The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1918-04-11

+, to the regions best adapted to this in
dustry and it should also be remem-
| bered that not all localities within a
| main region are equally valuable. The
chief honey regions of the United
States are Cd the white clover region
of the northeast; (2) the southeastern
region, west to eastern Texas. with a
wide variety of nectar sources; (3) the
alfalfa region of the west; 90 the
| mountain sage region of southern Gail
fornia. and CD the semi-arid region of
Texas and adjacent states. In all OF
these regions commercial beekeeping
is practiced extensively and in all of
them, too. there is room for great
expansion of the industry as a com
nercial enterprise. In addition to
these larger regions many more re-
stricted areas offer special induce
ments to the beezeeper
But oven where colonies of bees arc
sufficiently numerous and where nee
tar is freely secreted beekeeping is not
always considered profitable. This re-
suits from the nature of the indus
try. A colony of bees does not always
gather sufficient honey for it's own
use and also enough so that the bee
keeper can take honey for himself. Ii
is only when bees arc properly handled
that they yield to the beekeeper the
fullest return, and to an unusual de-
gree Bookkeeping is profitable to just
the extent to which the beekeeper APP
plies Intelligent care.
SUCCESS NOT SURE
Success in Bookkeeping depends upon
the beekeeper's skill in two lines of ef-
Bookkeeping the colonies strong by
proper care in winter and keeping the
colonies from swarming. The failure
to take proper care of bees in winter
is q source Of the greatest loss now
experienced by beekeepers, and this
applies to almost all parts of the Uni
ted States; yet it is simple mat
ter to protect the bees in the hives
one which will put more dollars in
the farmers pockets and more bees
in his hives. The essentials to the
greatest success with bees are dis
cussed in numerous textbooks and bull
letins published by the state aErcul-
tural colleges and the United States
department of agriculture.
The average annual honey crop of
the United States is about 250,000, CSC
pounds and is sufficient to supply each
man, woman and child with about two
arc half pounds year, which is
equivalent to 3 per cent of the amount
of sugar they consume in normal
S'iHOo. iiuS tHcIc Is ample room LOT
expansion of both the production and
consumption. The present use of honey
in the home usually is as a substl-
tute for jellies, jams and strip. 1t is
little used in domestic cooking or bak-
ing, but this use should be increased
While honey within recent years has
sold at prices sufficiently low to JUS
tify it's use as substitute for sugar,
1t Is rarely used in commercial food
manufacturing except in the making
of certain cakes which must be kept
moist for considerable time. Usual
~, however, the supply of honey is
so Inadequate that most of the crop
can be used as spread for bread
With the use liINited as it is, many
people in the United States rarely eat
honey, but it is evident that there
might be developed ready sale for
honey as supplement to sugar. If pro-
duction were increased many times.