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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 1 



power of these essential oils can be best 

 understood when we remember that in East- 

 ern countries certain plants yield a honey 

 which, consumed, produces death. It is this 

 oil, volatile in its nature, which partially 

 gives honey its aroma. We detect this 

 agency in the blossom, in the field, when we 

 lean over the hive in manipulation, again as 

 we extract, and last, but not least, we know 

 the delicious and often delicate flavor pos- 

 sessed by honey fresh from the hive. Is it 

 desirable to retain as much as we can of 

 this for table use ? Assuredly. Why should 

 we follow blindly the lead of those who have 

 gone before, and expose our extracted honey 

 to the atmosphere, thus losing what, in my 

 estimation, is so desirable to deliver to the 

 consumer ? There is still much to learn 

 about the ripening process which nectar 

 undergoes in the hive. I see questions 

 which, for their solution, require the care- 

 ful, expert, and original thought of the bee- 

 keeper and the chemist, the solutions of 

 which questions will be of practical and last- 

 ing benefit to the bee-keeper and consumer 

 of honey. 



The bee-keeper gets only a small percent- 

 age of the nectar the bees gather. The 

 brood is fed; the heat and energy of the bee 

 has, through food, to be provided for; the 

 brood has to be warmed, and the process of 

 ripening through raised temperature and 

 the fanning of the atmosphere in and out, 

 all has to be done at the expense of food 

 consumed. We masticate food, and change 

 starch to sugar by the addition of certain 

 secretions; in this the food undergoes the 

 first stages toward digestion. The bees by 

 nature are compelled to gather nectar a 

 little at a time; they again transmit it to 

 fresh bees at the threshold of the comb; 

 again as it is moved about from cell to cell 

 in the process of ripening. In all of these, 

 as in the slow process of mastication, the 

 honey is being inverted, and in honey v/e 

 have a partially digested or predigested 

 food ready for assimilation.^ No other sweet 

 on earth can boast of this in its favor. The 

 above processes, properly carried out, are 

 done at a great loss in quantity from what 

 is first gathered; but it is the machinery 

 power— the coal, if you will, to produce the 

 energy required to gather, change, and seal 

 this food in its stages "from nectar to our 

 valuable food— honey. At no stage should 

 this process of ripening, etc., in the hive be 

 stopped by the bee-keeper. To do so must 

 work injury to our market. 



WHY THE SELLER SHOULD UNDERSTAND THE 

 POINTS OF SUPERIORITY. 



Again, if we do not know wherein our 

 goods are superior to others, which, at first 

 glance, appear to be the same, and are, not 

 cheaper, but at a less price, how can we 

 expect to sell them to advantage and do 

 them justice ? There is simply no answer to 

 the question. We must understand their 

 points of merit and have faith in them. 

 Possessed of that conviction we can hope to 

 convince others. 



Think of a butcher, a drygoods drummer, 

 the hardware man, acting in that capacity 

 for a horse-dealer; the dairyman pointing 

 out the merits of fruit, or the poultryman 

 sent as an expert to find a market for cheese 

 and butter, and you have a spectacle of 

 what every Tom, Dick, and Harry is expect- 

 ed to do for honey. Even our governments 

 are guilty of such action. It is often done 

 unthinkingly, but the consequences are dis- 

 astrous to our honey market. 



INCREASING THE DEMAND BY PROVIDING 

 BETTER FACILITIES FOR SELLING. 



Bee-keepers should combine in every large 

 city, and have a wholesale and retail estab- 

 lishment for the sale of honey. The retail 

 establishment could have for sale articles of 

 food, etc.. in which honey has been used as 

 an ingredient. Here the highest in the land 

 could be drawn by advertising exhibitions 

 of bees, their handling at certain hours, 

 observatory hives, and displays, setting 

 forth the natural history of the bee and so 

 on. Such a store, at a comparatively small 

 outlay, could be made the talk of the city, 

 and reach the most intelligent and desirable 

 class of citizens, and honey be made to reach 

 the tables of thousands upon thousands 

 where the article is to-day a stranger. In 

 other places, arrangements could be made 

 to make the sale of honey a strong (not neg- 

 lected) department of a business already 

 established, or the business in certain places 

 might be run for only a portion of the year, 

 but always have in charge a bright, alert, 

 expert man having confidence in and know- 

 ing the goods. These centers could also be 

 made centers of instruction to employees 

 in establishments where the sale of honey 

 would be desirable. 



MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHOLE- 

 SALE AND RETAIL PRICES. 



Give a proper margin to the one who sells 

 your honey. Bee-keepers as a body are much 

 to blame for having their wholesale and retail 

 prices too close together. A retailer should 

 have not less than a margin of 20 per cent. 



HIGH PRICE NOT AN OBSTACLE. 



We as bee-keepers often talk as if the 

 price were our main difficulty in selling, and 

 as if the price alone stood in the way of a 

 larger market. I venture to assert this is 

 not where more than half our trouble lies. 

 We could raise the price if we would only 

 first improve the general quality, make 

 stronger efforts to put the merits of honey 

 before the public, distribute it more evenly 

 over the country, and give the dealer a bet- 

 ter margin. Does any one doubt it ? Let 

 him look at proprietary goods, trade-marked 

 foods which stare us in the face on every 

 table to-day; let him consider how much of 

 their place on the market is due to real 

 merit and how much to advertising. Draw 

 your own conclusions and doubt no longer. 



SUGAR TAKING THE PLACE OF HONEY. 



Until millions and millions of dollars' worth 

 of sugar at present consumed by our people 



