The Montgomery tribune. (Montgomery City, Mo.) 1892-1910, 1910-06-17
TONS OF HONEY
Crop of 1909 for Missouri Amounted
to 5,960,05l Lbs.
Labor Commissioner ]. G. A. Hitler
Issues Some Sweet Sticky Statistics


ed by Missouri's busy bees in 1903
was not as great as in former
years, owing to the late and severe
spring and unfavorable climatic
conditions late in the summer and
early fall, yet it was large enough
to give every man, woman and
child OF the state pound and a
half and then leave enough to ship
about 10000 pounds.
Advance figures from the 1910 Red
Book of the bureau of labor statis-
tics, made public yesterday by
Labor Commissioners j. c. A.
Hitler indicate that the product of
honey for the year in question
amounted to 5,960,051 pounds,
which is a tremendous amount,
considering that this maps of
sweet must be collected drop by
drop from the blooms of clover,
buckwheat, alfalfa, willow and
other plants. At Is cents a pound
all this honey would have sold at
$S94, ,00S, had it reached the market
but the farmers of Missouri are
like any other mortal, and know a
good thing when they have it. In
addition nature has given each
and the members of their family
a sweet tooth, with the conse-
quence that half of the honey is
kept on the farm for home con-
sumption during the long cold
days of the winter, it going we'll
then on corn bread and biscuits
ofthe variety which only a
Missouri farmers wife can turn
out.
Many Pounds Shipped,
With about 10000 pounds
OF honey kept on the farm to go
with genuine country butter, the
kind which is made from real
cream, in the easy task of reaching
the heart by way of the stomach,
about 1 400 pounds more was sold
in and through the ia counties,
leaving only about 100000 lbs,
which were shipped to st. Louis,
Kansas City, and st. Joseph.
1t took many millions of bees to
collect the 1909 crop and it is not
their fault that the production was
n OF as large as in 1908, when it re-
ached total of 7,946,735 pounds
and value of S927,S1O. They did
the best they could. working over
time every pleasant, sunny day
collecting tribute from each flower
in the offort to gather enough to
last their colonies and their off
springs during the winter.
1t is figured outby the State Bee
Inspector M. r. Darby that the
farmers of Missouri own 225, 1921
colonies of bees. In favorable
year the yield of honey amounts
to about 35 pounds to the colony.
1t is paying industry: one which
ought to receive more attention
from Missouri farmers as there is
always market for the product,
and honey will never be cheaper
than IL cents pound, Wholesale,
because of the ever growing de-
mand for it. Then again the clamor
from consumers of beeswax are in
creasing year by year as new uses
are found for it. It is now needed
medical and scientific purposes as
we'll as in the household.
Millions of Bees.
No one has ever attempted to
take complete census of the
number of bees in Missouri, or
any other state, not because they
might bject and show their antip-
athy to being counted in a very
and business like way
but chiefly owing to the fact that
there are many hundred in each
colony. Allowing only a thous-
and to colony Figures which are
not correctly would mean that $780,
62i, 900 bees In 1909 collected hon
ey, sip by sip, for the inhabitants
Of Missouri. II larger figures
were given for the bee population
Of Missouri no one but a bee cx-
pert on bees would believe it, con-
-.-L - =. - l N.