Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 665 



than of eigkteen colonies that will give ten pounds each. 10. It 

 would be cheaper and easier to raise 18,000 pounds, nine tons, in the 

 large hives, than 1,800 pounds, less than one ton, in the small hives. 



My experiments give the largest surplus lacking six pounds in one 

 class of hives, and less tha,n ten pounds in the other class. 



AVill bee-keepers and the public be satisfied with 1,800 pounds of 

 surplus when, the}' maj have 18,000, for sale and for use. I make 

 my estimate from facts in experiment. There is margin left to divide 

 the large surplus and double the smaller, and yet Jiave them stand 

 ninety to twenty. And divide and double again, and the large hive 

 still gives the most surplus by five pounds. 



Sugar and Sugar Sand. 



Mr. M. "Van "Winkle, of Oneida, Eaton county, Mich.^ asks what 

 makes sugar sand, a deposit from maple syrup : 



Mr. J. B. Lyman. — Prof S. W. Johnson of Yale scientific school 

 says : " The ' sugar sand ' consists essentially of malate of lime, a 

 compound of lime with the acid of sour apples. Malic acid appears 

 to be a normal ingredient of the juice of the maple, though commonly 

 existing in it to only a very slight extent. What causes influence its 

 formation, and its greater abundance at one time than another, are 

 not known, so far as I am informed. Precise facts are wanted as to 

 the conditions and circumstances of its appearance or non-appearance. 

 Such facts do not appear to have been put on record. My personal 

 observations of maple sugar making extend over a period of ten years 

 or so, and were obtained in Lewis county, iSTew York. I never there 

 saw ' sugar sand,' and, in fact, never heard of its occurrence in that 

 region. I did, however, notice a slight incrustation on the pans in 

 which the sap was boiled down to syrup, and remember that the 

 ' settlings ' of the syrup, especially toward the close of the sugar 

 season, were sometimes gritty. This incrustation was thouglit to be 

 lime, and both it and a portion of the sediment from the syrup were 

 doubtless malate of lime. Malic acid forms with lime, as with most 

 other bases, two distinct salts. One of these, commonly designated 

 the acid malate, is freely soluble in water ; the other, or neutral 

 malate, is very sparingly soluble. The latter it is which crystallizes 

 from the sap during concentration and forms the sugar sand. It 

 would be interesting to hear from Mr. Yan Winkle at what stage of 

 the process of sugar-making the sugar sand separates, what quantities 

 of it appear, what the soil of his maple grove is, and other particulars 



