20 THB bbb-kkeper's guide ; 



sugar — the common sug-ar of our tables — it is converted by the 

 digestive fluids into a glucose-like sugar, which is probably 

 nearly or quite identical with honey-sugar. The bees do the 

 same with the nectar, which is dilute cane-sugar, of flowers. 

 Thus we may reason that honey is our most wholesome sugar, 

 for here the bees have in part digested our food for us. 



BRINGS THB SBCOND BI,ADE OF GRASS. 



We now know that bees do most valuable work in pollina- 

 ting the fruit-blossoms. No orchard will give full fruitage 

 without the visits of nectar-loving insects. Of these valued 

 friends, no other is at all comparable to the honey-bee, in the 

 value of its service. I know of California orchards whose 

 productiveness has been immensely increased by the introduc- 

 tion of an apiary. Svery orchard should have an apiary in its 

 ilear vicinity. 



ADDS TO THE NATION'S WEALTH. 



An excellent authority placed the number of colonies of 

 bees in the United States, in 1881, at 3,000,000, and the honey- 

 production for that year at more than 20,000,000 pounds. The 

 production for that year was not up to the average, and yet 

 the cash value of the year's honey crop exceeded $30,000,000. 

 We may safely add as much more as the value of the increase 

 of colonies, and we have a grand total of $60,000,000— nearly 

 enough to pay the interest on the national debt, were the bonds 

 all refunded. Mr. Root, in his excellent " A B C of Bee-Cul- 

 ture," estimates, from sections sold, that 125 million pounds 

 of honey are produced annually and sold for $10,000,000. And 

 yet all this is but gathered nectar, which would go to waste 

 were it not for the apiarist and his bees. We thus save to the 

 country that which would otherwise be a total loss. Apicul- 

 ture, then, in adding so immensely to the productive capital of 

 the country, is worthy, as an art, to receive the encouragement 

 and fostering care of the State. And the thought that he is 

 performing substantial service to the State, may well add to 

 the pleasure of the apiarist, as he performs his daily round of 

 labor. When we add to this the vastly greater indirect benefit 

 which comes through the agency of bees in fertilizing flowers 

 — a benefit which can hardly be computed — we then understand 



