American Hee Joarnajj 



sugar in it. On further investigation, 

 it was learned that sugar had been fed 

 the bees in the spring to tide them over 

 till the flowers should yield, and some 

 of it must have been carried up into 

 the extracting combs. That was the 

 only experience the National Biscuit 

 Company ever had with adulterated 

 honey. That certainly speaks volumes 

 for the honesty of honev-producers 

 generally. 



The National Biscuit Company never 

 uses any shipment of honev without 

 hrst submitting a sample to their chem- 

 ist. In the case of a carload of honev, 

 they select and test 10 samples taken 

 from various parts of the car. They 

 will not use any adulterated honey a't 

 all. It must be absolutely pure. 



In their bakings, the light amber 

 honeys seem to hold out best as to re- 

 tained flavors, although alfalfa, sage, 

 and many other kinds of honey are 

 good. They find that even the' best 

 honey-dew honey is quite inferior for 

 their use. Practicallv all the honey 

 that comes from the Hawaiian Islands 

 IS honey-dew. They have had it of- 

 fered to them as low as 3 cents a 

 pound. 



Their bakings which carry the name 

 "honey" at ail, such as "Honey 

 Wafers," etc., contain o>i/v honey as a 

 sweetener. If there is the least bit of 

 any other sweet used in connection 

 with the honey, the word "honey "'is 

 not used in the name under which it is 

 retailed. 



As most of our readers know, we 

 were for some years in the honey-busi- 

 ness, and handled from 3 to 5 ca'rloads 

 a year, bottling the larger part of it. 

 But when we talked with the man who 

 buys 12.J carloads e7;-ry war, we felt 

 that really we had never' been in the 

 honey-business at all. However, we 

 , wouldn't take a good deal for the honey 

 experience we gained in those years 

 when we O-icd to sweeten all Chicago 

 and many other places as well. The 

 only way to learn some things is /o do 

 ll,,;n. Theory is all right, but usually 

 the man who knoics is the one who has 

 been "through the mill" himself. Mr. 

 Iivans IS that kind of a man. We ap- 

 preciated the free and frank manner in 

 which he talked, and we believe our 

 readers will be interested in what we 

 have here briefly given from the con- 

 versation we had with the head of one 

 of the most important departments of 

 the well known National Biscuit Com- 

 pany. 



Clarifying- VVa.v With Acid 



Some object to the use of sulphuric 

 acid at any time for clarifying wa.x, 

 and certainly it should be us'ed only in 

 case of very dark wax, if at all. When 

 used at all, the danger is that too much 

 will be used. O. L. Hershiser thinks a 

 teaspoonful to a gallon of wax should 

 never be exceeded. He says in the 

 Canadian Bee Journal : 



. Supnose you liave a quantity of wax that 

 a IS tk-sjred to treat with acid. Melt the 

 wax in about oiie-qiiarter its volume of clean 

 water. \\ lien hot enouk-li to remain melted 

 without commencini; to coiiueal on the sur- 

 tace for tlie space of about lo minutes, re- 

 move from il.e fire. Provide a rool<ini; 

 spoon with a loni; lianclle and into it pour 

 sulphuric acid in the quantity of not to ex- 

 ceed a halfteaspoonful to a i.'ali<mof wax. 

 1 our the acid from the spoon into the wax 

 without diluting, and at the same time com. 



mence stirring vigorously and keep it up for 

 4 or 5 minutes. When agitation of the wax 

 due to stirring has ceased, if there is any 

 scum on the service, skim it off and set the 

 vesse away to cool. If vou will wrap the 

 vessel containing the wax in papers or cloths 

 or set It in a slightly larger vessel to prevent 

 the rapid radiation of heat, and cover with a 

 lid having a hole one or two inches in diam- 

 eter in the center to cause it to cool more 

 rapidly at that point it will be more likely to 

 cool in a solid cake. 



Diluting the acid with water before intro- 

 ducing into the wax has been tried, but the 

 results were unsatisfactory: the desired 

 eftect in bringing out the yellow color was 

 not obtained. 



A Pet Bear that Likes Houey 



While I was at Grand Island, Nebr., 

 I saw a pet bear and gave it some 

 honey, and it was so an.xious to get it, 

 it would whine and reach for it, and 

 growl, etc. So I got a photographer to 

 take a snap-shot as he was pulling the 

 owner's arm down to take some from 



Bear Whining for Honev. 



his fingers. It is a rather poor picture, 

 but it shows him while I was watching 

 his actions, and listening to his roar- 

 ing whine for the honey. 

 Salix, Iowa. Thos. Chantry. 



Michigan Bee-Keepers 



These people certainly are hustlers. 

 Recently they have been making a 

 "Whirl-Wind Campaign for New Mem- 

 bers." They issued a large -1-page cir- 

 cular giving a little history of what the 

 Michigan State Bee-Keepers' Associa- 

 tion is trying to do for its members. 

 Secretary E. B. Tyrrell, of 230 Wood- 

 land Aye., Detroit, is a wide-awake 

 officer, who is leading in the effort to 

 build up the largest, and the strongest, 

 and the most helpful State bee-keepers' 

 association in this country. Its dues 

 are $1.00 a year, and if 50 cents more is 

 added (making $l..Ml) anv bee-keeper 

 will become a member of the National 

 as well as the Michigan Association. 



For 6 years the Michigan Bee-Keep- 

 ers' Association has published a book- 

 let giving the names and addresses of 

 its members, and stating the kind of 

 honey they had for sale. This booklet 

 has been the means of selling tons of 

 honey for the membership, and finding 



Mav, 1910. 



)>^^^i* 1 



many new markets. It seems to be 

 working out the practical solution of 

 the marketing problem, and has met 

 with gratifying results so far. 



Keep an eye on that Michigan Asso- 

 ciation, and those hustling "Michigan- 

 ders." They know how to do things. 



Bees in Switzerland and Russia 



The following paragraphs are taken 

 from the Daily Consular and Trade Re- 

 ports for Feb. 28, 1910. Mr. Frank Ben- 

 ton edits these reports — in fact, dresses 

 them up a good deal from their origi- 

 nal "amateurish" form. For more 

 than a year he has been editing consu- 

 lar reports. Here is what was recently 

 reported from Switzerland and from 

 Russia, relating to bee-keeping : 



Utilizing Bee-Pasturage of Mountain 

 Areas in Switzerland. 



Consul-General R. E. Mansfield, of Zurich. 

 writes interestingly of the development 

 which the cultivation ot bees has reached in 

 the mountain republic of central Europe. 

 He says; 



Much of the 16,000 square miles of territory 

 comprising Switzerland is so mountainous 

 and stony that when available for any pur- 

 pose it can only be for the pasturage of ani- 

 mals. Yet. so carefully are all of the natural 

 resources conserved and exploited that the 

 country is one of the most prosperous in the 

 world, and the Swiss people are as contented 

 as they are industrious and frugal. 



An attractive feature of every Swiss land- 

 scape in spring and summer is the beauty 

 and variety of wild flowers growing in pro- 

 fusion on hillsides and lower mountain 

 ranges, while the valleys resemble beauti- 

 ful mosaics in the rich and varied tints of 

 flowers that cluster in the greensward. This 

 wealth of blossom, in addition to beautifying 

 the landscape, is turned by the thrifty Swiss 

 into profit. The flora of Switzerland pos- 

 sesses qualities that produce delicious 

 honey and thousands of colonies of bees 

 may be seen in the country, being utilized 

 by the people to increase the food-supply 

 and commercial products; in fact, the pro- 

 duction of honey and wax constitutes an in- 

 dustry of considerable importance to the 

 Confederation, as is shown by statistics 

 furnished by the Swiss Society of Apicul- 

 turists. 



It is estimated that there are 250.000 colo- 

 nies of bees in the country, each of which 

 produces 40 pounds of honey during the sea- 

 son, a total of 10,000,000 pounds a year. The 

 average price of Swiss honey for the year 

 loog. was 25 cents per pound, giving the year's 

 product a total value of S2. 500.000. The sta- 

 tistics furnished by the Society of Apicul- 

 turists show that the highest average pro- 

 duction for 1000 was in the Canton of Lu- 

 cerne, where 8000 colonies of bees produced 

 424.000 pounds of honey, an average of 53 

 pounds to the colony. The next highest 

 average. 42 pounds, was in the Canton of 

 Berne, where 0600 colonies produced 403.200 

 pounds of honey. The territory comprising 

 the Cantons of Lucerne and Berne is rich in 

 the flora especially suited to honey-produc- 

 tion. 



The honey crop of Switzerland, valued at 

 $2. 500.000, is largely profit to those engaged in 

 the industry, nature producing the raw ma- 

 terial. 



Bee-Industry Reviving Under Modern 

 Methods in Rt'ssiA. 



Consul ,lohn H. Grout, of Odessa, writes 

 as follows of the coiuiitions under which the 

 production of wax and honey are found to 

 be profitable in the southern part of the 

 Russian Empire: 



•Apicnlture has for many centuries played 

 an important part in Russia. When sugar 

 was an imported article, and its price as 

 compared with other articles of food iiiled 

 high, being sometimes even more than ten- 

 fold that of fresh beef, honey, the only nat- 

 ural sweet of local i>roiuiction, was of mucli 

 importance, and nearl>' every large house- 

 hold had its own apiai'>-, and honey seems 

 to have been generally plentiful. It was 

 even an article of export, and still more so 

 beeswax, which the people in those days 

 had not learned to adulterate nor found sub- 

 stitutes for. 



With the advent of cheap and good sugar 

 less attention was given to oee-culture, and 



