38 BULLETIN 685, U. S. DEPAHTMeNT OF AGKIOXJLTTJEE. 



business the untrained and indifferent beekeeper, who is 

 unable to successfully combat them, opens the field to the 

 man capable of overcoming them, who is usually also a 

 deeper student of the entire subject of bees and of their care 

 and protection, better informed on sources of nectar, dates 

 of flow, etc., and is therefore able to handle the bees with a 

 view to maximum honey production. But as honey becomes 

 a main crop, and its sale the main source of income, closer 

 attention is drawn to cost of production. Modern equip- 

 ment must be purchased and the product prepared in an 

 attractive manner. The commercial producer is not able 

 to sell his product for less than the actual expense of pro- 

 duction and continue in the business, as is the practice with 

 many who produce honey in a desultory way. 



The present exceptional demand, due to the shortage of 

 sugar arising from war conditions, has raised the price of 

 honey to a figure unheard of during the present generation 

 and may be expected to result in some increase in bee- 

 keeping, although the general high range of prices, which 

 affects aU products that the honey producer himself must 

 purchase, to a considerable extent offsets this increase in the 

 price of his own product. 



If the importance of honey as a food, particularly valuable 

 to children and to those with dehcate digestions in lieu of 

 the less readily digestible sugars, candies, and confections, 

 and its high merit for use in preparing savory cakes and 

 other foods, as well as in giving palatability to humble 

 articles of fare, should be properly reahzed and a demand 

 established at permanently adequate prices, a very great 

 increase in the country's supply of this dehcious food product 

 might be reaUzed through the inducement thus afforded to 

 competent persons to engage in honey production on a 

 commercial scale. 



The usual prices received by producers at their local 

 markets in the month of September, being the rate for small 

 wholesale lots and including many retail quotations, as 

 reported to the Bureau of Crop Estimates by a list of local 

 dealers, are shown in Table XIII, and are fairly representa- 

 tive of the average range of prices shown by the reports for 

 other months of the year. The small effect upon these 



