1908 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1253 



order boy doesn't ask people if they want any 

 nice new honey, does he? Honey is a specialty, 

 and needs to be pushed, and with the profit you 

 make on it you can afford to push it somewhat. 

 Vou put in several cases of the extracted in tum- 

 blers, half-pint jars, and pints; and if you can't 

 sell it I'll take it off your hands." 



In seven or eight times out of ten I get an or- 

 der, large or small. On the second and third 

 trip my sales are very much increased, and the 

 grocers call me up and give me their orders by 

 phone. When I start in with a grocer who is 

 not interested I get him to talk about bees, bum- 

 ble-bees, and their stinging abilities (this seems 

 to be uppermost in the majority of people's minds), 

 about the flowers bees work on, how queens are 

 raised, and the organization and division of labor 

 in a hive. 



I have read most that Burroughs and Maeter- 

 linck have written on the bee, and one can learn 

 from them the popular way of telling about bees. 

 It is invaluable in selling honey. When you 

 have told a lot of bee experiences you will be 

 known as a honey-man and not as a mere sales- 

 man. 



The two objections most persistently brought 

 up regarding extracted honey are, 1, that bee- 

 keepers feed their bees sugar to get them to make 

 honey, which process causes the honey to candy; 

 2, most of the honey on the market is mixed with 

 glucose, sugar syrup, or just thinned with water, 

 and neither you nor any one else can tell the gen- 

 uine from the adulterated. 



A restaurent manager fired both of these ob- 

 jections at me. He didn't think that I knew 

 pure honey, and he thought the bees these days 

 didn't get a chance to work on the flowers, for 

 the bee-keeper kept stuffing them with sugar or 

 molasses so they would make a great surplus of 

 " fake honey. " He thought we doped the bees 

 with sugar, glucose, and molasses, and then fur- 

 ther adulterated and thinned it after taking it 

 from the bees to enhance our profit. 



Some men are literally steeped in such ideas; 

 and this man, before I left, mixed some honey 

 half and half with water, and, after tasting it, 

 said that would go with his customers as well as 

 the genuine. He didn't know pure honey, and 

 didn't believe but that his customers would not 

 know the difference between half-and-half honey 

 and the thick well-ripened article. 



Fellows of this stamp are shoddy thinkers re- 

 garding others, and are not above shoddy practice 

 to their patrons. The better plan to pursue with 

 a customer of this kind is to push the comb hon- 

 ey and let him go elsewhere if he wants adulter- 

 ated goods or wants to adulterate what he serves 

 on the tables of his restaurant. 



Denver, Col. 



■ ■ ■ « »»»>»•»« ■ . ■ 



HONEY RESOURCES OF NORTHERN 

 MICHIGAN. 



A History of the Conditions Leading up to 

 the Growth of the Wild Red Raspberry; 

 What Constitutes a Raspberry Location? 



BY E. D. TOWNSEND. 



Northern Michigan is the home of the wild 

 red raspberry, the honey from which is so fast 

 forging its way to the front on account of its 



beautiful aroma and exquisite flavor. This part 

 of the State is also noted for its broken landscape, 

 with the unlimited variety of soil, its hills, and 

 its creeks and innumerable lakes. The timber 

 also varies almost as much as the landscape. 

 However, the bee-keeper is most interested in the 

 honey-producing flora and in the location in gen- 

 eral. 



Probably more than half of Northern Michigan 

 was once covered with the white and Norway 

 pine, which has now been nearly all cut off for 

 lumi)er. During the first dry season after the 

 cutting, fire burns over this stump land, and then 

 two or three years later the willow-herb comes to 

 maturity. There was a time when this produc- 

 ed large quantities of very fine honey; but as the 

 pine is now all cut, or nearly so, the prospect is 

 that the willow-herb in Michigan has had its day. 

 After the willow-herb this pine " cut-over " grows 

 up to blackberry brush, and, later, white clover 

 comes in. This white clover, when covered with 

 snow, so that it does not winter-kill, usually pro- 

 duces a fair amount of very fine honey. The 

 blackberry, on the other hand, never produces 

 honey, for the bees rarely notice it. This dis- 

 trict is now being settled and made into farms, 

 and a considerable amount of buckwheat is being 

 sown, which is a very good honey-yielder on the 

 light sandy soil, although it is difficult to find a 

 location where there is enough sown to support 

 a large number of colonies. The little honey 

 that does come from the buckwheat, however, is 

 very welcome. On the lowlands near the creeks, 

 rivers, and lakes, asters, goldenrod, and boneset 

 come during seasons when the rainfall is abundant, 

 and these produce some honey, although many 

 times very sparingly. 



There came a day, finally, when the pine tim- 

 ber was so nearly exhausted that the price of lum- 

 ber soared high, and hard-wood timber became 

 valuable. This was about ten or twelve years 

 ago, and since that time the hard wood of North- 

 ern Michigan has been gradually cut off, and 

 this cut-over is where the celebrated wild-red- rasp- 

 berry honey is produced. Such land does not 

 need to be burned over, and some think it is even 

 better when it is not burned over, maintaining 

 that the bushes are not thrifty when fire has run 

 over the ground. It certainly looks reasonable 

 that the bushes should be more thrifty, for the 

 fire burns off much of the rich loam. To pro- 

 duce honey to the best advantage, the plants 

 should be thrifty, for it seems that, if the growth 

 is stunted, no honey is produced; or, in other 

 words, if there is any thing the matter with the 

 plant, the honey is the first to suffer. There is 

 something to say on the other side of the ques- 

 tion, however; for if the land is not burned over 

 it will soon grow up to underbrush, which 

 smothers the raspberry much sooner than if it is 

 burned over occasionally. It is a disputed point, 

 therefore, whether it is better to get a smaller 

 crop for a longer number of years or to get a 

 larger crop during fewer yers. This hard-wood 

 land burns over in April, before the leaves start 

 to any extent; for when the leaves are grown the 

 shade is so dense that the sun can not penetrate, 

 and there is not much danger of fire running. 

 When the fire goes over the pine cut-over it may 

 run for miles, burning night and day, and it 

 makes a very hot fire which burns the soil badly. 



