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This department will be devoted to items of 



interest concerning Packing, Selling and 



Shipping Honey and Beeswax. 



How TO Prevent the Adultera- 

 tion OF Honey. — We believe the suc- 

 cessful solution of this problem, to a 

 very considerable extent, lies in the 

 hands of the producers. If we all join 

 in an earnest effort, it will only be a 

 question of a season or two when an 

 end will be put to this nefarious busi- 

 ness. We want through our local 

 papers and personal intercourse to 

 school dealers and consumers in selling 

 and buying candid honey. Ring all the 

 charges of purity, flavor and price. — 

 Packing comb honey into glass jars 

 opens the door for adulteration; now, 

 we want to stop this, and we can 

 effectually, — but we fancy that we 

 hear some dealers sing that same 

 old song that " broken, comb honey 

 must be saved, and this is the only way 

 to do it." Producers will stop sending 

 broken combs, stop shipping piece 

 boxes, extract the honey from all such, 

 and market only those frames, or caps 

 that are well secured all around. Such 

 honey can be transported all right. — 

 Harbison never has any claims against 

 him for broken honey, and he collects 

 his crop from all over San Deigo 

 county, California, sends it to San 

 Francisco where he breaks bulk, and 

 re-ships to New York. It is said his 

 combs are seldom broken. He attri- 

 butes his success to the fact that he 

 never crates frames in which the combs 

 are not well-secured all around, and 

 cells capped. If producers would all do 

 that, their honey would reach consum- 

 ers nice and dry, and dealers would 

 hear no excuse for cutting up the combs 

 and packing them in jars. 



Strained honey sells for 40 and 45 

 cents per gallon in San Domingo and 

 Havana. 



The amount of sugar anni;ally con- 

 sumed in Great Britain is 900,000 tons, 

 being about 60 lbs. for every one of the 

 population. Raw sugar, when import- 

 ed, contains from ,2 to 3 per cent, of 

 impurities. Three tons of stones have 

 been found in a single cargo. A case 

 was lately before the Circuit Court of 

 Glasgow, which showed that arsenic 

 was mixed with sugar. A captain was 

 charged with causing the death of 

 several seamen by serving out putrid 

 pork to them, but, on the sugar being 

 analyzed, it was found to contain suffi- 

 cient arsenic to cause death. This 

 sugar was supplied to the ship at Collao. 

 And still people prefer sugar, and 

 sugar syrup to honey. 



Candied Honey. — The question is 

 so frequently asked, how to prevent 

 honey from candying, and with such 

 seeming desire to possess the secret, 

 that we have determined to gratify the 

 curious, and tell them all about it; but 

 we wish to preface oiu- information 

 with the assurance that we discounte- 

 nance, as disreputable, the adultera- 

 tion of honey in any shape or manner. 

 The candying of honey is caused by 

 the over-saturation of sugar ; by this 

 expression, we mean too little water, 

 and too much sugar. All the scientiflc 

 research and learned discussions on 

 this subject that has ever come under 

 our observation have failed to develop 

 a more simple or rational reason than 

 this, and the same can be said regard- 

 ing the remedy. You first reduce the 

 body to a thin limpid state by adding 

 sufficient water. It is only necessary 

 to warm the honey to thoroughly incor- 

 porate it with the water; it need not be 

 boiled. This makes the body so thin 

 that it is necessarily impossible for it 

 to candy. 



Buyers object to it in this watered 

 state, and in order to retain its body 

 without renewing its liability to con- 

 geal, — some have been adding a suffi- 

 cient quantity of that non-crystalizable 

 substance, known as glucose. Honey 

 thus " processed " will not thicken, but 

 it is certainly not pure. It is claimed, 

 and we have no doubt it is true, that 

 by the aid of this " processing," thous- 

 ands of pounds of comb honey, nice in 

 itself, but stored in such awkward and 

 unsightly surplus receptacles, furn- 

 ished by lazy and improvident bee- 

 keepers, has been sold, that would 

 otherwise have proved a drug. This is 

 an excuse— though only a poor one, 

 for such " doctoring" process. 



Capt. Hetherington has three grades 

 of honey. " C " indicates his vjerfectly 

 filled white combs of clover or linden. — 

 The " B " is his buckwheat, while 

 boxes that are stored with more than 

 one kind of honey are indicated by an 

 " X." Thus far, he has shipped 36,800 

 lbs. of " B;" 10,500 lbs. of " X;" and 7,- 

 250 lbs. of " C;"— 2,271 cases in all ! 



Any questions that may be asked 

 regarding the packing, selling and 

 shipping of honey will oe answered in 

 this department. 



Chas. Parlange, Esq., of Pointe 

 Coupee, La., who works his apiary 

 entirely for extracted honey, has ship- 

 ped Thurber & Co. more than 100 bbls. 

 this season. The bbls are wooden 

 bound, and hold about 50 gallons each. 

 Mr. P. is one of the leading lawyers of 

 his state. 



