230 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Tune 



were served to me, I should go with- 

 out eating honey. 



It seems quite an obvious thing 

 that, if we are to get the public to 

 eat candied honey, we must serve it 

 to them in a form which is palatable 

 • to the average person. There are 

 some people who do not differentiate 

 in such matters, but this is not true 

 of the majority. We must serve the 

 majority. Consider our present day 

 confections. Is there one form of 

 confection more universally popular 

 than the chocolate cream? Unless one 

 dislikes chocolate, there is scarcely a 

 person who does not love a chocolate 

 cream. The reason is simple. The 

 smooth, velvety interior of the choco- 

 late drop melts down upon the tongue 

 in a most satisfying manner. It does 

 not separate into a lot of granules to 

 suggest sand to the tongue, as does 

 coarsely granulated honey. 



You see the lesson taught. We 

 must make the candied honey take the 

 consistency of the fondant of the con- 

 fection. Once let the public into the 

 secret of honey candied to the vel- 

 vety smoothness of a high-grade choc- 

 olate cream, and our campaign is won. 

 To turn the trick is the next thing. 

 Can we control the candying of our 

 honey? Can we, at will, make it turn 

 out smooth rather than coarsely 

 grained? I wish that I could surely 

 answer yes to this, but fear that some 

 difficulties lie here, which only time 

 and study can possibly remove, if at 

 all. Some honeys will not candy at 

 all, other honeys will candy very 

 quickly; some tend to candy in coarse 

 grains while others take a fine texture 

 when granulation occurs. Two things, 

 however, help greatly in producing a 

 fine grained honey. These two things 

 are density and agitation. _ 



No honey which is extracted while 

 insufficiently ripened will take a good 

 grain when candied. We have herein 

 another sound reason for extracting 

 honey only after it is well ripened. 

 Green honey is one of the worst ene- 

 mies of the extracted-honey producer. 

 Well ripened honey, if it will candy 

 at all, can readily be made to take a 

 smooth, velvety consistency upon 

 granulation. 



I have for some years sold candied 

 honey as honey butter. I never have 

 made a special matter of selling my 

 honey this way, for the simple reason 

 that some seasons I cannot get my 

 honey to granulate. My main crop is 

 from sumac, and this variety of honey 

 will sometimes not granulate for 

 years. It will get gummy, but will 

 not grain. But if clover yields, and if 

 I get some fall honey, I can blend 

 these three and get an exceedingly 

 fine article. The conditions this past 

 season were favorable, the product 

 being about 40 per cent clover, 50 per 

 cent sumac and 10 per cent golden- 

 rod. I might say here that the golden- 

 rod honey in my locality is the same 

 color as clover honey. Upon the ar- 

 rival of cold weather a blend of these 

 three honeys can be made to take the 

 form of butter in a few 'days. Daily 

 agitation is desirable. The honeys 

 are put into a barrel and the contents 

 stirred a little every day. Much 

 Stirring is not essential, simply a dis- 



turbance of the centers of crystalliza- 

 tion. 



I wished to make a specialty of 

 my honey butter this winter and pre- 

 pared about a ton. I filled nearly 

 2,000 pound cartons of the waxed 

 variety with the butter when it was 

 nearly ready to become hard. My 

 daughter is an artist, and she pre- 

 pared for me a carton or poster, and 

 some lettered borders for a window 

 display. A photograph of this win- 

 dow display is seen on the front cover 

 of this magazine. Coincident with 

 starting this window display in one of 

 the central grocery stores of Nor- 

 wich, I put several little advertise- 

 ments in the morning paper. The day 

 before these advertisements appeared 

 I went about to all the stores which 

 might handle the goods, grocery 

 stores, drug stores, delicatessen 

 stores, etc., and offered to place the 

 honey in the stores at my risk. I 

 placed the honey in about 22 stores. 



The sales exceeded expectations. I 

 had to renew the stock in some of 

 the stores early the following week. 

 The sal^s were not transient, either, 

 but have kept right up. My stock is 

 nearly exhausted. A large number 

 of people have become acquainted 

 with honey in this form, and have 

 fallen in love with it. "Simply de- 

 licious," "Mighty good," and similar 

 expressions, are very common. I 

 clearly foresee that another season 

 will bring a great demand for honey 

 in this form. 



We all recognize the desirability of 

 disposing of our extracted honey in 

 the candied state. I wish this article 

 to be an entering wedge to lift ex- 

 tracted honey to a higher plane. We 

 must see to it that our product meets 

 the demands of the people of keen 

 tastes, and sensitive palates. Coarse, 

 sandy honey will never become popu- 

 lar, whereas the finely grained prod- 

 uct speaks for itself and creates popu- 

 larity unaided. 



Connecticut. 



Allen Laiham, of Connecticut; 



A TRiP THROUGH SPAIN 



Our readers are already acquainted 

 with Mr. Baldensperger. But it is as 

 well to remind them that this eminent 

 apiarist was born in Alsace, lived for 

 a number of years in the United 

 States, then went to Palestine, where 

 he married an American girl and 

 lived for many years. His home is 

 now on the Riviera, at Nice. He has 

 traveled a great deal in Asia and 

 Africa and is herewith giving an ac- 

 count of a trip taken from France, 

 through Spain, to Algeria. Mr. Bal- 

 densperger has kept bees in all sorts 

 of ways, in diflFerent countries. 



Oran, Algeria, March 1, 1921. 

 Dear Mr. Dadant: I have just 

 crossed over from Spain and have had 

 a look at Spanish beekeeping; I don't 

 mean the few establishments of 

 movable-frame apiaries which are 

 kept in the province of Barcelona 

 and near Madrid; for it was too cold 

 there in February to look in the hives. 

 But I rushed to the South, Cordoba, 

 Sevilla, Granada, Malaga. Granada 

 mostly attracted my attention, its 

 present and its past. The snowy 

 peaks of the Sierra Nevada did not 

 allow the bees to be out, even on the 

 sunny declivities of the pomegranate- 

 split-open town of Granada. 



I have great admiration for the 

 Arabs of Spain in the Middle Ages. 

 Their teachings were so thorough 

 that, although four centuries have 

 passed since the expulsion of the last 

 of their kings, the traces of their cul- 

 ture and agriculture are still visible 

 everywhere. Beautiful country and 

 indifi"erent administration ! What fine 

 olive groves and palm plantations, 

 pomegranate orchards and oranges 

 for miles and miles, about Murcia 

 especially, and all with the Arabic 

 canalization woi"k! 



Says Chateaubriand: Boabdil, or 

 Abu-Abdallah, was the last of the 

 Moorish kings, and as he was driven 

 out of the city, he could only sigh: 

 "Oh! Granada!" He was compelled 

 to leave it while Amei'ica was being 

 discovered, in 1492. 



As I stepped into the magnificent 

 Lion's Court, with the marble col- 

 umns, I remarked to the direi'tor that 

 the cell-work resembled the combs of 

 bees. When he found that I was in- 

 terested in bees, he showed me a 

 swarm of bees which has been living 

 in the Royal Palace for ages. No 

 doubt the ancestors of those bees 

 had gathered honey in the marvelous 

 gardens of the Eldorado of the royal 

 families, working on the highly- 

 scented myrtle bushes still kept in the 

 Alhambra, the grandest of all Arab 

 architectural wonders. The bees 

 did not worry about Moors or Span- 

 iards — they went on with their woi-k, 

 pre])aring for swarming. And per- 

 haps some day they will settle in the 

 palace of Charles V, now wholly 

 ruined, for they care naught for po- 

 litical changes, and they sip the 

 sweets from the blooming almond 

 trees and leave trouble to man. 



The eucalyptus plantations seem to 

 have been imported, but the nnles of 

 native cactus hedges (Opuntia vul- 

 garis) yield a good crop some lime in 



