38 BULLETIN 685, U. S. DEPAETMENT OF AGEICTJLTUEE. 
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 entne subject of bees and of their care r 
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. Modem 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 unheai^d of during the present generation 
and ma}^ be expected to result m some mcrease in bee- 
keeping, although the general high range of prices, which 
afiects all products that the honey producer himseK must 
purchase, to a considerable extent offsets tliis increase in the 
price of his own product. 
If the importance of honey as a food, particularly valuable 
to children and to those ^vith dehcate digestions in Heu 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 palat ability to humble 
articles of fare, should be properly reahzed and a demand 
estabHshed at permanently adequate prices, a very great 
increase in the country's supply of this dehcious food product 
might be reahzed thi^ough the inducement thus afforded to 
competent persons to engage in honey production on a 
commercial scale. 
The usual prices received by producers at then 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 fist of local 
dealers, are shown in Table XIII, and are fairly representa- 
tive of the average range of prices sho^^m by the reports for 
other months of the year. The small effect upon these 
