688 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



November, 1921 



proportions of honey and sugar used, and 

 it would seem that the honey was not 

 heated. 



In Gleanings in Bee Culture for 1882 (X, 

 pp. 478-479), Doolittle stated that he was 

 using Viallon candy (made of white and 

 brown sugar and wheat flour) ; but in the 

 fall of 1882 he abandoned this candy (Amer- 

 ican Bee Journal, XX, p. 533), and in 1883 

 (American Bee Journal, XIX, p. 511) he 

 described his method for making Good can- 

 dy, which he then used, as follows: "Take 

 about two pounds of pulverized sugar, 

 which can be obtained from any grocery 

 store, and put it into an ordinary tin pan; 

 make a little hollow in the' sugar and put 

 therein 3 tablespoons of good clover or 

 basswood honey. Now mix with the spoon 

 till it gets quite thick, when the spoon is 

 laid aside and the batter is kneaded, as a 

 woman would knead dough for bread. This 

 kneading is kept up till you can roll the 

 candy in your hands, as boys roll snowballs. 

 When it is so hard that it will retain its 

 round shape on a flat surface, except to flat- 

 ten somewhat on the underside, it is ready 

 for use." Nothing is said in these direc- 

 tions about heating the honey, and the ex- 

 act proportions of honey and sugar are not 

 given. In an article in 1884 (Gleanings in 

 Bee Culture, XII, pp. 797-798), Doolittle 

 stated that he did not think that the sugar 

 in the Good candy was of any value as food 

 for the bees, but served only to hold up 

 the honey, and he repeated this statement 

 in several later articles. There is every 

 reason to believe this an incorrect conclu- 

 sion. 



Application of Heat When Mixing. 

 In his book, "Scientific Queen-rearing as 

 Practically Applied" (1889), Doolittle mod- 

 ified the directions for making the queen- 

 cage candy as follows: "This is done by 

 taking a quantity of powdered sugar, and 

 putting it in any dish; * * * [prefer- 

 ably one of agate ware] * * * having 

 the sugar in the dish, set the same on the 

 stove or over a lamp, and put some nice, 

 thick honey to heat also (such honey as 

 will not granulate easily being preferred, 

 for spring and fall use), letting both heat 

 slowly till of about the warmth that you 

 can conveniently hold your hand in. * * 

 * To get the sugar evenly warmed thru, 

 it may be necessary to stir it occasionally. ' ' 

 The remainder of the directions were not 

 different from those given earlier. Ten 

 years later (Gleanings in Bee Culture, 1899, 

 XXVII, pp. 268-269), Doolittle repeated 

 these directions, so he must have used this 

 recipe successfully for some time. The only 

 change to be noted in the later directions 

 is that he left the sugar ' ' near the stove ' ' 

 for four to six hours, and that for the ship- 

 ment of queens to warm climates he kneaded 

 in one-sixth of the bulk of the candy of 

 fine granulated sugar. In the 1891 edition 

 of the A B G of Bee Culture, A. I. Eoot 

 quoted from J. D. Fooshe as follows: "Take 



good thick honey and heat (not boil) it un- 

 til it becomes very thin, and tlien stir in 

 pulverized sugar. ' ' 



Apparently the next change made in the 

 recipe for queen-cage candy was that de- 

 scribed in 1893 by Mrs. Jennie Atchley 

 (Gleanings in Bee Culture, XXI, p. 881), 

 The directions are: "We use nothing ex- 

 cept the finest of confectioners' sugar, and 

 thoroly pulverize all lumps, and use honey 

 that has been boiled or brought to the boil- 

 ing point." In a later article (Gleanings 

 in Bee Culture, XXII, p. 379), she states: 

 ' ' I gently boil and skim, or use honey from 

 a solar wax-extractor, as this honey is not so 

 apt to candy. ' ' 



In 1906, E. R. Eoot in an editorial in 

 Gleanings in Bee Culture (XXXIV, p. 1050), 

 stated: "In selecting an extracted honey 

 for use for making a queen-cage candy, it 

 is verij important that the source of that 

 honey be known. If unknown it should be 

 thoroly boiled to disinfect it from any pos- 

 sible germs of black or foul brood. One 

 boiling may not be sufScient. Boil it one 

 hour and let it stand two or three days, and 

 then boil again another hour. This is bet- 

 ter than boiling three hours, all at one 

 time." This author has in mind fractional 

 sterilization, which is, of course, useless 

 since the bacteria to be killed do not ger- 

 minate in honey. This is the first reference 

 that we have been able to find of boiling 

 honey for the purpose of destroying the or- 

 ganisms causing a brood disease. 



The warming of the sugar and honey, as 

 described by Doolittle, was doubtless for 

 the purpose 'of facilitating the mixing; and 

 the boiling as described by Mrs. Atchley 

 was to prevent granulation of the honey, 

 altho just what difference this can make in 

 the queen-cage candy is not at all clear. 

 In fact, two years ago before in the 1891 

 edition of A B C of Bee Culture, A. I. Eoot 

 stated: "Sage honey, for some reason or 

 other, has the property of rendering the 

 candy in time as hard as a brick, and, of 

 course, should not be used." Sage honey 

 granulates less quickly than any other 

 American honey and often remains liquid 

 for years. The present authors have not 

 confirmed these statements about sage hon- 

 ey. Following the directions of Fooshe, 

 Doolittle, and Mrs. Atchley, and the warn- 

 ing of E. E. Eoot, there seems to have been 

 an increasing tendency for those making 

 candy of this type either to heat or to boil 

 the honey, and in some cases the sugar was 

 also warmed. 



When the neW postal regulation went into 

 effect in 1912, it was rather natural, there- 

 fore, that many queen-breeders mixed the 

 sugar and honey, while the honey was still 

 quite hot. In spite of this tendency, there 

 were frequent warnings against the practice 

 in the form of directions for making the 

 candy of cold honey. In 1894 E. E. Eoot 

 (Gleanings in Bee Culture, XXII, p. 662) 

 quotes from a letter from Ph, J. Balden- 



