144 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 15 



even co-operation, for one capitalist can run 

 it as his own private affair. 



I was going to say something severe about 

 some editors of bee-journals and their ob- 

 scure vision about a larger bee-keeping; 

 but perhaps the editors are all right. The 

 time is not just ripe for such things. 



Well, the Rambler is now in Cuba. 

 Some of us have had an idea that it is a 

 larger honey country ; but even Cuba has 

 its undesirable features. I will soon en- 

 deavor to give you an impartial glimpse of 

 bee-keeping here. 



Havana, Cuba, Jan. 27. 



EXAGGERATED HONEY REPORTS. 



The Editor's Position Indorsed ; Nominations ; the 

 Black=Brood Situation in New York. 



BY P. H. EL WOOD. 



Friend Root:— I have been wanting to 

 write you for some time to compliment you 

 on your famous editorial on that infamous 

 attempt to bulldoze the bee-keepers of the 

 United States into the belief that a large 

 crop of honey had been secured the past 

 season. I heartily indorse all you have said 

 in condemnation. After two years of crop 

 failure, the attempt to wrest from the bee- 

 keeper the slight advantage he possessed in 

 bare markets, moderate yield, etc., was in- 

 deed infamous. The animus of their at- 

 tack you unveiled so perfectly that it leaves 

 them in an undesirable but well-merited 

 position. They do not want the truth 

 known. A few years ago, when an honest 

 intelligent effort was made under the di- 

 rection of Mr. Knickerbocker to gather sta- 

 tistics of each honey crop in time for pro- 

 ducers' use, this same class of people wei-e 

 for ever howling about the unreliability of 

 our reports. Their efforts with our mem- 

 bers were kept up until the reports were 

 discontinued. I think the time is now ripe 

 to make another effort to obtain honey-crop 

 statistics, and I have felt for a long time 

 that the government ought to engraft them 

 into its crop reports. Our product is of 

 sufficient importance to warrant it, and we 

 are well organized into a National Associa- 

 tion. Our able manager, Mr. Secor, is 

 well qualified to work this through, and 

 we could not expend a part or even the 

 whole of the money in our treasury to better 

 advantage. We must make a united effort 

 to maintain living prices. 



In regard to making nominations for Di- 

 rectors before election, why not let well 

 enough ailone? Our Association is doing 

 wellfbut as soon as nominations are made 

 there will arise the suspicion that some one 

 or some clique is trying to run it. Better 

 put up with some minor evils or inconven- 

 iences than to have our camp divided. The 

 black-brood disease seems to have let up 

 somewhat the past season; but whether 

 from the extra honey- flow or whether in the 

 microbic warfare the death-dealing mi- 

 crobes have met a new enemy we can not 



tell. New York is well policed for this dis- 

 ease; but the original investigations, com- 

 menced so auspiciously under Dr. Howard, 

 have been discontinued on account of a lack 

 of funds. A more short-sighted, parsimo- 

 nious, and unjust policy can not be imagin- 

 ed. We do not know how it spreads; but 

 thepopular idea is that it is carried in infect- 

 ed honey. A j'ear ago last fall one of the best 

 bee-keepers in this or any other State fed a 

 lot of diseased colonies on honey taken from 

 diseased colonies broken up. A lot of 

 brood was raised in each hive, without a 

 trace of disease, so stated by N. D. West, 

 State Inspector, and others. It may be a 

 kind of 3-ellow fever among the bees, carried 

 bj' a new kind of mosquito or some other in- 

 sect. Some of our neighbors saw the dis- 

 ease among the bees on exhibition at the 

 Pan-American. I had not supposed it had 

 got so far west. 



Starkville, N. Y., Dec. 27. 



A PLEA FOR CANDIED HONEY. 



Are we Making a Mistake in Putting Out so Much 

 Extracted Honey in Liquid Form ? 



BY S. T. PETTIT. 



I am painfully convinced that some of us 

 are making a mistake in saying so much 

 about putting liquid honej' upon the mar- 

 kets. I fear the practice, for two reasons, 

 has a tendency to a temptation, with some, 

 to allow a little adulteration to slip in, an(i 

 more as the years go by. And then the 

 practice means quite an additional cost to 

 the consumer, which will react prejudicial- 

 ly upon our small profits. 



If we all would follow the simple easy 

 way of allowing the honey to candy, as na- 

 ture intended it to do, nearly everybody 

 would, after a certain amount of education, 

 prefer it candied, and that would save a 

 world of trouble and expense. A few days 

 ago a neighbor asked me, "Can I get 

 another ten pounds of your dark fall hon- 

 ey? " I said, "Yes. Do you want it 

 liquefied?" The answer was a decided: 

 " Oh, nol we like it better solid. It doesn't 

 have any strong taste when it is candied." 



Mr. John Yoder, of Springfield, Ont., 

 while visiting us j'esterday, told me of fill- 

 ing an order for a pail of honey not long 

 ago. He took a pail of liquid honey, and 

 the lady said, " Oh! we don't want it that 

 way. We like it hard;" so of course he 

 took her a pail of candied honey. 



I mention just these two instances of 

 many to show the opportunity we are neg- 

 lecting to our hurt. 



Years ago, when I was younger, and 

 liked to canvass for the sale of honey, and 

 when I enjoyed delivering my own sweet 

 product, some of my city dealers did a large 

 business in selling candied honej'. I would 

 furnish it in 40-lb. covered pails, made for 

 the purpose, and the dealer would cut it 

 out and sell it in the same manner that tub 

 butter and lard are sold. Indeed, some- 

 times early in the season I would hurry up 



