OCTOBKR, 1021 



GLEANINGS IN BEE C U L T U K E 



go as far in brood-reaiiug as the good stores. 

 In the northern half of the United States 

 we may find that feeding to correct the 

 quality of the winter stores actually pays 

 year after year in the saving of stores 

 alone, to say nothing about saving the vi- 

 tality of the bees by enabling them to rc- 

 inaiu more quiescent during the l)r()odless 

 period. As mentioned elsewhere, some bee 

 keepers now do this kind of feeding by 

 placing combs of early-gathered honey of 

 good quality below the brood-chamber after 

 most of the brood has emerged, so the bees 

 will move up some of the honey, while oth- 

 ers prefer to feed 1(1 to 15 pounds of a 

 heavy sugar syrup. In either ease the im- 

 ])ortant tiling is to have it stored where the 

 brood has recently emerged, so it will l)e 

 used first. 



IN SPITE of all the publicity given to hon- 

 ey in this country during the past decade, 

 api arently but a 

 >fc=!v Honey Deserves 

 i~~\ To Be Better 

 t— ^LJ Known. 



small percentage of 

 tlie American peo- 

 ple give it more 

 than a passing 

 thought, and this only on rare occasions. At 

 one time this was also true of raisins, or 

 auges, grapefruit, and many other well- 

 known food products. Most housewives now 

 know something about where and how those 

 once obscure foods are produced. Tliev 

 know something about the process of manu- 

 facture of various breakfast foods and 

 where the great factories are located that 

 make them. They know more or less about 

 dozens of articles to be found on the gro- 

 cers' shelves entireh' unknown to former 

 generations; but how little they know about 

 honey — one of the oldest of human foods! 

 How many people aside from beekeepers 

 know that hundreds of intelligent men and 

 women are devoting their time to the pro- 

 duction of honey, some of whom ship their 

 honey to market in carload lots? How many 

 people know what plants furnish surplus 

 honey, how the honey is taken from the 

 bees and taken out of the combs? Most 

 people, when their attention is called to the 

 subject of honey and honey production, 

 think of a few colonies of bees back in the 

 garden of their childhood days, which on 

 rare occasions yielded a meager supply of 

 a most delicious and wholesome food. They 

 do not know that an abundant supply of 

 even better honey can now be purchased in 

 almost any market at a reasonable price, 

 or that several tons of it may be piled up 

 in the honey-house of a local beekeeper a 

 few miles away waiting for a purchaser. 



If more people could know even a few 

 facts about bees, honey production, and hon- 

 ey, it would certainly seem that sales of 

 honey should take a jump that would startle 

 all of us. Much good is being accomplished 

 along tliis line just now by pusliing the 

 sale of honey \>y personal contact of bee- 



keeper and consumer in selling honey local 

 ly, as well as thru the regular channels of 

 trade. All of this is certain to result in a 

 greater consumption of honey in this coun- 

 try, but we still have a long way to go be- 

 fore honey becomes sufficiently well known 

 to occupy the place it so richly deserves 

 among the nation 's food products. 



Beekeepers can do much toward making 

 honey better known by furnishing carefully 

 written and interi-sting articles on honey 

 production and honey for their local newspa- 

 pers. These papers are anxious to secure 

 this kind of material for publication, con- 

 sisting of well-written articles describing a 

 local industry and not savoring of free ad- 

 vertising, especially if the editor or reporter 

 can be induced to visit the apiary to see 

 how honey is produced, and to learn how 

 good it is by tasting liberal samples as it 

 runs out of the extractor. Frecjuent men 

 tion of the honey industry should api)ear in 

 our newspapers just as of other minor indus- 

 tries, and honey should be listed on the mar- 

 ket page wdth other produce. 



Beekeepers who have the gift of writing 

 should supply their local papers with as 

 much matter on honey production as they 

 will use. These articles should be carefully 

 written, interesting, and instructive. They 

 should present only those phases of beekeep- 

 ing which are of general interest, omitting 

 the more technical phases of the subject. 

 There is a great Avealth of material for such 

 articles in the community life of the honey- 

 bee and its usefulness to nuin, both as a 

 producer of a most wholesome food and as 

 the chief agent in the pollination of many 

 plants, its value to lu)rticulture and agricul- 

 ture being many times the value of the 

 honey produced. 



Just now perhaps the greatest benefit to 

 the industry will come by emphasizing hon- 

 ey. The nectar-bearing plants of the local- 

 ity which furnish surplus honey should be 

 mentioned and the fact that the honeybee 

 is the only means by wliich this nectar can 

 be collected in sufficient (juantity for hu- 

 man food. The process of extracting the 

 honey from the combs without injuring them 

 is interesting to most people. 



The important thing is to inform the pub- 

 lic in some way that honey production is 

 now an important industry, that honey of 

 finer quality than ever before is now being 

 produced in quantities that stagger the 

 imagination, and that this honey can now 

 be purchased almost anywhere at a rea- 

 sonable price. For those who do not feel 

 that they can i)ut their ideas in shape for 

 publication in their local papers, Gleanings 

 is prepared to furnish suggestions or assist- 

 ance. If you will send us a rough sketch 

 of an article for your local paper, we will 

 put it in shape for publication, or we will 

 furnish suggestions in the form of an out- 

 line from whicli an article fitting local condi- 

 tions may be written. For this service there 

 will he no charge. 



