■.,>*;;;>,\-5^;y?/^^*'_j'**-,*jS*Br,?' 



■- [■.;■• 



114 



SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



th:s is that this law, as drawn, includes 

 honey-dew — a small amount. It is not 

 illegal to have a small amount of honey- 

 dew in the honey. That is my under- 

 standing of it. 



Mr. Wheeler — That is rather indefi- 

 nite, isn't it, a small amount? What 

 does that mean? One inspector might 

 say it was a small, amount and another, 

 a large amount. 



Mrs. Glessner — Isn't the adulteration 

 to be by man instead of the bees? 



Mr. Taylor — Not according to the law. 

 If there is too much water in it it is 

 adulterated, even if the bees do it, as 

 I understand it. 



Pres. York — I would like to hear from 

 Mr. Burnett on this question. He has 

 a little (?) experience in honey, and 

 probably can tell whether this law is 

 going to have any effect upon the sale 

 of either comb or extracted honey. 



Mr. Burnett — It has not been in force 

 long enough for me to give an opinion 

 on it! 



Mr. Abbott — There seems to be a mis- 

 understanding about the law, and bee- 

 keepers ought to understand it thorough- 

 ly. The lady is correct as to the adul- 

 teration — the statement of the law; but 

 the Board of Agricultural Chemists 

 have made some rulings in their appli- 

 cation of the law as they understand it, 

 and those rulings become law, and 

 among the rulings the last circular that 

 was sent out by Dr. Wiley's department, 

 who has charge of that, it is said a small 

 portion of honey-dew could be included 

 and it would not be considered adulterat- 

 ed; but they specify how much water 

 may be in; in other words, they de- 

 scribe what pure honey is, and if it 

 does not CQme up to their tests, no 

 matter where it came from, it is impure. 

 If you get it out of a bee-hive, and 

 never put anything in it, if it won't stand 

 the test of the law, it is impure. The 

 same thing occurs in milk. The regula- 

 tions, I presume of Chicago, make it 

 3 percent, butter-fat; they do in Kansas 

 City, I know. It is a fact that Holstein 

 cows, and some very good ones, give 

 milk that tests but 2% percent, and a 

 man was arrested in Kansas City for 

 selling Holstein milk that he milked 

 from his cow. It was a gross injustice, 

 of course, and the law ought not to 

 be administered, in my opinion, in that 

 way. Bee-keepers ought to take that 

 matter up and agitate the question un- 

 til there is some relief along that line. 

 No man should be prosecuted for sell- 



ing the natural product for what it is. 

 A man who sells the milk from a Hol- 

 stein cow that has 2% percent, or even 



2 percent, of butter-fat, ought not to 

 have to go to jail for it, if he milks 

 it from the cow, and does not put any 

 water in it. Any law that condemns 

 him is wrong. Any law that would 

 condemn a man for selling what his 

 bees gathered is radically wrong, in my 

 opinion, and he ought not to have to go 

 to jail for anything of that kind. But 

 as a bee-keeper he ought to avoid put- 

 ting anything on the market that would 

 injure his trade. I would not do that, 

 not because I am afraid of going to jail, 

 but because I do not want to injure 

 the trade. Any honey that does not come 

 up to the standard ought to go into 

 manufactures, or into the sewer. That 

 is the way it looks to me. 



Mr. Wilcox — I think a man that 

 would produce milk testing less than 



3 percent should be punished for it — 

 not for the injury done to others, but 

 for the injury done himself. A man 

 who produces honey testing more ihan 

 25 percent water is producing honey 

 that won't keep. If it is exposed to 

 a warm temperature it will sour. I 

 think the rules and regulations are right 

 as they are. 



Mr. Wheeler — Now don't you think 

 that we are up against a hard proposi- 

 tion? We can't follow the bees and find 

 out where they gather their honey. 

 What in the world are you going to do? 

 Are you going to have it tested every 

 time you sell a gallon of honey? One 

 colony may gather honey-dew, and an- 

 other one clover honey. Who is going 

 to tell? You put that honey on the 

 market in good faith, and if it doesn't 

 stand the test, what are you going to 

 do? There was a committee appointed 

 at the National Convention to meet with 

 the chemists and formulate some kind of 

 a formula for honey, and what did they 

 do? They eliminated honey-dew — any- 

 thing gathered in the shape of honey- 

 dew was eliminated from pure honey. 

 Of course, they say now a little of it 

 will not do any harm — we will overlook 

 a little of it — but that leaves the lever- 

 age with the man who tests it — with 

 the chemist. He can put his finger on 

 one man and not on another — do just 

 as he pleases. It seems to me that 

 the only straight way to do is to make 

 honey pure when it comes from the bee 

 — the only way that any man can safe- 

 ly sell honey — as long as he can not fol- 



^1 



'•'jiS&'i' 



