640 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



JULV 1 



to you to help us in determining what the 

 crop will be. Whatever the 3 ield may be, 

 heavy winter losses will have a strong ten- 

 dency to cut down the total output, and 

 probably will result in stiffening- prices of 

 new honey, even in the event of a good yield. 



a larger aggregate tonnage per season. If, 

 however, all deserts of our great West 

 should be made to blossom, and to bless 

 man and beast with the immense acreages 

 of alfalfa as some of the deserts have, we 

 shall give cur West India neighbors a long 

 and hard race. 



AN ASSOCIATION BRAND OF PURITV. 



Some years ago Jamaica honey was put 

 on the European markets, where it brought 

 a very low price. Later on, the progress- 

 ive bee-keepers of that island formed an as- 

 sociation and put their brand on all the 

 honey put out by them, and, presto I the 

 price nearly doubled. 



In our issue for June 1, p. 536, I suggest- 

 ed the feasibility of the National Bee-keep- 

 ers' Association attaching its own brand of 

 purity to the honey put out by its members. 



I am firmly convinced that something of 

 this kind ought I0 be done, then there will 

 be an additional incentive for bee-keepers 

 to join the Association. I am not so sure 

 but the National ought to have in two or 

 three of our great centers of trade some one 

 appointed to receive consignments of honey 

 from its members, and dispose of it at a 

 nominal commission, say 5 per cent, the 

 commission to go to the Association to de- 

 fray the expense of a salaried official to re- 

 ceive the honey. This same official might 

 affix the National brand of purity to the 

 honey. The general public would assume 

 that all honey bearing the brand of a na- 

 tional body of honey-producers would nec- 

 essarily be pure and genuine bee honey. 



THE GREATEST HONEY-PLANT OR TREE IN 



THE world; bee-keeping IN 



THE WEST INDIES. 



A FEW years ago we used to say that 

 basswood, for a given acreage, would yield 

 more honey than an3' other tree or plant 

 known; but from the best evidence in hand 

 it is apparent that the logwood of Jamaica, 

 British Honduras, and Hayti, will excel it. 

 It is the most remarkable and perhaps 

 heaviest nectar-bearing source known in 

 the world. It comes on early in the holi- 

 days, yielding honey heavily clear on 

 through January. The bee-keepers of Ja- 

 maica think nothing of securing averages 

 anywhere from 100 to 200 lbs. per colony 

 from it. 



In point of color the honey is equal to any 

 thing produced in the world. The flavor 

 is mild, and if our tastes were educated to 

 it we should pronounce it the equal of any 

 thing produced in this country. It does 

 not as yet compete with the American prod- 

 uct, owing to the duty. The great bulk of 

 it is shipped to England and other portions 

 of Europe. 



Bee-keeping in the West Indies, in a 

 modern way, has only just begun. While 

 the United States ranks first in the amount 

 of honey produced, and the number of bee- 

 keepers, it would not be at all surprising 

 to me to learn that Cuba and the rest of the 

 West Indies will be able in time to show up 



THE FOLLY OF SENDING COMB HONEY TO 



MARKET UNSCRAPED AND UNGRADED; 



A GOOD-NATURED SCOLD. 



What I am about to say now is not in- 

 tendtd for beekeepers who scrape and 

 grade their comb honey, and put it up in 

 clean new shipping- cases before sending to 

 market. All such, to save time, may skip 

 this, as " the shoe won't fit;" but the other 

 class — those who are too indifferent or ig- 

 norant, or are too something, of the princi- 

 ples of making sales — should read this care- 

 fully; and when I am addressing this c ass 

 I am well aware that I am speaking to the 

 great majority of comb-honey producers; for 

 it is indeed a fact that the great bulk of the 

 comb honey that goes to market is not 

 scraped, or if scraped it is improperly 

 graded, if graded at all; or it may be 

 scraped, but injured in appearance by be- 

 ing put in badly soiled shipping-cases, or, 

 worse still, home-made cases. I have been 

 through a number of commission houses, 

 and have looked over the lots of honey that 

 have been received. I have seen every ship- 

 ment that has come to Medina; and to see 

 the ordinary honey that is shipped *o mar- 

 ket, which otherwise might have been No. 1 

 and " Fancy," all mixed up in the cases — 

 cases soiled, sections unscraped — well, it is 

 enough to make one's heart ache. Then 

 the producer of such honej', when he gets 

 his returns, complains because they are be- 

 low the market as quoted in the journals; 

 and he thinks his commission man is dis- 

 honest, when the fact is the w hole trouble 

 is with himself. If he had taken a day or 

 two to scrape and properly grade the hon- 

 ey, he could have earned anywhere from 

 S25 to SlOO a day in the larger returns se- 

 cured for that same honey. A little No. 2 

 or off-grade honey put in with No. 1 and 

 "Fancy" puts the whole easeful down to 

 the price of No. 2. We have received sev- 

 eral lots of such honey, and, rather than 

 make poor returns, we have gone to the ex- 

 pense of regrading and scraping, selling 

 the " Fancy " at one price, the best the mar- 

 ket affords, the No. 1 in another, and the 

 No. 2 in still another. Of course, we 

 charged the producer for the time expend- 

 ed; but in doing so we have earned him 

 good money. Where we buy this mixed 

 honey outright, of course we pay a low fig- 

 ure for it, then grade and scrape and some- 

 times recase, with the result that we make 

 a good margin on our investment. But 

 should the buyer profit by the negligence, 

 carelessness, and indifference of the pro- 

 ducer? It takes experience and skill to get 

 comb honey, and a good bit of it sometimes, 

 I think. It takes but just a little more of 

 that same skill to put that honey, when 



