408 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



December 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY AT 



First Nat'l Bank Bldg., Hamilton, 111. 



Entered as second-class matter at the 

 Hamilton, Illinois, Postoffice. 



C. P. Dadant, Editor. 



Dr. C. C. Miller, Associate Editor. 



Frank C. Pellett, Staff Correspondent. 



IMPORTANT NOTICE 



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THE WRAPPER LABEL DATE indicates 

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 1917. 



SUBSCRIPTION RECEIPTS.— We do not 

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(Copyright: 1917, by C. P. Dadant.) 



THE EDITOR'S VIEWPOINT 



Honey Prices 



Although honey is now selling at 

 higher prices than for several years 

 past, it has not yet reached the high 

 figures of former years. In 1873 

 Harbison and Clark shipped a car- 

 load of honey from California to 

 Chicago. This was probably the first 

 car of honey to be shipped overland 

 from the coast, and it sold for 27 

 cents per pound, wholesale. This is 

 somewhat above the highest prices 

 for which comb honey has sold in 

 any American market of late. 



There are indications that honey 

 will not again drop to the low levels 

 of the recent past. The slump in 

 prices which honey has suffered dur- 

 ing the past twenty years is largely 

 the result of the general use of glu- 

 cose and othej- cheap substitutes, 

 which have been so widely adver- 

 tised. The public is turning again 

 to honey at a time when prices rule 

 high and will continue to demand it 

 in preference to inferior substitutes. 



A Careful and Thrifty Beekeeper 



Success in any line is achieved only 

 by perseverance and activity. But 

 this is especially true of the honey 

 producer. At first sight beekeeping 

 would seem only a summer work. But 

 how many things there are which the 

 thrifty beekeeper can do in the dull 

 season. Here are a few thoughts 

 gleaned from a private letter written 

 last March, which show how our old 

 friend, G. C. Greiner, occupies a part 

 of his spare time before the season 

 opens and after the honey has been 

 disposed of: 



'"In the last week or two I have 

 been steadily at work in the honey- 

 house, preparing things for the com- 

 ing season. My first job was the 

 cleaning up of the extracting supers. 

 Every comb, mainly the sides of the 

 top-bars and the underside of the 

 tenons, is thoroughly scraped and 



the scrapings made into wax. From 

 two days' scrapings I have made 

 about 10 pounds of fine quality wax. 

 The rabbets of the outsides and their 

 upper and lower edges are also 

 cleaned from all propolis accumula- 

 tiotjs, so that everything works as 

 readily as new work. All section 

 supers are also looked over, sep- 

 arators, especially, are cleaned up, so 

 that no crowding is necessary to 

 leave room for super springs." 



Is it astonishing that as careful a 

 man as this should succeed? 



Selling Your Honey 



In a period of high prices such as 

 we are now experiencing there is 

 danger that the home market be 

 overlooked and all honey sent in to 

 the big markets to realize quickly at 

 high prices. 



■Letters have come in from sub- 

 scribers stating that all their honey 

 went to the big buyers. "My home 

 trade could not possibly pay the price 

 offered abroad." 



This is all well and good as long as 

 the price continues to rule high and 

 the demand is good from the largei 

 markets. But we should look a little 

 farther ahead to the time when we 

 may again be offered a lower price 

 for honey, a lower price than we are 

 willing to take. 



Then there will be a realization 

 that the home market, sadly neglect- 

 ed, has again accepted some substi- 

 tute for honey. Again the small pro- 

 ducer will vainly endeavor to make 

 his people realize the "food value" 

 of honey and again he will wonder 

 why people will eat such stuff as 

 corn syrups when they can get honey 

 right at their door. 



If we care to realize the benefits of 

 recent campaigns with "Eat Honey" 

 stickers, with honey food value book- 

 lets, with flashy labels and with 

 other local advertising, we must 



maintain the campaign even in the 

 face of high prices for our product, 

 and, more than all, we must be in a 

 position to furnish our customers, 

 at least on request, with honey. 



Just as sure as we do not, the ad- 

 vertising value of past years' work 

 will be destroyed and the work will 

 have to be done over. 



In time of high prices prepare 

 yourself to avoid the lower prices of 

 the future. 



Keep your home trade, even 

 though you have to buy honey else- 

 where and charge customers an ac- 

 cordingly higher price. They will 

 accept your explanations even 

 though some of them refuse the 

 honey. 



Honey Changing the Color of Tea 



In one of our exchanges we notice 

 this question, to which its editor is 

 unable to give a satisfactory reply. 

 Neither can we give an explanation 

 if the honey which was guilty of 

 this offense is positively known to be 

 pure. But if the source of the honey 

 is unknown, this would probably 

 prove a base adulteration. 



In 1879, when corn syrup, other- 

 wise called commercial glucose, be- 

 gan to appear on a large scale among 

 edible products, we inquired of a 

 chemist as to the easiest means of 

 detecting it. His reply was: "Use it 

 to sweeten tea or coffee and you will 

 find it to turn the liquid to a darker 

 color. Glucose is made by boiling 

 starch with sulphuric acid. The free 

 acid contained in the liquid is after- 

 wards removed by the use of lime. 

 But some free sulphuric acid usually 

 remains in the syrup and it is this 

 which acts upon the tannin of the 

 tea or of the coffee and darkens it." 



Of late years, corn syrup is made 

 with more care and contains little 

 if any free sulphuric acid. But it is 

 probable that, in the case cited, the 

 adulteration was of low grade syrup 

 and the acid in it acted upon the 

 tannin contained in the tea, helping 

 to blacken it. 



Dark grades of honey would, of 

 course, darken coffee or tea, in the 

 measure of their shade of color. Such 

 mechanical action could be readily 

 expected. 



The fact that some grades of com- 

 mercial glucose still contain some 

 free sulphuric acid and quite a little 

 sulphate of lime in suspense ought 

 to lessen the tendency of our house- 

 keepers to use such preparations, es- 

 pecially if they can secure pure 

 honey from the apiary. 



