1889 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



663 



MARKETING HONEY AT COMMISSION 

 HOUSES. 



SOME FACTS NOT TO THEIR CREDIT. 



HERETOFORE I have marketed my honey in 

 barrels, 50 gallons each. From year to year 

 1 shipped two or three barrels and managed 

 to retail the remainder at the small towns 

 within 25 or 30 miles of my apiary. Last 

 year everybody who kept bees had honey for sale 

 at about 5 cents per pound. It has been my obser- 

 vation, that box-hive bee-keepers cut out their 

 comb honey, carry it to town, and sell it for what 

 they can get, and pay 35 cents per gallon for black 

 sorghum for their family to eat, that is hardly fit 

 for hogs, and do without during half of the year, 

 unless they raised the sorghum. In that case they 

 have sorghum all the year, provided they can not 

 sell it. I can not hope to have a home market under 

 such circumstances. Last year I extracted 10,000 lbs. 

 of honey, and for the want of a market I left all the 

 supers full of comb honey, which would have 

 amounted to about 4000 lbs. if I had extracted it. 



I made a mistake somehow, and realized less for 

 my honey than some previous years with a much 

 less crop. I have a barrel of my last year's honey 

 on hand yet. I shipped two barrels of honey to 

 D. G. Tutt & Co., of St. Louis, about two or three 

 months ago. It was horsemint honey, and had 

 granulated. It was capped over before I extracted 

 it. I never raised better or sweeter horsemint hon- 

 ey. Tutt & Co. wrote to me, in a few days after 

 shipping it, that it had soured, and that one of the 

 barrels had been burst in transit, and that they sold 

 the remainder at 5?4 cts. per lb. I got $30.00 for the 

 two barrels of honey. If such transactions as that 

 would not burst a bee-keeper from shipping honey, 

 I should like to know what it would take to break 

 him from sucking eggs. 



When I commenced writing I did not think of 

 writing more than an order; but since I have men- 

 tioned carrying over comb honey in supers I will 

 tell you how I lost a good customer a year ago last 

 winter. I carried over 1000 lbs. in supers to the fol- 

 lowing spring. The winter was very cold, the ther- 

 mometer going down to zero one day and night, 

 and my honey granulated in the hive. I always 

 carry over some comb honey in supers to the fol- 

 lowing spring for weak colonies and swarms. I did 

 not use it all for that purpose, and the first two or 

 three barrels of extracted was mixed with granu- 

 lated honey. I thought it the best honey I ever 

 extracted. I liked it better than all-liquid honey. 

 I got an order from Colorado City for a barrel of 

 honey, and it so happened that I shipped one of 

 the barrels mixed with granulated honey. The 

 parties wrote immediately to know what was the 

 matter with it. They said it had granulated. They 

 never saw granulated honey at that season of the 

 year before. I honestly explained, but could not 

 satisfy them, and have not had an order from them 

 since. 



I sent a sample of granulated honey to a friend 

 in Mills County, Texas, last winter. I am not sure 

 that I know what the bees gather it from; but 

 when first extracted it is almost as clear as pure 

 water. The dry granulated is as white as the whit- 

 est sugar (I extract from one to three barrels of 

 that kind every year). He wrote me that the mer- 

 chants said they did not want it; that it was not 

 honey; that they never saw honey as white as that; 



that it was artificial honey, or that I fed my bees on 

 something to produce it. 



In the fall of 1881 1 had five weak colonies that I 

 fed. I have not fed since, except one frame of 

 honey stored by bees. When spring opened in 1883 

 I had two weak colonies, about one pint of bees 

 each. I have at this writing more than 200 colonies. 

 I have extracted over 500 gallons this year. 1 don't 

 know any thing about bad years for bees and honey 

 in Texas. Since my failure in 1881, every year has 

 been good, some better. Texas is a land of honey. 

 God has in a special way blessed it with honey and 

 bees— and with men, too, who love black thick sor- 

 ghum better than honey, and who have been edu- 

 cated to hate the bee. E. Y. Tyrral, 



Co. Judge of Milam Co. 



Cameron, Tex., July 20, 1889. 



Friend T., I am afraid you are a little too 

 severe on our friends Tint & Co. Perhaps 

 they made a mistake in calling the honey 

 sour, instead of having a disposition to 

 cheat. I know there is quite a disposition 

 to suspect bee-men of adulteration and 

 fraud, or of feeding bees something to pro- 

 duce honey ; and when we think of the ti- 

 rade of falsehoods that are constantly being 

 published in this direction, can we really 

 blame them? I do not know what more we 

 can do than to keep on fighting these mis- 

 chievous falsehoods. We want to get stanch 

 men in every community to stand up 

 squarely and steadfastly— men who will not 

 be weary in contradicting and explaining. 

 Personal interviews with the editors, I do 

 believe, is going to be the next work before 

 us. Who will enlist in the work? 



MANUM IN THE APIARY WITH HIS 



MEN. 



VISITING NEW HAVEN APIARY, LET OUT ON 

 SHARES TO H. B. ISHAM. 



u 



OOD-MORNING, Henry, and good-morn- 

 ing, Mrs. Isham." 

 lirT " Why, good-morning, Mr. Manum. I 

 ^^ had nearly made up my mind that you 

 had forsaken us entirely. Just think of it! 

 You have not been here since the first of May. I 

 was telling Henry only yesterday that I believed 

 the loss of your good wife, and the past three poor 

 seasons, had so discouraged you that I feared you 

 were neglecting your business. Well, I am very 

 glad to see you once more." 



"Thank you, Mrs. Isham. But I have been here 

 once since May, though I did not see you. I only 

 called at the apiary a few moments to see Henry 

 and the bees; and as to neglecting business, I nev- 

 er looked after the bees any more closely than I 

 have this season. Why! the three past poor sea- 

 sons have nerved me up to the highest point of am- 

 bition; and I am toiling on with all my might, in 

 the endeavor to regain what I have lost in the past 

 three years in dollars and cents. The loss of my 

 good wife, it is true, has cast a gloom over my 

 home, which loss I can never regain while I remain 

 in the body. But when 1 reach the other shore I 

 expect to regain what I have lost. Although I am 

 not a professing Christian, yet I believe— yea, I 

 Htiow-my wife still lives, and 1 believe it is well 

 with her; and when my work here is done, I too 



