THE APIARY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3197, 23 June 1915, Page 9

THE APIARY.

By J. A.

Last week I wrote of the technical side of the conference. This week I wish to say a word as to the commercial side. We are all more or loss acquainted with what has been done by the Agricultural Department for the dairying industry. Nothing could be done under the old system of farm butter-making to establish an export trade. Under that system the grocer’s cart collected the butter from the farms. Part was then sold over the counter, and it did not matter whether it was good farm butter or simply axle grease, it brought just the same price—-a price that never, in summer at all events, paid the makers. The balance was run over a butter-worker to blond it, and mummified with salt. What was done with it then I do not know; but this is certain : out of such an article wo could never have built up our present export trade. By co-operation and by grading we have produced the results so familiar to us all, and to-day when the world is faced with tho gravest danger, ihis is one of the things that is making in a very decided way for the prosperity of the Dominion. What has been done for the dairying industry is now, with every prospect of success, being done for the fruit industry. I was this week in the Moutere district (near to Mdtueka, in Nelson), and I was told by one who is certainly a good authority that in that district alone there are some 12,000 acres of orchard either planted or in course of being idantcd. This represents about. 2,000,000 fruit trees, and tho expectation is that in a very few years 1,500,000 cases of fruit will go out of that one district. It would need no prophet to be able to foresee that, if the working out of tho commercial end of such an industry were left to the units engaged in it, there would be' collapse. Suppose a foreign buyer wcie to come into the market wanting 20,000 cases of a certain line of fruit, could ho get it? We all know that without co-operation it would be impossible to do so. Produced by a large number of orchardists, each doing his own packing and using h:s own particular make of cases, there could be no similarity either in the get-up or quality of the fruit. Under co-ppcration and with Government grading this can be done, and tho buyer can get the line ho wants from the “co-op” manager in less time probably than it would take him to buy 100 cases from a single orchardist, and with the certainty that the sample and the bulk are exactly alike. This position begets confi dence, and makes trade; and, in my opinion, it moans that the fruit industry is going to.bo one of our great industries and help largely to swell the exports of the country.

Our conference in Wellington was charged with the importance of this same co-opcna-tion and organisation in the honey trade, and underneath all the discussions on the commercial side of beekeeping was jthe deep interest taken in the' New Zealand Honey Producers’ Co-operative Association and in the grading done by the instructors. In some ways honey as a product is_ more easily dealt with than fruit. It is loss liable to injury, and it can be exported as ordinary cargo without any fear of injury. In other ways it is more difficult. When a fruit-grower gathers his Jonathan apples and gets them graded for size, soundness, and quality, the work is done, and the product is a line - of Jonathan apples. That is all that can bo done. When, however, a beekeeper submits a line of what he supposes to bo white clover honey, ho knows that in nearly every case it contains a. proportion of honey gathered from ether plants The bees arc great honey-blenders, and sometimes the flavour is not improved The, consequence is that the variation in quality in the honey produced is very great. How. then, can we get a line of 20 or 50 tons of a similar grade of honey? Are we to allow the foreign buyers to go round amongst the beekeepers and pick up 10 cases here and 10 cases there, and find that even these 10 cases are not uniform? Or can we, by co-operation, place ourselves in such a position that we can say to the buyer. “Here is a sample —you can have 50 tons of that,” dr “Here is another sample—you can liave-100 tons of that”? On our ability to do this depends to a largo extent our hope of establishing a prosperous export trade. The feeling that I found most freely expressed in conference was that depots are required in the principal districts. and that the work must be done by blending—blending in such a way as to produce a large quantity of certain welldefined standards in honey, and by grading up to those standards make uniform in its standard the honey that, is to go on the export market. Much interest was taken by the conference in the work of the graders. Mr Jacobsen represented the department, and did the grading, and was able to give a very satisfactory showing. There

was, however, and probably will bo for some time, a considerable difference of opinion. Probably in this grading attempt we lead all other countries—at least I have never heard of its being done elsewhere. But this must be said, that it seems the only way to work up the trade, just as it has been in the dairying and fruit industries. A good deal of interest centred round the question of the grain and condition of the honev. There is as much variety in the grain as there is in the colour and flavour of honey. Some honeys are mellow to the palate, others are gritty, and some granulate like very coarse sugar. Ihe general belief at the conference and numerous experiences seemed to prove it was that the producer has the power of controlling this. Cases were given of coarse and gritty-grained honey being reliquofied, and by adding a starter —that is, a small quantity of granulated honey—so as to hasten the granulation, also aided by stirring, producing a fins mellow-grained honey that is very- pleasant fo the palate. Another thing in connection with the condition of honey is the question of scum. As usually understood, this term should bo used only in connection with the air bubbles, and, if the honey has not been properly strained, the wax chips, which rise to the surface when it is allowed to stand. The department, however, has applied this term to a condition of the honey under granulation which has no relation to scum at all. This condition has something of a frothy appearance ; it is often inches deep on the surface and extends in layers throughout the honey. The conference resented the use of the word “scum” in connection with this condition of granulation, and by resolution decided to ask the department to apply some less sinister expression to describe it, the word “efflorescence” being suggested. If I gauged rightly the feeling of the conference, it is that the department is doing pioneering work, and that necessarily mistakes will occur, but that the prospects are distinctly good and hold forth the hope that with co-operation on the part of the beekeepers themselves success will be attained.