1S79 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



125 



learn that it was the honey agent of this firm who 

 developed the fdn., and made it a practical thing in 

 America. He is also said to have been successful in 

 perfecting plans for the safe shipment of comb hon- 

 ey to Europe; although a prominent honey dealer 

 in Liverpool told me that this agent had just landed 

 a large lot of honey, so mashed up that he thought 

 they would not be likely to undertake another ship- 

 ment of comb honey soon. However, 1 hope he is 

 mistaken in this, and from the amount of section 

 boxes of nice comb honey, evidently from the State 

 of New York, which 1 saw in the shops of England 

 and Scotland, I think he has at least made a partial 

 success of it. 



But the fact that Hoge, Thurber's agent, was in ! 

 Londoii, selling honey, at the time this remarkable ! 

 paper appeared in the Times, accounts for its ap- 

 pearance. 



The Crystal Palace honey dealer is selling broken j 

 pieces of English made honey, on plates, at 2s. 6d. 

 (tit) cts.) per lb. When I showed him a pound of hon- 

 ey in a Novice section, he seemed to think there 

 could hardly be anything so nice for the trade, and! 

 wanted some of mine, of which I had sent a small 

 lot with my extracted honey around Cape Horn, to 

 test how it would carry without special care in hand- 

 ling. 



My 40 tons of extracted honey being consigned to 

 an agent in London, and being not likely to land 

 there until late in the season, when my bees would 

 be swarming, I left it to the chances of the market. 

 Our agent, learning that it was insured at 5 to 7 cts. 

 per lb., expressed the hope that it might sink, think- 

 ing that we would be better otf than to incur the ad- ] 

 ditional expense of securing a sale for it, which at 

 the best would be slow. 



I found small quantities of honey in the English 

 market, from almost all the states of Europe— 

 Greece, Italy, Portugal, France, Belgium, Scotland, 

 and England. The honey from England and from 

 Narbonne, in France, is the most highly esteemed. 

 For, while West Indian, Chilian, and California hon- 

 ey is selling by brokers at 30 to 50 shillings per cwt. 

 (112 lbs.), about 6 to 10 cts. per lb., English and Nar- 

 bonne honey is selling at 60s. to 65s. per cwt. The 

 honey from both these countries is good, but dark, 

 and candies or "sets," as they call it, very hard. 



The English honey is valued because it is English, 

 and the Narbonne because they have learned that it 

 is good. English people do not wish to be bothered 

 with a change, even if the new article is probably 

 the better. They are not so fond of novelties as the 

 Americans; besides they value their honey on ac- 

 count of its being in the familiar, little, 1 lb., red or 

 gray, earthenware pots, that they can set on their 

 tables, which seems to them more appropriate than 

 a 2 lb. tin can. 



Foreign honey must, for a time at least, be sold at 

 a discount. They value California honey above 

 West Indian or Chilian honey, but there has already 

 been so much inferior Calif ornia honey sent to their 

 market, that they begin to be shy of it; besides, 

 they think that in trade they can hardly keep even 

 with Americans. 



In Parii, I was shown a bbl. of honey from Cali- 

 fornia, from which the merohant extracted a sam- 

 ple already well candied; he smelled it and pro- 

 nounced it sour; it was of no use trying to sell it, so 

 there it lay. 



I am sorry that the wet, foggy weather of last sea- 

 son, in California, prevented the proper ripening of 

 honey, and for the unwise extracting of it while yet 

 raw, thin, and unsealed, causing it eventually to be- 

 come slightly acid, and to lack the rich, heavy body, 

 and the fine flavor necessaiy to the best of honey. 



When an Englishman has yielded his prejudices 

 enough to try some of this far famed < 'alifornia hon- 

 ey, and finds he has got a lot of this inferior grade 

 to lie on his hands unsold, it is impossible to get him 

 ever again to try an article from such a questiona- 

 ble source. He decides that it is adulterated in 

 some way. 



Thus it is that our trade is already injured there, 

 and will forever fail to assume the great magnitude, 

 at the price of good honey, which our locality ought 

 by all means to command, unless we extract our hon- 

 ey only when fuUy ripe, ami use a uniform brand for all 

 fbirsl dose honey, being always positive that nothing In- 

 ferior is ever sold under thai brand. Do with half the 

 amount of honey rather than spoil our trade. While 

 the taking of honey by the use of the melextractor 

 is really the scientific mode, yet it largely increases 

 the liability of getting thin honey. 

 The honey market abroad, as at home, is very un- 



settled. Dealers will not engage large quantities at 

 once; for, say they, before you know it, these Amer- 

 icans will send on a flood of honey to be sold at once, 

 for what it will bring, causing them, as competitors, 

 to lose on their large purchases; hence the honey is 

 nearly all bought at brokers' auctions, in lots of 500 

 or 1,000 lbs. each, just as they need it. This, of 

 course, helps keep up the price, but makes the sales 

 very slow. 



As it looks to me, last year's crop will not be sold 

 until the new one is on hand. Italy, Switzerland, 

 and Germany seem to use more honey than the oth- 

 er states, it being very commonly kept on the table 

 at hotels. Perhaps the Germans, so fond of beer 

 and sour-krout, may fancy our sour honey. I am 

 glad such a large proportion of it has been forward- 

 ed to Hamburgh. 



As C. Dadant told us years ago, the French people 

 must have their honey candied; also the English 

 people usually prefer it so, and the harder it is, the 

 better; for it carries better and is more like their 

 own honey. This suits us, as we can hardly get it 

 there without being candied, and our merchants at 

 home discount it 2c. a pound as soon as it is candied; 

 but European merchants prefer to get their honey 

 while fresh and liquid, to be filled conveniently into 

 their small pots and left to harden. 



Some like the honey shipped in 2 lb. tin cans, as it 

 saves them the trouble of repacking; yet a promi- 

 nent firm in Liverpool, in selling out a large lot put 

 up in this way by a San Francisco canning Co., found 

 they had been selling under the same label ("Orange 

 Blossom Honey," that probably had never seen an 

 orange blossom), some of the poorest and some the 

 best of honey. He could hardly be induced to try to 

 sell more honey. 



The larger number prefer it in bulk to repack to 

 suit themselves. A large number prefer the 60 lb. 

 tins, and barrels of 1 cwt. (112 lbs.), as such packages 

 are in much demand among druggists and small gro- 

 cers. Large barrels, although most economical to 

 the producer, are not so favorably received. 



For shipping abroad, I at present feel most in- 

 clined to use 2 lb. tins, 60 lb. tins, ten gallon (112 lb.) 

 barrels, and perhaps some 25 gal. (300 lb.) barrels; 

 also 1 lb. comb sections, as carrying safest and suit- 

 ing the growing demand for very small packages. 

 Uniformity in size of package is A r ery desirable; it 

 saves the expense and loss of emptying the honey 

 to get the tare, besides a dealer, when a package is 

 named, knows just what is meant; it is just the kind 

 he had before. 



It is economy for the producer to give full weight; 

 if he puts 59 lbs. 14 oz. in a can, when it is weighed 

 in port, it is counted 59 lbs., the owner thus losing 

 14 oz. If he puts in 60 lbs. and 2 oz., it is called 60 

 lbs., the owner losing only 2 oz. 



I was not aware, until I learned it in England, that 

 large quantities of rather good honey are exported 

 from Chili. Who can inform us on bee-keeping in 

 Chili? 



It looks to me that we need one or two good busi- 

 ness men, constantly employed in Europe, to look 

 after the interests of American honey until a ti-ade 

 is built up. It is not the work of a few months. 



San Buenaventura, Cal. R. Wilkin. 



Thanks, friend W., for your excellent . 

 sketches. I do not fear for my plumes, for j 

 I am petting all the credit I deserve, and ^ 

 perhaps more. Mr. Hoge, under the name 

 of John Long, did do very much toward de- 

 i veloping the fdn. business. The "bee-farm- 

 ing" story, sounds as if by a newspaper re- 

 porter. Perhaps like the confiscated cargo 

 of honey, he lacked material, and was a lit- 

 tle unscrupulous. I agree with you exactly 

 in regard to extracting unripened honey, 

 and I fear more from this source than I do 

 from adulteration. I am very glad to see 

 South America developing. We have now 

 one subscriber in San Domingo, and one in 

 Buenos A vies. Who will start a cabinet, 

 containing samples of honey from all these 

 countries friend Wilkin has mentioned, in 

 the different parts of the world? We have 

 had plenty of the thick honey from Italy, 

 with the imported queens, but it was not 

 very good honey to eat. 



