240 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. December, 



THE "SUGAR HABIT" AGAIN. 



A Criticism of Mr. Miller's Attitude in the Matter. 



By Allen Latham. 



MR. MILLER is right in saying 

 (page 219) that Mr. Atwater's 

 article bristles with indigna- 

 tion. The cool character of Mr. Mil- 

 ler's reply offei's only another instance 

 of the value of keeping one's head and 

 temper; yet his own article, not brist- 

 ling to be sure, might be accused of 

 being studded AA'ith unfair argument. 



The first paragraph of Mr. Miller's 

 reply is a splendidly worded one and 

 Is too clear to admit of any misin- 

 terpretation, but after that Mr. Miller 

 allowis obscurit3% purposely or not, to 

 creep in. The article in Gleanings 

 to which reference is made offers no 

 proof whatsoever that syrup can be 

 continuoufily fed to bees without en- 

 tailing a loss. Feeding bees against 

 a dearth of food, or to fill an empty 

 brood-nest, or to put a stop to robbing, 

 are each and all very different from 

 feeding syrup to be stored in sections. 



I have myself iseen sections of sugar- 

 syrup-honey, and have known of a bee- 

 keeper's undertaking to produce that 

 kind of "honey." I have eeen beauti- 

 fully white combs thus obtained. I 

 have never yet seen it done with pro- 

 fit. By the time a man has paid for 

 his sections, his comb foundation, his 

 sugar, his labor, his loss in bee-vitali- 

 ty, his disposition of his hard-earned 

 crop — by the time he has paid all these 

 expenses and lialancetl his account, he 

 is ready to let the bees gather honey 

 in the way that tnature fuijnishes. 

 Many have tried the unhappy scheme, 

 but they one and all drop it soon. 



This is no argument for or against 

 the feeding of sugar .s.vrup. I only 

 offer the preceding paragraph as evi- 

 dence that the market is not likely to 

 be troubled by sugar-symp-honey. 



But is it true that there is any 

 reasonable danger that the honest 

 section honey is likely to be contami- 

 nated if we feed sugar for winter 

 stores? Possibly, but I am not con- 

 vinced by anything that Mr. Miller 

 has said. And I doubt greatly if 

 the -sale of honey is materially affect- 



ed by the general knowledge that bee- 

 keepers feed sugar for winter. I 

 am vei-y free to let all my neighbors 

 and others who are interested know 

 that I frequently feed sugar thus. I 

 have never yet, in my twenty and 

 odd years of bee-keeping, heard the 

 least suspicion offered that my honey 

 was in the least impure. 



I used to keep bees in a locality 

 where the apple-bloom was abundant 

 and where I could usually count on a 

 good surplus from this source every 

 even year. It was my custom to crowd 

 the brood-nest with syrup just as soon 

 as the bloom started so that the honey 

 might all go into* the sections. I 

 simply took out the combs and poured 

 thick syrup into them. The effect 

 was to drive the bees right into the 

 section cases, and they usually stayed. 

 If the flow came they filled one or two 

 cases, but if rainy weather came there 

 would be no honey or syrup either put 

 into the sections. Now I cannot swear 

 that some syrup did not get into the 

 sections in those happy by-gone days, 

 but I do remember that I never could 

 get enough of that honey to meet the 

 demand at 25c per pound. All who 

 bought it were full of praise for its 

 excellence. I personally used to think 

 that there was no honey equal to it, 

 though I have since come to like one 

 or two others about as well. I never 

 could detect the slightest evidence of 

 sugar in the honey, though I never 

 applied any chemical test. 



To come back again to the matter of 

 feeding sugar for winter. Why is 

 this attended with no danger of such 

 synip aftei-ward getting into the sec- 

 tions? I will try to explain, and can 

 back up my explanation with con- 

 siderable experience. When bees are 

 fed, their combs are for the most 

 part empty, and the feeding is vdth 

 few exceptions done after brood-rear- 

 ing is considerably curtailed. Where is 

 this feed put? It is packed in close 

 about the brood-nest, and as the bees 

 emerge the brood-nest itself is filled. 



