1917 



AMERICAN BEK JOURNAL 



been prepared ready for it, a very good 

 plan is to line a deep pie-dish with 

 brown paper and pour it into this. The 

 paper will remain and prevent the 

 candy from sticking to the coverings 

 when on the hive. It is best to place it 

 on the center of the frames over the 

 ordinary feed-hole. 



It may happen that in the fall the 

 bees are only a few pounds short of the 

 necessary amount of stores (25 to 30 

 pounds) to carry them through the 

 winter, in which case a cake of candy 

 may be put on the hive when packing 

 them, to make up the deficiency with- 

 out troubling to feed syrup at all. 

 Candy may also be given to bees in 

 the spring, and it is only suitable food 

 until they begin to fly freely, when thin 

 syrup may be substituted, if they are 

 short of stores. 



Candy is a very safe food early in 

 the year, as it will not start robbing, as 

 syrup sometimes does, which may re- 

 sult in the balling and loss of queens. 

 Some beekeepers mix pea-flour or 

 other pollen substitute with the candy 

 used for spring feeding with good re- 

 sults, in districts where natural pollen 

 is not sufficiently abundant. Several 

 spoonfuls of pea-flour are stirred in 

 just before the candy is ready to pour 

 out into the molds. 



Nelson, B. C. 



Creating a Demand for Honey 



BY T. P. ROBINSON. 



THERE are advertisements galore 

 for the sale of honey, but only 

 two good ways of advertising 

 practiced by the beekeepers at large. 

 One, whose motive is to dispose of the 

 honey as a commodity of commerce by 

 any legitimate means, and the other is 

 through education as to what honey 

 really is, its great food value, its health- 

 giving propensities, and its care and 

 keeping. Sales made through the first 

 medium are usually short lived while 

 through the latter they are of lasting 

 benefit. 



There are many very intelligent peo- 

 ple all around us who know nothing 

 about honey. The average beekeeper 

 has no means of finding out this great 

 truth unless by chance he is thrown 

 with a large number of people. Through 

 the generosity of the Texas beekeepers 

 and their State association I have been 

 given a chance to study this problem 

 first hand, as their superintendent at 

 the State Fair at Dallas, Tex. 



The benefits to be derived from such 

 an exhibit are great. It is a known 

 fact that the consumption of honey in 

 the State of Texas is on the increase. 

 When I first went to the fair to take 

 charge of the exhibit many unexpected 

 questions were brought up by the peo- 

 ple at large, which greatly surprised 

 me and which put me to a test to an- 

 swer. The most unreasonable point 

 raised was that adulterated honey was 

 being bought in the open market. 

 These complainants were numerous, 

 many of them were prejudiced and de- 

 termined, and insistent in their con- 

 tention. 



When these assertions were made I 

 would ask them why they thought that 

 it was adulterated, and they would 

 usually answer in two ways: First, it 

 was made out of sugar, they knew for 



the reason that it would quickly turn 

 to sugar especially when it was placed 

 in the refrigerator. Second, because 

 the taste was nearly always different 

 from what it used to be. To the 

 first I would reply that the sugaring 

 was a guarantee that their honey was 

 pure since honey would do that when 

 the temperature was lowered about it 

 for any length of time. To the second 

 I would explain that there were as 

 many different flavors to honey as there 

 were aromas to the different flowers, 

 and the flavor of the honey partook of 

 the nature of the flower from which it 

 was gathered. To some I would offer a 

 dolUr for every pound of adulterated 

 honey found in the market, but to 

 secure the money I would require them 

 to have witnesses to prove that the 

 honey was just as received from the 

 grocer. I would do this just as pleas- 

 antly and unconcerned as I possibly 

 could, allowing the party to do his own 

 thinking and form his own conclusions, 

 and to finish it all off, I insisted that I 

 really wanted him to bring the honey, 

 for there was no one who wanted the 

 adulteration stopped more than the 

 beekeepers in the State of Texas, and I 



thought they would be benefited. The in- 

 crease in consumption, to my mind, has 

 greatly grown as a result of this cam- 

 paign. Articles in the daily papers and 

 farm papers that the general public read 

 helped. 



There is yet very much work to do 

 along this line, and it behooves every 

 beekeeper to take up this campaign of 

 education to enlarge the sales of honey. 

 Advertising by education is the right 

 way to stimulate the use of honey, and 

 it has the advantage of influencing the 

 prospective customer to become a user 

 of honey regularly rather than impress 

 him for the time being that you have 

 something to sell. 



Bartlett, Tex. 



A Remedy for Ants 



BY C. E. FOWLER. 



I WAS camping out and was very 

 much bothered with medium sized 

 ants in and around the camp. I had 

 a tub about 15x2o inches and 6 inches 

 deep, flaring sides. I dug a hole and 



EXHIBIT OF THE TEXAS BEEKEEPERS AT THEIR STATE FAIR 



would consider it a personal favor for 

 him to assist me in the clean up. There 

 never was an offer of adulterated 

 honey. From about two dozen per 

 day six years ago, the criticisms have 

 dwindled to less than a half dozen the 

 present year. 



I was really surprised that the public 

 was so ignorant of honey. The sugar- 

 ing idea and the different "taste " idea, 

 as they termed it, were the great objec- 

 tions to honey, especially the former. 

 These people were highly educated. 

 Many of them were university gradu- 

 ates, public school teachers, and many 

 more high school graduates. Realizing 

 this I had leaflets printed, setting forth 

 the flavors of honey, how to tell its 

 purity, how to liquefy it when granu- 

 lated, where to keep it, and fully ex- 

 plained its flavors and colors. I distrib- 

 uted these leaflets to any and all who 



put the tub in the ground, the top even 

 with the ground. I put an inch of 

 water in the bottom. The first day the 

 water was covered with drowned ants. 

 In three or four days, ants were very 

 scarce, and in a week or two no more 

 were to be seen. 



I think the ants were thirsty and 

 went down the slanting sides for water, 

 and either could not get out of the 

 water or else could not climb the tin 

 sides. A pan, or several of them placed 

 around the apiary, should serve the 

 purpose without endangering the lives 

 of any other animals. But it would 

 probably be better not to let the bees 

 drink the water with dead ants in it. A 

 ?+ inch netting, or even a board cover- 

 ing the pan raised % inch would keep 

 the bees out altogether. 



Hammonton, N. J. 



