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THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



The Feeding of Sugar to Bees 



By S. D. CHAPMAN, Manceloiia, 3Iich. 



Given at the Northern Michigan Convention, Petoskey, Michigan March 



1914 



(Continued from October Number) 

 thing. We could not risk several 

 thousand dollars we have invested 

 in bees and supplies and above all 

 our honor and reputation. He 

 v;ell knows he could not adulterate 

 honey without being found out. He 

 well knows his reputation as a 

 citizen, his reputation as a bee- 

 keeper is ruined forever. 



Yet certain members of this as- 

 sociation are not only accused of 

 feeding sugar to their bees but they 

 have fed a large amount of sugar to 

 tlieir honey and sold this com- 

 pound as honey. How do these 

 stories get started? 



They start from feeding sugar to 

 their bees. Wheen one of our large 

 beekeepers drives to town and puts 

 on for a load about one ton of 

 granulated sugar and he does it 

 in broad daylight, a part of the 

 public become suspicious. They seem 

 to think that man has got an awful 

 big family or else there is a very 

 close relationship existing between 

 that load of sugar and his honey 

 crop. It would be my advice to 

 those beekeepers that are feeding 

 so much sugar, to order your 

 sugar from some large mail order 

 house and have it shipped through 

 as quietly as possible and bring it 

 home after sundown. When these 

 stories start the beekeeper does 

 not know what is going on. Every- 

 thing is said to his back, no one 

 comes to him and informs him cf 

 these stories that are in circulation. 



But these stories travel. In a 

 few months they have gone for 

 miles in every dircetion till the 

 whole country is thoroughly per- 

 meated with these stories. In the 

 light of beekeeping we can only 

 compare such a locality to a col- 

 ony of bees that has foulbrood in 

 its last stages. It has not only des- 

 troyed the reputation of that bee- 

 keeper for ever in that locality but 

 it has about ruined the local trade 

 for honey. Let me give you some 

 facts in the case. If one of us 

 should so into such a locality to 

 sell extracted honey, probably the 



first man you offer honey to, will 

 ask you, "How much s^ugar do you 

 put in your honey?" He will say "I 

 suppose about the same as such a 

 one puts in his?" If the prospective 

 purchaser is a lady she will ex- 

 claim, "O! we have plenty of sugar 

 in the house!" After there has 

 been several such questions fired 

 at you you will feel small enough to 

 go through a rat hole. You will 

 feel like asking, what kind of a 

 nefarious business are we in any 

 way? 



You have heard the story of 

 manufactured comb honey. It started 

 years ago but it is in the best of 

 health today. When these stories 

 once get started they will never 

 down. They live till you and I are 

 gone, and probably the newspapers 

 will keep it going for another gen- 

 eration. 



I believe it is the duty of every 

 member of this association to choose 

 several honest men in different 

 parts of the locality where you sell 

 honey and ask them if they have 

 heard any stories that are detrimen- 

 tal to our profession and to keep 

 you posted in the future. Some of 

 the members of this association will 

 get their eyes open. 



Forty years ago last October I 

 purchased my first bees. At tha.t 

 time we knew nothing about feeders 

 though we were all running for comb 

 honey at that time. Today if you 

 read the Bee Journals and sum up 

 the articles written by different 

 correspondents throughout the 

 land, you will come to the con- 

 clusion that the sugar barrel is 

 about as necessary as the honey flow 

 itself. If we keep on in the future 

 as we have in the past, it will be 

 but a short time till feeders and 

 feeding will stand first, while the 

 production of honey will be a very 

 poor second. 



Here in northern Michigan we 

 only get fall honey one year in 

 three. Is it profitable to extract all 

 the honey from the upper stories 

 and then feed our colonies from Au- 

 gust first till the first of June? 



