284 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 1 



factories, and none of the three or any oth- 

 ers there would use beet sujijar with their 

 fruit for canning-, and it seems to me this is 

 a rule everywhere. It is so in condensed- 

 milk factories. The mjinag^er of the New 

 York Condensed :ailk Co. (Gail Borden), 

 an old friend of mine, told me that his com- 

 pany would use only the best cane sugar. 

 They never would use beet sug^ar. It is the 

 same in Europe, where beet sug^ar is king-. 

 Thej^ won't use it in milk. This is what 

 Fleichmann, the very liighest authorit}' in 

 the world on milk, has to say: "The expe- 

 rience which has been acquired up till the 

 present time in the preparation of condens- 

 ed milk points to the fact that the fresh milk 

 should be previously warmed with 12 to 13 

 per cent of cane sug-ar — beet sugar has 

 proved itself unsuitable." The italics are 

 mine. Coming- from one of Germany's most 

 celebrated scientists, from a country where 

 beet sugar this is supreme, is very important 

 testimonj'; and from Germany, Switzerland, 

 France, and Great Britain, beet-sug-ar-con- 

 suming countries, has come nearly all the 

 testimony that beet sugar has proved itself 

 unsuitable as a bee food. Nay, more; the 

 bee-keepers of Europe look to the West In- 

 dies and the East for their sugar supply, 

 using it just as it is sent. It is not "raw" 

 sugar, as Mr. Gilmore supposes. I am 

 so isolated that I am obliged to rely wholly 

 on my own library for references, but I 

 think I have done enough, and rest my case, 

 as the lawyers say. W. K. Morrison. 



[After I had received the articles from the 

 two gentlemen referred to, one came from 

 J. M. Rankin, of the Michigan Experiment 

 Station, who had not seen any of the arti- 

 cles except Mr. Morrison's first one, lead- 

 ing up to this discussion. He seems to sup- 

 port the opinion of Mr. Gilmore, the beet- 

 sugar expert at the Pan-American exposi- 

 tion. Mr. Rankin writes:] 



BEET vs. CANE SUGAR AS A BEE-FOOD. 



It seems a useless waste of space to dis- 

 cuss beet and cane sugar at this late date. 



" If it were done when 't is done. 

 Then 't were well if it were done quickly;" 



that is, if writing this article would con- 

 vince our skeptical brethren then I would 

 feel that I was really doing a lasting good 

 to the bee-keeping public. Many able ar- 

 ticles have preceded this one on the subject, 

 and the chemical side of the question has 

 been discussed in a former issue of this 

 journal so much more ably than I could 

 possibly handle it that I will refrain from 

 touching the chemical side of the question, 

 and will give the reader an account of some 

 actual experiments along this line. 



Early in the history of the Michigan Su- 

 gar Co., whose factory is located at Bay 

 City, and was the first factory built in 

 Michigan, the chemist of our Experiment 

 Station requested me to test the product of 

 this factory as a bee-feed. I wrote to the 

 Michigan company, and procured a sack of 

 100 pounds of what I knew to be beet sugar. 

 It came direct from the factory, and in a 



sack on which was printed the trademark 

 of the Michigan Sugar Company. (I send 

 herewith a sample of this same sack of su- 

 gar to the editor. ) 



October 10, 1899, the brood-chambers of 

 five colonies of bees in the apiary of the 

 Experiment Station were extracted clean, 

 and syrup made from this beet sugar was 

 fed. October l.S, five days later, five more 

 colonies were extracted clean, and fed on 

 syrup made from sugar that was known to 

 be the product of sugar cane. No honey 

 was gathered after this date, and the ten 

 colonies under experiment went into winter 

 quarters as nearly of equal strength as it 

 would have been possible to select them. 

 The bees were wintered on summer stands, 

 packed in chaff. All ten colonies came 

 through the winter in prime condition, and 

 no preference could be noticed for either 

 feed. In fact, I thought not enough of the 

 experiment to publish it in full, as there 

 seemed to be no case against the beet su- 

 gar, and I had no idea that such a dispute 

 would ever come up as has taken place in 

 the journals within the last year. I mere- 

 ly mentioned, in the Report of the State 

 Board of Agriculture of Michigan for 1900, 

 page 91, that such an experiment had been 

 carried out. 



The following year some beet sugar was 

 offered for sale that had about it a peculiar 

 odor. It looked like any other sugar; but 

 when kept sealed in a glass jar for a few 

 weeks, upon opening the jar an odor was 

 detected. Syrups were made from this su- 

 gar, and placed in open dishes in the tops 

 of some four or five colonies of bees. Each 

 dish was placed beside a dish of cane-su- 

 gar syrup. The dishes were all exactly 

 alike, and in each was placed one pound of 

 the mixture. In every case the bees emptied 

 the dish containing the syrup made from 

 the sugar with the odor before scarcely be- 

 ginning on the dishes containing the cane 

 sugar. Two colonies were wintered on this 

 sugar, and came through the winter in per- 

 fect condition. 



What is beet sugar? Is it some new prod- 

 uct of the last few years which was entirely 

 unknown before? Let me qtiote a few sta- 

 tistics from A. Boucherau's Statement of 

 Sugar Crop. The following shows the per- 

 centage of cane sugar that has gone to make 

 up the world's sugar supply: 



Does it seem reasonable-(I leave it to the 

 reader) to think that, during all these years, 

 we have been using cane sugar entirely? 

 It will be noticed by examining the above 

 table that, since 1875, nearly half the su- 

 sar consumed in the world was made from 

 beets. 



In conclusion, let me quote from a man 

 whose name is dear to every farmer in Mich- 

 igan, and honored by the college men the 

 world over — Dr. R. C. Kedzie, the veteran 

 Experiment Station Chemist of America. 



