April 1908.] 



343 



Live Stock. 



apples, pears, &c, not' only contain a 

 valuable nectar, but also produce double 

 the crop of fruit when bees are kept 

 near them. Strawberries, also, though 

 producing very little honey, yield 

 pollen and bear heavier crops in presence 

 of hives. 



There is a strange superstition current 

 in lay circles that " half the honey one 

 buys is manufactured." I have myself 

 often heard it amplified somewhat on 

 these lines :— 



" Do you mean to say you have 

 never heard that there are factories in 

 Switzerland where you can actually see 

 machines at work pressing paraffine-wax 

 into the shape of cells and pouring 

 syrup in ? Why, it is no secret at all ! " 



If you ask Mr. Know-all if he has ever 

 w itnessed the process, he will invariably 

 reply that he has not ; but that he 

 knows " dozens of men that nave." 

 Needless to say, Mr. Know-all conveni- 

 ently forgets to send you the names and 

 addresses of his friends, which he " has 

 written down somewhere in an address- 

 book." It is a great pity that these 

 friends can never be traced, as they have 

 seen things that no scientist has ever 

 been able to discover. 



The fact is, Mr. Know-all likes to pose 

 as a well of useful information. He has 

 probably heard the assertion made by 

 an ignorant nurse, when he was a little 

 boy, and thinks it may be a useful piece 

 of knowledge to air to his credulous 

 friends. So far is it from being the 

 truth that, if he can name the factory in 

 question, he can claim a very large 

 reward (£400, 1 think), offered by a syndi- 

 cate of large bee-keepers in order to dis- 

 prove the lie ! The reward has been 

 offered and advertised for several years 

 now. Is it not a little strange that some 

 of the dozens of friends of Mr. Know- 

 all have not claimed it yet ? 



No. You may make up your mind to 

 it that all comb-honey is genuine, and 

 that quite 95% of run-honey is likewise 

 pure. There are, and always will be, 

 dishonest traders that will adulterate 

 run-honey with some cheap syrup ; but 

 it is the exception. So you can safely 

 challenge Mr. Know-all when next you 

 meet him. It will doubtless afford you 

 some considerable satisfaction to be able 

 to take him down a peg or two— which 

 is always beneficial to his kind. 



It is easy to see how this curious super- 

 stition has arisen. An ignorant man has 

 seen a bee-keeper introduce a frame of 

 foundation to his hive. It is neatly 

 stamped to the shape of the base of 

 cells. Therefore it is artificial. He does 



not trouble to discover that, if the bee- 

 keeper used any other wax but the 

 purest beeswax, it would melt in the 

 heat of the hive and kill his bees. Again, 

 he sees the bee-keeper feed syrup to his 

 bees. Of course, the bee-keeper has 

 bought sugar at 2d. and will sell the 

 resulting " honey " at 6d The whole 

 matter is as clear as day. He does not, 

 unfortunately, take the trouble to dis- 

 cover that the bee-keeper only does this 

 in order to build up weak colonies or to 

 give a stock sufficient stores of food to 

 tide it over the winter ! Feeding is always 

 somewhat of a messy job ; and you may 

 lay to it that the bee-keeper is not going 

 to do more in that line than he is 

 obliged ! 



It is just as well to do what you can 

 towards dissipating these absurd beliefs, 

 since people do not like to think they 

 are being swindled ; and if they know 

 that you sell only pure honey, they will 

 like to buy from you, and so you will 

 command a market. With this object in 

 view, therefore, you should ask your 

 friends to come and see your bees— take 

 out a frame and point out which cells 

 contain honey and which brood ; draw 

 their attention to the queen— the rabble 

 always enjoys a glimpse of royalty ! 

 Explain to them the use of foundation 

 and show them a piece. Describe how 

 and why exactly you feed your bees. 

 And I may add that, if you can handle 

 your bees without using a veil, they will 

 be far more interested, believing that 

 you must necessarily understand a tre- 

 mendous lot about the creatures ! 



Your next object should be to place 

 your honey on the market in an attrac- 

 tive form. Owing to the absence of com- 

 petition in comb-honey, you will do best 

 at first to deal as much as possible in 

 that. All sections that are well-filled 

 and capped up to the edges, with nice 

 level surfaces, clean and white in colour, 

 should be graded as first-class. Then you 

 can establish a criterion for second-class 

 sections ; and all that falls below that 

 standard should be extracted or left in 

 the hive as Monsoon stores for the bees. 

 If, however, you find that the bees bring 

 in a nice-tasting honey that is not pure 

 white— heather and buckwheat, for 

 instance, yield a nectar that is distinctly 

 yellow— do not put this in the second- 

 class, but grade it first-class as dark 

 honey. I need hardly remind you that 

 heather-honey is as great a favourite at 

 home, and fetches as big prices, as white 

 clover honey. Be careful not to leave the 

 sections on too long, or they will lose 

 their pristine whiteness, owing to the 

 perambulations of countless bees over 

 their surfaces. 



