 does not some one make it? jVIay it not be 

 just the best thing in the world to feed the 

 bees to raise brood, get comics built, and per- 

 haps to winter them? Do you know, dear 

 readers, that a great industry is springing up, 

 and that there is abundant work for you and 

 me and all of us in raising- bees, getting nice 

 combs built from the foundations, etc., etc. ? 

 You can all go to work now, this minute. 



Among all the reports we get of heavy crops 

 of honey, but very little is said of haviug any 

 trouble in selling it ; much less in fact than in 

 former years, but we get the most doleful let- 

 ters from fiome honey lniyers,of beautiful honey 

 that cannot be given away, and the like. What 

 does it all mean ? It means, to us, don't sell 

 good honey for less than 16c by the barrel, and 

 not less than 20c at retail. 



Mil. A. I. IKIOT, l>eai- Su-:— I think those who have 

 good lionej' will do well not to be in a hurry to sell, 

 anil I would HOC advise any one to send honey to it 

 commission house. One day hist week a commission 

 man of tliis city came to me saying he liad a tew bar- 

 rels of nice honey and did not'know wliat to do witli 

 it, and did not fcnow anything about the price, nor 

 whom to sell to, and wanted to know wliat to do witli 

 it. You can see from that tliat any one could have 

 bought it at his own price, and thai is what is killing 

 tlie lioney trade, and making it so much of a drug on 

 our market. You can now go among our commission 

 houses and lind anj- (luantity of nice honey at 

 your own ])rice, from S,'j' to 10c per lb. Vou ask, ■•vvhy 

 is this ?■" The reason is they are trying to sell an ar- 

 ticle the}' know nothing about, and besides it gets to 

 leaking, and tliey do not know what else to do, than 

 to sell it for what they can get. If the jiwdncci- u-ill 

 kec}) his honey at home till he can sell itjur the cash to 

 a respunsiblc dealer, then, and not till then, will we 

 lind s;ilo for our honey at good ligures. but as long as 

 it is sent to every ''Tom, Dick, and JIany'' wlio will 

 sell or try to sell it, you will lind jirices low and no 

 sale. I am no longer in the trade, for 1 have time to 

 attend to only what my own bees make, and that has 

 been but very little tliis jear. 



1 think that before s))ring (unless California jirodu- 

 ces a large surplus), hone>"^will be in demand in our 

 city at good prices, fou tlierc is not over one-half as 

 iniich raised tliis year as heretofore. 



AV. G. SMITH, St. I.onis, ^lo.. Aug. (ith, "T."). 



We clip the following from the N. Y. Timen : I 



The manufacture of glucose, or corn syrup, should 

 be very prortiablein this country. The foreign article, | 

 of which immense quantities have been imporle<l since | 

 1857, is charged twenty per cent duty, besides ocean ; 

 freight. This advantage to the home manufacture is i 

 enchanced by the fact tliat tlie raw material in tlie 

 United States is far cheaper tlian in Kiiroi)e. A bush- 

 el of corn in Illinois costs from lliirty to si.xty cents, in 

 New York eighty-live cents, while the European man- 

 ufacturer of glucose and grape sugar lias to pay Sl.-i.'). 



Now if glucose is desirable for food, and peo- 



We really wish that those having honey they 

 cannot sell, would help keep this column up ; 

 at present, all v/e can gather from heaps of let- 

 ters from bee-keepers is the following; there are 

 plent\' of letters borrowing trouble about how 

 thev shall sell their honey when thev ih^ get it. 



I had rio colonies of bees to stai-t with this sjiring, 

 and some weak at that. I made an extractor after my 

 own fashion, and have slung up to date 'liSi lbs., anil 

 made an increase of i.'0 stands. Am selling at '21) cts. 

 in 2 lb. jars. Will sell .5 lbs. at 15 cts. Hurrah for 

 >our liouse Apiary ! 



John L. Cu.vnn, Onawa, Iowa, Aug. 12th, '7"). 



Have just removed 40 lbs. of box honey from our 

 best hive. The scales have shown a gaiu of 5 lbs. a 

 day for a I'l'w days past. 



J. r.LTLi:;;;. Jackson, Mich. 



