336 



Our Imports of Honey. 



declared value of ^^31,000, or about 3:}d. per lb. Among the 

 countries engaged in supplying" our markets with this pro- 

 duct the principal are the United States, Chili, and Peru, 

 the other contributors including- the British West Indies, 

 France, Australasia, Canada, Germany, Italy, and the 

 Spanish West Indies. A few paragraphs on the position ot 

 the bee-keeping industry in some of these countries may not 

 be without interestc 



From the United States we usually receive about one-third 

 of the total quantity imported, and about the same proportion 

 is furnished conjointly by Chili and Peru. No particulars 

 are available with regard to the production of honey in the 

 United States since those collected at the census of 1890, 

 when it was ascertained that the yield from the hives then in 

 existence was nearly 553,000 cwts. in the twelve months, the 

 production of beeswax in the same period being 10,000 cwts. 

 The industry is principally confined to the central 

 and north central States drained by the Mississippi, the 

 only State on the Pacific slope where bee-keeping is of 

 any importance being California, while on the Atlantic side 

 New York, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina are the chief 

 honey-producing States. Most of the honey exported from 

 the United States is shipped to Great Britain. 



In France returns relating to apiculture are annually 

 collected by the Ministry of Agriculture. The production of 

 honey in 1896 was estimated at 17,000,000 lbs., which was 

 somewhat above the average, and the number of hives in the 

 country was 1,623,054. These figures do not materially 

 differ from those ascertained at the more detailed Decennial 

 Inquiry of 1892, when 147,300 cwts. of honey and 47,000 cwts. 

 of wax were estimated to have been produced from 1,603,572 

 hives. In the published report on the results of the Decennial 

 Inquiry the following comparative statistics are given of the 

 number of hives in France and other countries in 1892 : — 

 France, 1,603,572; Austria, 920,640; Denmark, 122,500; 

 Sweden, 93,180 ; and Ireland, 21,163. There is an average 

 exportation of about 20,000 cwts. of French honey annually 

 of which the greater part is sent to Belgium and Flolland* 

 The successive Decennial Inquiries of 1862, 1872, and 1892 



