494 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL.. 



L:;ij!i:*t^:*.tj( >V >tx xV >i<c >t/. >V. >^x >V, >!< >!<. >i^ >t/^ >V. j^ >te >te >«te >fa xtx xv xv xtx xv jj 

 THE HONBY SBASOX OF I894-H01VEY-DE1JV. 



BY G. W. DEMAREE. 



I believe I have written something under head lines similar to the above each 

 year for several years past. We have not had a good honey year since 1891 ; since 

 then the honey-yield has graded downw^ard to no good at all this year. We have 

 reached the bottom, surely, for there is no vision beyond. If I have seen a drop of 

 honey in the season of 1894, up to Sept. 19th, I was unable to recognize it. Since 

 the latter date, our bees have been gathering honey slowly from golden-rod and 

 white aster. The best colonies may get winter stores yet. 



How have our bees lived? Well, we had a visitation of "honey-dew" in the 

 month of June, amounting to " surplus " — the like of which has not been seen here 

 during my career as a bee-keeper. It was the salvation of the bees, though some 

 have starved in the long dearth that followed. I took with the extractor five or six 

 hundred pounds of " honey-dew," and it is a curiosity in the way of a natural pro- 

 duct. Perhaps the bees "made (?) it," according to the "wise men" of the West ! 



I have been a close observer of "honey-dew" for a long time, and I have found 

 that this product varies more in quality — if that term can be properly applied to an 

 article that has no recognized standard as a point to judge from — than any other 

 natural product that. has come under my observation. It may safely be said that 

 honey-dew grades all the way from " filth" to the threshold of pure honey. But the 

 characteristics that never forsake " honey-dew" are " stickiness" and the total 

 absence of cane-sugar. No product wholly composed of the substance ingeniously 

 called " honey-dew," will granulate like pure honey ; but a mixture of pure honey 

 with it, will show granulation in cold weather, therefore the only sure test of honey- 

 dew is "stickiness." By this characteristic it maybe known from true nectar 

 (honey) by any close observer. It's "sticky" texture, like "stick 'em fast," is so 

 well marked that no person need mistake honey-dew for honey. 



It is sometimes asked if it is proper to sell honey-dew. This must depend upon 

 its quality. Some of it is a good, wholesome sweet — long experience has proven 

 this. I sell it when it is good, telling my customers just what it is. It is one thing 

 to be honest, and another to escape censure. I prefer the former. 



Severe Drouth. — The rainfall here has been so uncertain and local and disap- 

 pointingly light all the season, attended with high temperature, that everything has 

 assumed the dread appearance of extended drouth. Notwithstanding, our staple 

 crops, wheat, corn, oats, tobacco and hemp, are fairly good. But our pasture lands 

 have suffered for moisture, and this includes bee-forage. 



It would be interesting to have short reports from the localities where honey- 



