GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



January, 1921 



Of course, during the extracting time, 

 there is plenty of honey and cappings all 

 around, and the near-by neighbors and 

 their children come in and help a little, or 

 get in the way and eat what honey they 

 want and carry away a little in a bottle; 

 but one is quite willing to have them do 

 that, since it results in their almost never 

 taking any honey from the hives, as might 

 be expected. There little stealing here. 



Our apiary houses and the houses in which 

 the country people live are rather crude, 

 often built of poles with small sticks inter- 

 woven and plastered with mud, and with a 

 thatch roof of palm leaves. Some houses 



are made from palm boards split from the 

 outer shell of some of the palm trees, the 

 inner part of the trunk being fibrous and 

 unfit for use. These houses are more desir- 

 able than those of "wattle-and-daub" and 

 sometimes have board floors, instead of the 

 usual earth floor. Of course, we plan, some 

 day, to have better equipment and cement 

 stands for the hives (there are some now) 

 instead of the wooden stands or the logs, 

 which so soon are eaten up by the white 

 ants (termites) that also work up into the 

 hives and destroy many unless the bottoms 

 are painted with creosote or carbolineum. 

 Monte Cristi, Dominican Eepublic, "W. I. 



T™ jefrTi HONEY IN THE SWEET FAMILY lULt^ tf'^l 



the com- solid matter in 



position of the t hj r> I r J T . U/L * ' ™^^^ ^^ lactose, 



sweets is really Its Many Relatives and Just What It is not found 



of considerable Relation They Are to Each Other elsewhere, and I 



interest, and, in "^ mention it only 



spite of what o c xy/ r j ^''^ *^® ^^^® 



you may think, By E. Wynne Boyden of c o m p 1 e t 6 - 



it is not difficult . ness. 



to understand. ^^- ^ ^^ Maltose, Malt-ose. It somehow 



Do you know what honey is? Do you savors of beer and malt products, doesn't 



know what glucose is? Corn syrup? Invert it? Well, so it should, because maltose is 



sugar? Do you know the difference between is sugar of beer. It is perfectly healthful, 



cane and beet sugar? Have you encountered too, that is, the maltose is perfectly health 



these new malt syrups which are trying to 

 compete with honey? Do you know what 

 they are? Do you know why glucose will 

 not do for bee-feeding? Well, that is 

 enough— I could go on, but my purpose is 

 to answer questions rather than ask them. 

 No — more than that. I want to make their 

 answers self-evident. All our sweets are 

 simply combinations of a very few funda- 

 mental components. Let me first then give 

 you these fundamentals. 



If a food is sweet it must have sugar in 

 it, of course. But do you all know that there 

 is more than one kind of sugar? I do not 

 mean more than one source of sugar. I 

 mean that there are different sugars, just 

 as there are different varieties of grass in 

 a meadow. All grass is somewhat green; all 

 sugars are somewhat sweet, but not equally 

 so. And there are other differences. Now the 

 chemist can name 20 different sugars; but 

 please don't worry, for I will stop at five, 

 because there are only five sugars which are 

 found in foods to any large extent. Try to 

 remember the five when I give them. If you 

 do, you have the key to the whole situa- 

 tion. Here they are: 



No. 1 is Sucrose, S-u-c-r-o-s-e. It ought to 

 remind you of s-u-g-a-r, ordinary sugar, be- 

 cause ordinary sugar is sucrose, I care not 

 whether it be cane or beet. 



No. 2 is Lactose. Does the word "lactose" 

 suggest milk? It should. Lactose is only 

 slightly sweet, so possibly you do not know 



ful. Possibly some of you prohibitionists 

 think that maltose is a dead one, but not 

 so. I assure you maltose is found in corn 

 syrup as well as in beer, and there are still 

 other sources. 



Now I am ready to give No. 4 and No. 5, 

 and I want you to pay especial attention to 

 these last, for here we are coming close 

 home. 



No. 4 is Dextrose, and 

 No. 5 is Levulose. I name them together 

 because they are usually found together. In 

 honey, for instance, they share the honors 

 about fifty-fifty. 



Now I am wondering whether you re- 

 member these five sugars and can name 

 them. 



No. 1: Sucrose, cane or beet sugar. 

 No. 2: Lactose, milk sugar. 

 No. 3: Maltose, "beer" sugar. 

 No. 4: Dextrose 1 ^^ ^ ^^^ ^^^^^^ 



No. 5: Levulose j 



I must say a little more about dextrose 

 and levulose. They are favorites of ours 

 anyway, for what would honey be without 

 them? Dextrose is also found in grapes; 

 hence it is sometimes called grape sugar, a 

 product of which I know you have heard. 

 Furthermore, dextrose is found to a small 

 extent in commercial glucose or corn syrup, 

 hence it is sometimes known as glucose. 

 This is unfortunate, because it leads to con- 

 fusion; but we must accept the three 



thJt milk always contains a large amount names, and do our best to remember them, 



