MORE HONEY NEEDED. 
CONTENTS. 
Page. ‘ Page. 
A suppl tal sweet. 3 | Factors in st ful beekeepi 6 
Opporturity for expansion of beekeeping.. 4 | To expand the industry...........ccscscecceessesseeees 8 
A SUPPLEMENTAL SWEET. 
| Nis IS IMPERATIVE that we increase not only the sugar crop in 
the United States,’ but every possible supply of sweets, and honey 
is one of the supplemental sweets the supply of which can be enlarged 
without great effort. Not only should those who already keep bees 
enlarge the number of their colonies, but the industry should also be 
extended to localities where beekeeping has not been tried on a com- 
mercial scale. 
The average annual honey crop of the United States is abot 250,- 
000,000 pounds and is sufficient to supply each man, woman and child 
with about 214 pounds a year, which is equivalent to 3 per cent of the 
amount of sugar they consume in normal times. Thus there is ample 
room for expansion of both the production and consumption. The 
present use of honey in the home usually is as a substitute for jellies, 
jams, and sirup. It is little used in domestic cooking or baking, but 
thia use should be increased. While honey within recent years has 
sold at prices sufficiently low to justify its use as a substitute for 
sugar, it is rarely used in commercial food manufacturing except in 
the making of certain cakes which must be kept moist for. a consider- 
able time. Usually, however, the supply .of honey is so inadequate 
that most of the crop can be used as a spread for bread. With the use 
limited as it is, many people in the United States rarely eat honey, 
but it is evident that there might be developed a ready sale for honey 
as a supplement to sugar, if production were increased. many times. 
The amount of nectar secreted by the untold myriads of flowers, 
from which bees make honey, is large beyond our comprehension. The 
total amount of sugar in the nectar greatly exceeds the amount of al} 
sugar and other sweets consumed by the American people. Unfortu- 
nately, from the standpoint of man, this sugar cannot all be collected 
and utilized as human food. Even the honeybee, which is so often used 
as an example of industry, consumes for its own food the larger part 
of all that it collects. 
Beekeeping is, therefore, the means of saving for human use a smal} 
fraction of the vast store of sugar secreted. But the raw material is 
free and its conservation costs only a small expenditure for equip- 
2 More Beet and Cane Sugar Should be Produced, Circular No. 87, Office ef the Secretary, 
United States Department of Agriculture. . 
