.NOVEMBER 1. 1912 



marked that it was city honey, for out in 

 Indiana where he lived lioney was much 

 lighter. He meant, of course, that my hon- 

 ey was adulterated. The fact is, that those 

 local customers I had liked the flavor so 

 well that it was hard to convince them the 

 next season (when most of our honey was 

 white and sweet clover) that the latter was 

 just as good a honey as the former. 



We all know that sage honey is as white 

 as any honey on the market. A fellow 

 beekeeper bought several 60-pound cans the 

 year 1 had the catnip. He and I traded 

 for our own use. He pronounced the cat- 

 nip honey ^'par excellence." The sage hon- 

 ey was given to one of our neighbors to 

 test. She claimed she liked the catnip 

 (dark) flavor better. To me all honey is 

 alike, provided it is well ripened by the 

 bees. A thick, rich honey sparkling as the 

 morning dew is good enough for any one 

 regardless of color. 



I have never heard a foreigner designate 

 honey by color; the flavor is what he men- 

 tions. Who will say that our Germans, 

 Englishmen, Scotchmen, and especially our 

 Hungarians (the last named are great 

 honey consumers) don't know good honey? 

 People will buy New Orleans molasses 

 (which is almost as black as coal) only for 

 the flavor. Maple syrup is amber color, and 

 yet who will claim that flavor is not the in- 

 centive"? Beekeepers have spoiled their own 

 game by advocating color for quality. 



Sugar, before we had the present re- 

 fining process, was yellow, rich in saccha- 

 rine juices, the very essence of sw^eetness, 

 but is now white as snow, the best qualities 

 taken out of it. Flour ground in the olden 

 days was amber colored, now white as the 

 miller can make it by taking the gluten, the 

 very elixir of life, out of it. A few years 

 ago I had the good fortune to work with 

 an old experienced chemist. One day he 

 was asked by a catsup manufacturer if he 

 could devise a process to eliminate fermen- 

 tation. He experimented, with the result 

 that he must take out the ingredients that 

 compose the color of the tomato — as he 

 afterward remarked to me, "The very life 

 of the catsup." If this chemist should take 

 the color out of our dark and amber honey 

 I doubt if there would be much sweetness 

 left. It can be determined only by chemical 

 analysis whether light honey is as rich in 

 sweetness as the darker qualities. 



Now what I wish to propound is this: 

 That the consuming public should be edu- 

 cated to prefer flavor to color, thereby 

 setting the darker honeys at no disadvan- 

 tage to the lighter, and incidentally secur- 

 ing a uniform price to beekeepers in gen- 



eral. Beekeepers should also understand 

 that they have no right to ripen honey 

 artificially. Let the bees do this; they 

 are the only ones nature designed for this 

 work. 



Cincinnati, 0. 



[It depends largely u]3on what the cus- 

 tomer is used to. For instance, if the hon- 

 ey "we used to get on the farm" was dark, 

 then the darker grades are usually prefer- 

 red. On the other hand, if it was light, 

 then the darker grades are not liked as 

 well. Probably the majority of consumers, 

 taking the country over, prefer the milder 

 honey which does not have such a strong 

 flavor as most dark honey has, and yet is 

 just as sweet. We believe our correspon- 

 dent is right in believing that the color 

 should be a minor consideration compared 

 to the taste. — Ed.] 



HOW LOCALITY AFFECTS THE QUESTION OF 

 THE CHOICE OF HIVE 



BY C. A. STEVENS 



I have been a reader of Gleanings off 

 and on for many years, and have been very 

 much amused at the persistency of many 

 of its regular correspondents in the way 

 they put forth their pet hobbies, almost 

 forcing one to believe their method the 

 right and only one. The latest, that of 

 Mr. A. C, Miller, was the best, the way he 

 came back at the Ontario correspondent. 



When I started out to become a bee- 

 keeper, my father-in-law, Thomas Valiquet, 

 one of the most advanced beekeepers of 

 the Province of Quebec in the 60's and 

 70's, gave me five colonies of bees (Ital- 

 ians) in Quinby hives, saying that was 

 the best hive yet put out for the Province 

 of Quebec, and that, if I hung to it, and to 

 Italian bees, I would get along all right. 

 For some years I did get along, and had 

 a fine ajoiary. Moving to Texas in 1882 

 I could not get Quinby hives there; and 

 as the Langstroth hives were being advo- 

 cated I changed to that type. So long as 

 I remained in Texas I got along all right; 

 but on returning to Quebec, when I put 

 away 38 colonies the first fall, I lost them 

 all. ' 



My next trial was with the "Jumbo," 

 as this was the nearest I could get to Quin- 

 by hives, and I built up a fine apiary 

 again. Then came the Danzenbaker hive. 

 This caught my fancy again, and I bought 

 a lot of them, transferring and cutting my 

 Jumbos down to the Danzenbaker depth. 

 The first year I put 30 cloonies into win- 

 ter quarters in good shape, well stocked 



