1873.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



77 



[Translated from Die Biene.] 



Surrogate. 



To avoid further questioning and answering 

 I give herewith the method of preparing a bee- 

 food which, as a honey-surrogate, leaves little 

 further to be desired, and which has for many 

 years done me most excellent service. I pur- 

 chase the honey in vessels containing about one 

 hundred pounds of inferior quality, called food- 

 honey; that is, honey and comb crushed 

 together and sold at a low price ; this pound, 

 however, can be costlier to me than if I had 

 purchased the finest honey out ot Rhenish-Hesse. 

 The sediments of this hodge-podge makes up 

 two thirds of the entire weight. Honey of the 

 secondary quality, drained from the combs but 

 mixed with bee-bread, is too dear to be pur- 

 chased for bee food, especially when a far better 

 article can be procured at a much cheaper price. 

 For some years back, I annually procure of this 

 substitute not under one hundred pounds with 

 which to winter my ten or twelve stocks, to 

 which number I shrink my apiary every fall 

 since I have removed to Auerback. 



Uniting sugar and water in the proportion of 

 nine peunds of the former to five pounds of the 

 latter, they are heated to the boiling point. 

 After boiling a few minutes, skim off the foam 

 and impurities, remove it from the fire and 

 allow it to cool, and you will have — when you 

 have used loaf-sugar or candy — without further 

 trouble, a syrup which will retain its individu- 

 ality a year and a day, and be in no danger of 

 crystallizing. I have heretofore used the loaf- 

 sugar, because it was one-fifth cheaper than 

 pure candy; yet candy is, without doubt, just 

 as useful, I having received many communica- 

 tions testifying to the fact, that after being 

 dissolved and boiled in water it will not 

 crystallize in the cells, but be kept jDure in 

 them until spring. Perhaps candy owes its 

 excellence to its honey-like taste. 



Winter food, costing by the pound thirteen 

 kreuzers, is already much cheaper than honey 

 would be ; it can, however, be prepared in a 

 still cheaper manner, by substituting for one- 

 half of the candy, potato-sugar. I formerly 

 used only one-third candy and two-thirds 

 potato-sugar, but this latter is very apt to 

 crystallize, and as an increase of the candy 

 tends to diminish this tendency to crystallize, I 

 now use half-and-half We then have — 



A% lbs. candy@20 kr. - - Ifl. 30kr. 

 4J^ lbs. potato-sugar® lOkr. - - 45kr. 



5 lbs. water .... 



14 ft)s food for - ■ - - 2fl. 15kr. 

 or one pound for - - - 9^kr. 



Did not sulphuric acid play too great a part 

 in making potato-sugar, there would be no 



trouble in the union of these two species of 

 sugar; but there is almost always a surplus of 

 the acid remaining in this sugar, and in order 

 to have a harmless food this sulphuric acid 

 must be removed. So much progress has 

 already been made in the manufacture of this 

 species of sugar, that but the one-thousandth 

 part of the sulphuric acid now remains ; but as 

 one is never safe in trusting the absence of this 

 acid, it is always best to do all that one can to 

 free the sugar. This is done with unslacked 

 lime, which is slacked and lime-water prepared 

 therefrom A few teaspoonsful of this lime- 

 water poured into the solution of the sugar and 

 water, will unite with any free sulphuric acid 

 the solution may contain, forming sulphate of 

 lime, which sinks to the bottom of the vessel. 

 When the dissolved sugar is on the stove, about 

 to boil, dip into it a piece of blue litmus paper, 

 and if any acid is present the paper will turn 

 red; pour in two teaspoonsful of the lime- 

 water, scattering it as mucli as possible over 

 the solution, and after the lapse of about one 

 minute try the litmus paper again, and if you 

 find it again becoming red, pour in another 

 teaspoonful of lime-water and try the litmus 

 paper again. Should it still show signs of acid, 

 put in another half teaspf)onful of lime-water, 

 and so on until you remove all traces of the 

 acid. After this the impurities rising to the 

 surface should be skimmed off and the vessel 

 removed from the fire, and allowed to rest for 

 24 or 48 hours, and then be carefully drained 

 off into another vessel, taking care that the 

 sediment is not disturbed. Is it desirable to 

 improve the syrup by adding some loaf-sugar, 

 it should be added in proportion of nine pounds 

 of sugar to five pounds of water, and the whole 

 allowed to come to a boil and boil for a short 

 time. 



The syrup thus prepared will have a disposi- 

 tion to crystallize, especially if it be well secured 

 from the air. If it is desired that the bees 

 should winter on this preparation, it should be 

 given to them early in the season so that they 

 could store it in their cells and seal it up. In 

 covered cells it has never become solid for me, 

 but often in unsealed cells it has become crvs- 

 tallized in irregular masses. The more candy 

 or loaf-sugar there is in the food the less the 

 danger of crystallizing. The high price of 

 honey, and even of sugar, especially the more 

 refined grades, compels us to abandon the use 

 of honey either wholly or in part as a winter 

 food, and seek some such substitute as I have 

 mentioned. * * * * ^g the 



bees have done badly in 1872, in many locali- 

 ties, many bee-keepers may be glad to come 

 into the possession of the mode of preparing so 

 useful a syrup, and will find it better for feeding 

 purposes than highly priced honey. 



E. Klipsteen. 



Auerbach, January 9, 1873. 



