208 



TH:E AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



which are generally darker than the home- 

 bred queens; no doubt Mr. Baldridge 

 would be very well satisfied with my bo- 

 gus imported queen, and there would be 

 no danger of "cutting my own throat." 

 But does Mr. Baldridge think that it 

 would not be cheating him by selling for 

 ten dollars, under false pretense, a queen 

 worth half that price. 



The selling of three-fourths syrup mixed 

 with one-fourth honey, which mixture is 

 worth eight or nine cents, as pure honey, 

 worth fifteen cents, is therefore a dishon- 

 est practice, whatever any American Bal- 

 dridge can say in behalf of it. 



Now another side of the question. For 

 a great many years the American honey 

 dealers have mixed honey with some other 

 sweets. As they need honey for these mixt- 

 ure, they buy early in the season all the 

 honey they need. Let us suppose that a 

 honey dealer buys one hundred thousand 

 pounds of honey ; he mixes it with three 

 hundred thousand pounds of some kind of 

 syrup, molasses or glucose, and makes four 

 hundred thousand pounds. Now these 

 three hundred thousand pounds of created 

 honey come in competition with the pure 

 honey remaining in the hands of the pro- 

 ducers, and hinders or prevents its sale, the 

 more so because the honey dealer has a 

 margin of seven or eight cents per pound 

 to help its sale. 



Thus the honey dealers glut the market. 

 Woe to the poor bee keeper who, after 

 Christmas has some pure honey on hand! 

 he is sure of being a loser; for the profit 

 of the honey adulterers always incite 

 them to produce more than the wants of 

 the country. 



Mr. Baldridge continues his argument- 

 ation, saying that, as the consumers want 

 liquid honey, and as the pure honey will 

 candy, the best friends of the bee-keeper 

 will say that he has sugared his honey. 



How is it that in this country, and in 

 this country only, candied honey is sold as 

 adulterated, and liquid honey is sold as 

 pure'? This belief comes certainly from 

 the honey dealers who have, year after 

 year, infused these erroneous ideas into the 

 minds of American people. Therefore it 

 was not enough for them to sell adulter- 

 ated honey, it was necessary also to ac- 

 cuse the lionest bee-keeper of selling a 

 falsified article. After cheating the con- 

 sumer, they accuse the honest men of 

 cheating. 



Now, adds Mr. B., " no one can proper- 

 ly censure a dealer who caters to the 

 wishes of his patrons, provided he uses 

 nothing that injures their health." Is not 

 such a practice cheating? In France — in 

 immoral France as our friend Dr. Rush 

 would say — if any one is convicted of hav- 

 ing mixed other substances with an article 

 sold as pure, even when these substances 

 are unobnox ions, the product is destroyed, 

 and the adulterator heavily fined. 



I have seen 40 barrels of wine poured 

 in the street gutter because the dealer had 

 mixed with his wine apple juice, sugar 

 and tartaric acid, to inci-ease its quantity ; 

 yet this wine was very good — good for 

 health also. But the fault was, it was sold 

 as pure wine, and the dealer was cheating 

 the public and doing great damage to 

 the wine producers. 



Is not that the case with our honey 

 dealers? I suppose that all the bee- 

 keepers of America, Mr. B. not excepted, 

 will find that the French law is right, for 

 there are not two morals, one for old 

 Europe and another for this side of the 

 Atlantic. 



Let us now examine the question from 

 another stand point. 



Everybody knows that honey is used in 

 medicine for its laxative properties. It is 

 also used for coughs, sore throat, hemor- 

 rhage, etc. Honey is emollient, sugar is 

 tonic. Now all the druggist? who buy 

 their honej^ from the honey dealers, are 

 cheated ; they cheat their customers with- 

 out knowing it, and they endanger their 

 health and their lives by selling a tonic, 

 (sugar syrup), instead of a laxative and 

 emollient (honey), as prescribed by the 

 doctors. 



But who of our honey dealers has ever 

 thought of that? To fill their pockets by 

 satisfying their patrons is not enough! 



Now for the remedy. 



I have seen in Europe, honey from Cuba, 

 from Chili, from Germany, from Italy, 

 from France, all was granulated. I have 

 kept bees in this country for 12 years, and 

 always my honey has granulated. All 

 the bee-keepers of this country acknowl- 

 edge now that all pure honey granulates 

 sooner or later. That of Mr. Baldridge 

 does not always granulate; he could per- 

 haps give us the reason why ; but I do not 

 ask for such a confession. The candying 

 of honey is therefore, as I have said in 

 my first article on this topic, the best test 

 of its purity. Let us all have this fact 

 known everywhere; spread this knowl- 

 edge in all the bee and agricultural 

 papers; let the granger and bee-keeper 

 send circulars at that efl'ect. Yet as this 

 knowledge would be slow in reaching all 

 the consumers, let us all try another 

 means of avenging our honor and of 

 breaking down this dishonest traffic. 



Let every bee-keeper having some ex- 

 tracted honey to sell, make two qualities, 

 one pure at full price, another adulterated 

 (or dealer honey,) at discount. 



We can figure the cost of this article, 

 making it even better than the best dealer 

 honey in the market. 



100 11)8, white engar at 11 cents $11.00 



50 lbs, honey at 13 couts (5-50 



."iO lbs, water 



2U0 lbs. Cost, $17.50 



Or i% cents a pound. 



I figure the honey at 13 cents ; Mr. A. 



