350 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1. 



"weight, as now generally practiced. He seem- 

 ed to think it likely to come about, and would 

 for himself prefer to do so ; in fact, he was al- 

 ready selling some in this way. 



Remembering the experience of the late 

 Moses Quinby in shipping honey to that mar- 

 ket, when, in 1860, 20,000 lbs. broke down the 

 market completely, and much of the honey 

 "was carried over to the following year before 

 it was sold, I inquired how much honey was 

 now taken by the same market, and was in- 

 formed that there was no trouble in disposing 

 of about 6,000,000 lbs. yearly, about five-sixths 

 of which was extracted honey ; that while, 

 formerly, there was a demand for honey but a 

 part of the year only, now there is a demand 

 the whole year round. These facts were of 

 much interest to me, as the prospective de- 

 mand for honej^ is one of great interest to 

 every honey-producer. I might say incident- 

 ally right here that, previous to 1875, or about 

 that time, there was, so far as I know, no New 

 England city where honey was regularly sold 

 at wholesale. A little was sent to Boston or 

 other cities, and sold to any one who would 

 buy, or left to be sold on commission by any 

 one who was willing to handle it, or, perhaps 

 I should say, who could be trusted to do so ; 

 but I have the impression that most retail 

 dealers, previous to 1875, in New England, 

 went to New York for their honey. To-day 

 several New England cities have wholesale 

 dealers, some of them doing an immense bus- 

 iness. These facts show the immense increase 

 in the demand for honey during the last thirty 

 or forty years ; and, while encouraging, it is 

 not equal to the gain made in other lines, as, 

 for instance, in the sale of grapes. In 1846 

 the Keuka Lake region shipped ' ' from two 

 hundred to three hundred pounds" by the 

 Erie canal to New York, and broke the mar- 

 ket, while in 1890 the same region shipped 

 some 40,000,000 lbs. of grapes, to say nothing 

 of the enormous quantities sent from other 

 sections. See ' ' The Evolution of Our Native 

 Fruits," by Prof. L. H. Bailey, page 68. 



But I was curious to know to what use such 

 large quantities of extracted honey were put. 

 In some of our bee journals it has been report- 

 ed that extracted honey was used very exten- 

 sively by tobacco manufacturers, and I believe 

 by brewers also. I was told that but little if 

 any was used for these purposes at the present 

 time, as the brewers are taking kindly to glu- 

 cose, and tobacco - manufacturers are using 

 sugar syrup instead of honey. 



There is a growing demand however, for 

 extracted honey, from druggists and confec- 

 tioners, and for making honey-cakes, of which 

 the Jews consume lar^e quantities ; besides, a 

 large amount of extracted buckwheat honey is 

 exported" to be made into gingerbread. Good ! 

 I could have sent my hat flying high above 

 me, only I was indoors and those about me 

 might think me a little off should I become 

 too much excited ; but really my heart was 

 lighter at the thought that my honey was not 

 to be used for the manufacture of beer or to- 

 bacco, and I was not in any way helping those 

 industries by increasing the production of it. 



I was disappointed on finding so little honey 



in plain sections in New York : for had not E. 

 R. R. told me that quite likely ten to fifteen 

 per cent of all comb honey last year *as put 

 up in this way. I wanted much to compare it 

 with the old-style sections in the same market, 

 but there did not appear to be one-half of one 

 per cent in the New York market ; but Mr. 

 Segelken quickly explained by saying that 

 the plain sections were preferred by retail 

 dealers, and picked up by them. 



I saw but one lot of honey at Hildreth Broth- 

 ers & Segelken 's, out of a large number, that 

 appeared to have the row of cells next to the 

 wood sealed perfectly, like photographs that 

 have recently appeared in Gleanings. This 

 lot of honey was built in four-beeway sections 

 without separators, which would indicate that 

 a passage around the edge of the box will en- 

 courage bees to finish out and up to the wood 

 much more perfectly than when no such pas- 

 sageway is used. This is a strong point in 

 favor of the Hyde-Scholl separator, or that of 

 Mr. Aspinwall's that enables the bees to pass 

 freely around the edges of sections, and at the 

 same time compels them to build straight 

 combs and combs of even weight. 



Middlebury, Vt. 



[Some few days ago Mr. PVed Muth, son of 

 the late Charles F., gave us a call. As he was 

 with his father when he did a large business 

 with bakers and others, I asked him a good 

 many questions. He referred to the fact that 

 there was a time when honey was used largely 

 in the brewing business ; but of late years glu- 

 cose has taken its place. Knowing that his 

 father had sold many tons, perhaps, of dark 

 honey to bakers, I asked him why it was that 

 bakers prefer honey to any other form of 

 sweet for certain kinds of baked goods. " Be- 

 cause," said he, "it takes little or no glycer- 

 ine. Where honey is used as a sweetener, the 

 baked goods remain moist for a great length 

 of time ; and honey is the only sweet that will 

 accomplish the desired result. The fact that 

 glycerine has to be used with other syrups, 

 makes them more expensive ; and as a matter 

 of economy bakers use honey, and more large- 

 ly than many people think." 



No doubt this is the reason why honey is 

 used in gingerbread. A dry gingerbread is 

 practically unsalable. One that is soft and 

 moist as honey will make it is always salable ; 

 and these honey-jumbles, I have sometimes 

 thought, improved with age. When they are 

 first baked they are apt to be too crisp — that 

 is, somewhat dry ; but after they have stood 

 for a time they become moist and toothsome. 



It is astonishing how the demand has been 

 increasing for the four-beeway sections lately. 

 It simply goes to show that plain sections have 

 demonstrated that lateral or freer communica- 

 tion has something to do with better filling of 

 the sections. If lateral communication is a 

 desideratum it can be secured with four-bee- 

 way sections ; but even these require modified 

 separators in order to secure the full benefit. 

 Ordinary four-beeways used with common sep- 

 arators would be little if any better than two- 

 beeways, and they are much more inconven- 

 ient in putting into and taking out of ship- 

 ping-cases. — Ed.] 



