THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



19 



VOL. XVIIL— 1882.— No. 2. 



Publiahed every Wednesday, by 



THOMAS G. NEWMAN, 



Editor and Pkopuietor. 

 974 "WEST MADISON ST., CHICAGO, ILL. 



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CHICAGO, ILL., JAN. 11. 



The Honey Crop for 1881. 



Respecting the Table we gave in 

 the Bee Journal for Oct. 12, of the 

 Honey Crop of last season, Mr. W. 

 Z. Hutchinson remarks as follows : 



Mr. C.N. Wilson, in the Semi-Tropic 

 California, is certainly unfair in liis 

 criticisms of you and your '■ table of 

 tlie honey harvest of 1881 ;" but are 

 not you a trille mistaken, when you 

 say that friend Hasty bases his argu- 

 ment, in the Bee-Keepers' Exchange, 

 on an error made by a compositor V 

 Please read liis criticism once more, 

 and I think you will notice that he 

 says: " Of course there is an arith- 

 metical slip here, and the colossal 

 sum is really the number of cents in- 

 stead of the number of dollars." 

 Friend Hasty then says : " The ques- 

 tion herein raised is this : Is not 100,- 

 000,000 (lbs.) much too large an amount 

 to claim for this year's honey crop V" 

 And in this I must say that I agree 

 with friend Hasty, as you will see by 

 the following article of mine in the 

 Country Gentleman : 



Last September, the editor of the 

 American Bee Journal requested 

 his readers to .send in reports of their 

 honey crop. They responded prompt- 

 ly, and reports were received, show- 

 ing the yield of honey from nearly a 

 quarter of a million of colonies, or 

 about 8 per cent, of all the bees in 

 America. The average amount of 

 surplus was about 69 pounds per colo- 

 ny, and the increase was about 71 per 

 cent. In rare instances, as much as 

 400 pounds of comb honey were taken 

 from a single colony. In the produc- 

 tion of honey. New York took the 

 lead, followed by Pennsylvania, Cana- 

 da, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois 

 and Louisiana, in order named. Cali- 

 fornia, so famous for its large yields, 

 produced a very light crop. The 

 •editor remarked that, " if the one- 

 twelfth that reported are a fair aver- 

 age of the whole, then the crop of 

 American honey for 1881 amounts to 



120,000,000 poundsl If we call it only 

 100,000,000, it is worth $15,000,000. 

 Surely the industry is of sufficient 

 magnitude to satisfy the most enthu- 

 siastic of its devotees." 



In estimating the entire lioney crop, 

 from the reports received from 8 per 

 cent, of the bees, the editor makes a 

 reduction of one-sixth. In his enthu- 

 siasm, I fear that he did not sufficient- 

 ly take into consideration the fact 

 that the reports received were from 

 the best educated and most progress- 

 ive and successful apiarists of the 

 country, and that a far different 

 showing would have been made, had 

 he received reports from an equal 

 number of colonies kept in box-hives 

 and log gums, and owned by ignorant 

 bee-keepers. I do not consider my- 

 self competent to say just how much 

 reduction should have been made, 

 but I do certainly think that Mr. 

 Newnum has placed his estimate at 

 too high a figure. 



That we were not mistaken is fully 

 proved by the following taken from 

 the article in question by Mr. Hasty, 

 as published in the Exchange for No- 

 vember : 



Tlie finality of the report is that 

 this year's lioney crop is $1,.500,000,000 

 — three-quarters of the amount of tlie 

 national debt! To consume it all in 

 the United States each family of five 

 persons would have to eat $150.00 

 worth. . Of course, there is an arith- 

 metical slip here, and the collossal 

 sum is really the number of cents in- 

 stead of the number of dollars. The 

 number of pounds figured is but 120,- 

 000,000, and the 20,000,000 are thrown 

 off to cover shortage. 



If additional proof is required, we 

 have it in Mr. Hasty 's subsequent let- 

 ter, in the Exchange for December, 

 which is but just published : 



In my criticism on the Bee Jour- 

 nal's honey report, I mentioned, 

 among other errors, the one by wliich 

 the total value of the honey crop was 

 made a hundred times more than its 

 own figures would allow. I was not 

 at the time aware, that the next issue 

 of the Journal had contained a cor- 

 rection. CriticLsing typographical er- 

 rors, already editorially corrected, 

 would be rather petty business. For- 

 tunately no argument was directed 

 against these retracted figures, but 

 whatever strictures the article con- 

 tained, fell on the figures the Journal 

 intended to give. E. E. Hasty. 



Richards, O., Dec. 21, 1881. 



Now let us examine the argument 

 against our editorial on the Honey 

 Crop, which is as follows : 



The question herein raised is this: 

 Is not 100,000,000 much too large an 

 amount to claim for this year's honey 

 crop y What we have sold and sure 

 is the 9,467,022 pounds which are re- 

 ported. The 100,000,000 are estimated 

 from the smaller sum. Is it not build- 

 ing a pretty large structure on a 

 comparatively small foundation? 



The estimate begins with putting 

 the number of colonies in the country 

 at 3,000,000. In the absence of data I 

 will not dispute, but surely 10,000 

 hives to each congressional district 

 looks a little large. The grand error 

 is in making no adequate distinction 

 between! frame hives and box hives. 

 The great majority of the bees in the 

 country— say 2,000,000 colonies are still 

 in primitive housings, and kept in 

 let-alone style. To estimate the yield 

 of these at about the .same, hive for 

 hive, as the yield of colonies in well 

 kept apiaries is a flagrant inaccuracy. 



Sufficient reply to this criticism is 

 simply to repeat the exact words of 

 the editorial in the Bee Journal for 

 Oct. 12, page 321 which areas follows : 



There are in America about 3,000,000 

 colonies of bees, but our reports are 

 from less than a quarter of a million, 

 or one-twelfth of the whole. If the 

 one-twelfth that are reported are a 

 fair average of the whole, then the 

 crop of American honey for 1881 

 amounts to 120,000,000 of pounds. If 

 we call it only a hundred millions, it is 

 worth $15,000,000. Surely the indus- 

 try is of sufficient magnitude to satisfy 

 the most enthusiastic of its devotees. 



It should be remembere'd that this 

 is but a closing paragraph, having no 

 particular bearing on the "Table of 

 the Honey Crop of 1881," except to 

 show that if the one-twelfth who had 

 reported are a fair average of the 

 whole, (which are roughly estimated 

 at " f(6oi({ three millions of colonies of 

 bees"), then the crop of American 

 honey for 1881 amounts to 120,000,000 

 pounds. 



It will be readily seen that we 

 asserted nothing, basing all the calcu- 

 lation upon an "if" — and then to 

 show that we did 7iot regard the fig- 

 ures as at all definite, we threw off the 

 small amount of tiventy million pounds 

 of honey, estimating the balance as 

 worth fifteen millions of dollars. It 

 would seem that we could hardly have 

 been mo?-e indefinite in these casual re- 

 marks about the estimate of the whole 

 Honey Crop of America. 



If anyone thinks that twenty mil- 

 lions of pounds are not enough to 

 " throw off to cover shortage " for the 

 inexperienced and box hive men — 

 (and very likely it should be more)— 

 they are perfectly welcome to " throw 

 off " twenty millions more, or two or 

 three times that amount, and still the 

 only point we made is sufficiently 

 maintained; which was, that bee- 

 keeping was an industry of sufficient 

 magnitude to command attention ! 



Surely neither Mr. Hasty nor Mr. 

 Hutchinson will dispute the latter and 

 only point we made ! In the light of 

 these facts, have they not been criti- 



