222 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 1 



may remember that, years ago, I was a 

 strenuous advocate of ripening comb honey 

 by keeping it in a very warm room. I told 

 therein how the small room in which my 

 honey was stored was kept warm by means 

 of a large lamp which was kept burning for 

 several weeks in the fall, and whenever the 

 weather was cold thereafter. Later I used 

 a hard-coal stove in my honey-room, aiming 

 always to keep the temperature up to near- 

 ly lOO*^ until the honey was thoroughly rip- 

 ened, never allowing it to get very cold aft- 

 erward. Although it was a very rare thing 

 for honey to granulate in the combs in Il- 

 linois, the combs were liable to crack in 

 cold weather. Besides avoiding this, I felt 

 that I was well repaid for the trouble and 

 expense by the superior body and flavor of 

 the honey and its improved keeping and 

 shipping qualities. I will say, in passing, 

 that I never knew more than one bad case 

 of honey granulating in the comb in Illinois. 

 I once bought the honey crop of a deceased 

 bee-keeper; and when I went to get it I 

 fouad that it had been stored in a cold build- 

 ing that was almost absolutely air-tight. 

 This honey was all granulated solid before 

 the middle of the winter. 



In the fall of 1903 I sent ten cases of hon- 

 ey to the Colorado State Fair, and was for- 

 tunate enough to secure the first prize on it. 

 Moreover, it attracted the attention of the 

 State World's Fair Commissioners, who se- 

 cured it to send to St. Louis. I felt a little 

 doubtful about keeping it so long in good 

 condition, but supposed it would be replaced 

 by new honey soon after the fair opened. 

 Soon after this our county commissioners 

 bought of me another lot of honey for a 

 county exhibit. I urged them strongly to 

 wait until they could get new honey the fol- 

 lowing season; but they replied that they 

 wanted to make an early exhibit, and that 

 they would replace it with fresh honey when 

 they could. I, however, secured permission 

 to keep the honey myself until they were 

 ready to ship it. So, after wrapping the 

 cases carefully to protect them from dust I 

 piled them up alongside of Jthe furnace in my 

 basement and awaited their instructions as 

 to when it should be shipped. 



They had got over their hurry, though; 

 and although they were frequently remind- 

 ed of it, the winter, spring, and summer 

 passed, and it was not until a week or two 

 before the meeting of the National conven- 

 tion in the fall of 1904 that it was sent to 

 St. Louis. My first idea was to replace it 

 with 1904 honey; but after going carefully 

 over the honey, which had not been touched 

 for nearly a year, I decided it would be bet- 

 ter for Colorado to send it just as it was, 

 and try to have the point emphasized in its 

 exhibition that the honey was more than a 

 year old. Whether this was done or not I 

 do not know, as I did not go to the fair; hut 

 on one of those lots of honey I was awarded 

 a gold medal— the only one, I believe, that 

 was awarded to an individual exhibit of hon- 

 ey alone, while the other received a silver 

 medal. Now, the honey that was sent last, 



that had been kept over an entire year, was 

 in practically just as good condition as when 

 packed the season before. It was not gran- 

 ulated nor in any way damaged by its long 

 keeping. Yet this was Colorado alfalfa 

 honey, which, we have been told, must be 

 hurried to market before the weather gets 

 cold, in order to have it sold before it gran- 

 ulates. If Colorado honey a year old is good 

 enough to be awarded the highest prize at a 

 world's fair, is it not rather the fault of the 

 management than of the honey if it can not 

 ordinarily be got to market without any 

 danger of granulating before it has been 

 consumed? If there is any place on this 

 earth where honey ought to ripen thorough- 

 ly, without any particular attention, it 

 would seem to be the arid region of Colora- 

 do. Yet even here it seems to be necessary 

 to use special care in regard to the place 

 where the honey is stored in order to have 

 it keep in good condition and stand cold 

 weather without cracking and granulating. 

 If you can utilize the summer sun to ripen 

 it thoroughly after it is taken from the 

 hives, well and good. But if you can not do 

 this by natural means, you should do it arti- 

 ficially. In either case, if you have any re- 

 gard for the fair fame of Colorado honey 

 and for the future of your honey market, 

 see to it that, as long as your honey remains 

 in your hands, it is stored in the warmest 

 and driest place you can find to keep it in. 

 We can not control the conditions in regard 

 to our honey after it leaves our hands, but 

 we can do much to insure its reaching the 

 consumer in good condition by a thorough 

 preparation before we sell it. 



In order to prove my position more thor- 

 oughly, I am trying the experiment on a 

 larger scale, and have a considerable quan- 

 tity of comlD honey in an upper room of a 

 furnace-heated house, which I expect to be 

 in just as good condition next September as 

 it was last. 



Grand Junction, Col. 



_yron}Ouy 



f^^e/^hborjyie/df 



Stenog is short for one who writes 

 Something some one else indites; 

 But the one we call " Stenog " 

 Needs no aid to make his pen jog. 



I rather suspect my good friend Dr. Web- 

 ley, of Santa Rosa, Cal., got the above off 

 at my expense, although Dr. Miller be- 

 trayed the secret. 



-^ 



Mr. S. J. Baldwin, one of the best-known 

 bee- men of England, died in this country, at 

 Ehzabeth, N. J., on the 30th of last Decem- 

 ber. Daring his sojourn on this side of the 



