River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1906-10-25
LIGHT VS.. DARK HONEY.
The Flavor of the Latter is Preferred
by Some.

While those of cultivated taste, who
are wonted to the very best that the
culinary art can give us, much prefer
and praise only the lighter grades of
honey, like that from Eastwood,
clover, alfalfa, white and black sage
and the mesquite, yet there are others
and have known not few such
who prefer and always select the dark
honey when they can get it, says Prof.
A. J. Cook, in California Cultivator
Such people prefer the flavor which is
always present in the darker grades
of honey. l have one friend, a college
professor and long a colleague, who
always preferred buckwheat honey,
and laid in his supply in the late fall
when he could get this kind While
l was glad to supply him this, always
laughed at him and expressed surprise
at his taste. The golden rod honey
and other honey from the autumn wild
flowers in the east, though not quite
as dark as that from the buckwheat,
are highly colored and somewhat pun
gent in flavor. Here belongs the am
California. While most will prefer the
white grades of honey and others who
will prefer honey of the darkest hue,
like buckwheat, the wideawake bee
keeper will be on the sharpest lookout
for customers, especially of these lat
ter classes, for thus he may gain
market for all kinds of honey at good
YT,in hiroIz hot h,,0
wheat honey is the best, or if he pre-
fers the amber-colored honeys, he will
make no objection to paying the best
market price for honeys of these
grades. The friend 1 referred to above
never objected to giving me a first
class price for buckwheat honey. In
deed, it would hardly be consistent to
claim that honey is tirst-class or of
the best quality and yet request that
lower price be asked for it.
Another point of interest in this re-
lation has to do with the grading of
honey. The up-to-date beekeeper will
see to it that his honey is kept by
itself, for it will always bring the high
est figures in the market. Later in the
season, as the bees commence to
gather from sources which give amber
colored honey, the whittier grades will
all be extracted that the amber honey
may be kept by itself. In this way
the grade of the lighter honey will
not be lowered. In California the bee
keeper cannot be too careful in ex-
tracing to keep his sage and alfalfa
honey entirely separate from that
from the wild buckwheat. 1t is even
more important that the still darker
buckwheat honey be kept by itself. It
is hardly necessary to suggest that
these darger grades of honey are just
as suitable for wintering the bees as
is any that is produced. Thus it be-
hooves the beekeeper to extract the
lighter honey and let the bees fill up
the combs with the darker varieties in
the later part of the season for their
own food during the winter.
With the beekeeper, as with those
in any department of agriculture, it is
important to grade carefully. There
are few points which the beekeeper
should study with more thoroughness
than that of grading. If he is produc-
ing extracted honey he has only color
to guide him in making up his grades.
If, on the other hand, he is working
for comb honey, then he must have a
lookout not only for color, but for the
number of uncapped cells, complete
ness of the sections and the general
appearance of the same.