26 



THE CUBA REVIEW. 



AGRICULTURAL MATTERS. 



How Bees Can Make Bad Honey. 



In the lirst place, let us remember 

 that bees do not make honey, but col- 

 lect it. Nectars from flowers vary 

 greatly in quality, according to the gen- 

 era and species which produce them, the 

 locality in which they grow, and the 

 weather conditions which happen to pre- 

 vail during the flowering season. fhe 

 flavor of honey is due to the specific 

 aromatics or flavoring substances which 

 are peculiar to a given species. 



Locality plays quite a role in deter- 

 mining the flavor and quality of honey. 

 In those sections where large industries 

 are constantly polluting the atmosphere 

 the nectar will become impregnated with 

 these gases, rendering it less palatable 

 to the taste and less wholesome as a 

 food. Is the bee to blame for this? Not 

 at all. He can gather only what the 

 flower presents. 



It is a well authenticated fact that 

 plant lice (aphidae) produce a sweet ex- 

 cretion known as honey dew, and that 

 during periods of drought bees will 

 gather this honey dew, which contains a 

 ferment, which, like other ferments, be- 

 comes active at a certain constant tem- 

 perature. 



Now, when the bee collects honey dew, 

 places it in his cell and hermetically seals 

 it — caps it — the ferment will cease to be 

 active; but as soon as the honey is re- 

 moved from the comb and placed in a 

 vessel, exposed to the air, and placed in 

 a warm place, and as it is necessary to 

 keep the honey in a reasonably warm 

 place in order to prevent it from crj^stal- 

 lizing into a solid, the ferment will be- 

 come active, set up a fermentative proc- 

 ess, sour the honey and render it unfit. 

 In this case the bee again makes bad 

 honey. For this he is not responsible, 

 for, in the case of necessity, instinct dic- 

 tates that he gather the honey dew. 



Weather conditions affect the quality 

 of honey by raising and lowering its 

 specific gravity. Honey is essentially a 

 saccharine syrup — a form of crystal 

 sugar — levulose being its base. The 

 sugar is hygroscopic in its nature, and 

 during a wet season the nectar becomes 

 diluted by the absorption of moisture, its 

 specific gravity is lowered, the syrup is 

 weaker. During a dry season the con- 

 verse is true. In collecting this nectar 

 the bee makes either a weak or a strong 

 honey. 



The practice of straining honey is ob- 

 solete. The practical bee-keeper extracts 

 his honey from the combs by centri- 

 fugalization and places the combs thus 



emptied back into the hives to be refilled. 

 In this wise he saves the time of the 

 bee, which would have to be consumed 

 in making wax for the building of a new 

 comb to replace that which would have 

 been destroyed by the old process of 

 straining (bees can gather fifteen pounds 

 of honey while they produce one of wax), 

 and he also preserves the brood in the 

 comb — the pupa state of the bee. 



Dr. Wiley states that strained (he prob- 

 ably means extracted) honej' should be 

 regarded as impure because it loses 

 something. The process of extracting 

 does not cause it to lose anything. If 

 it is not what the bee gathered, it is 

 likely because something has been added 

 to it in the way of an adulterant rather 

 than that it has spontaneously "lost 

 something." lie also leaves the infer- 

 ence that honey in the comb is always 

 pure. The comb holds what the bee has 

 placed in it. If the bee has gathered 

 good honey, the honey in the comb ought 

 to be of good quality; but if the bee has 

 gathered impure product or a vitiated 

 product, how can the comb contain 

 good honey? Most people think that 

 honey in the comb escapes adultera- 

 tion. It does ; but the adulteration of 

 comb honev is still an easy mat- 

 ter — the adulteration takes place prior 

 to the product's being placed in the comb 

 and being sealed by the bee. There is 

 nothing physical which will prevent a 

 bee-keeper from feeding his bees with 

 cheap syrup and letting them deposit it 

 in the comb and cap it nicelj'. To the 

 unsuspecting, such a comb capped by the 

 bee himself is a guarantee of purity; yet 

 the customer might be bujMng ingeni- 

 ously sealed glucose. — H. G. Hertel in 

 The Retailers' Journal. 



The average production of peanuts in 

 Valencia, Spain, in normal years is 2,744- 

 pounds in shell to the acre. Prices re- 

 ceived there are between $65.00 and $83.00 

 a ton in shell. 



House or Home. 



A house is built of bricks and stone, of 

 sills and posts and piers; 



But a home is built of loving deeds that 

 stand for a thousand years. 



A house, though but a humble cot, with- 

 in its walls may hold 



A home of priceless beauty, rich in 

 Love's eternal gold. 



The men of earth build houses — halls 

 and chambers, roofs and domes — • 



But the women of the earth — God knows 

 — the women build the homes. 

 — Jewett. 



