Candle Industry Facts

Source: The National Candle Association, 2001
http://www.candles.org/

• U.S. retail sales of candles are estimated at approximately $2 billion annually, excluding sales of candle accessories.
  
  
• There are more than 350 commercial, religious and institutional manufacturers of candles in the United States, as well as scores of small craft producers for local, non-commercial use.
  
  
• Candles are sold principally in three types of retail outlets: department stores; specialty (gift) shops; and mass merchandisers, including drug store chains, supermarkets, and discount stores.
  
  
• The U.S. market is typically separated into seasonal (Christmas/Holiday) business at roughly 35%, and non-seasonal business at about 65%.
  
  
• Typically, a major U.S. candle manufacturer will offer 1,000 to 2,000 varieties of candles in its product line.
  
  
• Types of candles manufactured in the U.S. include: tapers, straight-sided dinner candles, columns, pillars, votives, wax-filled containers and specialty candles. Many of these come in different sizes and fragrances, and all come in a range of colors.
  

• Candles are used in 7 out of 10 U.S. households.
  
  
• Candles can range in retail price from approximately 50¢ for a votive candle to around $75 for a large column candle, although a specialty candle could be as much as $200.
  
  
• Candle shipments increase substantially during the third quarter of the year because of the seasonal nature of candle sales during the end-of-year holiday celebrations (including Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa), since candles play a large role at this time of year (religious occasions, gifts and decorations).
  
  
• Candle industry research indicates that the most important factors affecting candle sales are scent, color, cost and shape. Fragrance is by far the most important characteristic, with three-fourths of candle purchasers saying it is "extremely important" or "very important" in their selection of a candle for the home.
  
  
• Candle manufacturers' surveys show that 96% of all candles purchased are bought by women.
  
  
• Two-thirds of candle purchasers say they use candles once a week or more often. Women are more frequent users than men, and younger people tend to use candles more often than older adults.
  
  
• Candle users say they most frequently burn candles in the living room (42%), followed by the kitchen (18%) and the bedroom (13%).
  
  
• Consumers say they typically burn candles for just under three hours.
  
  
• Nine out of ten candle users say they use candles to make a room feel comfortable or cozy.
  
  
• Candle purchasers view candles as an appropriate gift for the holidays (76%), as a house warming gift (74%), a hostess/dinner party gift (66%), a thank you (61%) and as adult birthday gifts (58%).
  
  
• Tea lights are the most frequently purchased type of candle, followed by votives and container candles.

 

Source: The National Candle Association, 2001
http://www.candles.org/

July/August at the Honey Farm

In July/August at the Honeyfarm all the beehive colonies are revisited and more honey supers (boxes) are added. I usually add about 4-5 above any previously filled supers. Some of the colonies get quite tall and I have to stand on a few boxes to reach the top. The bees look very strong and we hope to have a good crop.

This year I sprayed the weeds around my beehives (2 or 3 ft radius) and it has made things much easier. The weeds can get very tall and sometimes it is harder for the bees to get back into their homes with their harvest of nectar.

Click here for more pictures of activities at our honey bee yards .....

 

African Honey Bee Update

The more they are studied, the more we know, but more questions keep finding their way to the top... Article writen by Kim Kaplan, USDA-ARS Information Staff. published in the March issue of Agricultural Research.

In 1990, a honey bee swarm unlike any before found in the United States was identified just outside the small south Texas town of Hidalgo. With that identification, Africanized honey bees were no longer a problem we would have some day. Africanized honey bees had arrived.

Beekeepers, farmers who depend on honey bee pollination for their crops, land managers, emergency responders like fire and police, and the public all wanted to know what they would be facing as Africanized honey bees began to spread.

Now, 14 years later, scientists with the Agricultural Research Service and elsewhere have uncovered many answers, but they have also come upon some new and unexpected questions. Africanized honey bees—melodramatically labeled "killer bees" by Hollywood hype—are the result of honey bees brought from Africa to Brazil in the 1950s in hopes of breeding a bee better adapted to the South American tropical climate. These honey bees reached the Brazilian wild in 1957 and then spread south and north until they officially reached the United States on October 19, 1990.

Actually, all honey bees are imports to the New World. Those that flourished here before the arrival of Africanized honey bees (AHBs) are considered European honey bees (EHBs), because they were introduced by European colonists in the 1600s and 1700s. EHBs that escaped from domestication are considered feral rather than wild.

Africanized honey bees are so called because it was assumed that the African honey bees spreading out from Brazil would interbreed with existing feral EHBs and create a hybridized, or Africanized, honey bee.

This has always been a major question for researchers—what, if any, type of interbreeding would happen between AHBs and EHBs and how would this affect honey bee traits that are important to people, such as swarming and absconding, manageability for beekeepers, honey production, and temper.

Many experts expected that the farther from a tropical climate AHBs spread, the more they would interbreed with EHBs. But it appears that interbreeding is a transient condition in the United States, according to ARS entomologist Gloria DeGrandi-Hoffman. She is research leader at the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Tucson, Arizona, and ARS national coordinator for AHB research.

Early on, we thought the mixing would reach a steady state of hybridization, because we knew the two groups of bees can easily interbreed and produce young," DeGrandi-Hoffman says. "But while substantial hybridization does occur when AHBs first move into areas with strong resident EHB populations, over time European traits tend to be lost."

A Mighty Adversary

DeGrandi-Hoffman and Stan Schneider, a professor of biology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, have been collaborating the past 3 years to figure out why AHBs replace EHBs rather than commingling.

"We've found six biological and behavioral factors we think are responsible for making AHBs such successful invaders," Schneider explains.

First, AHB colonies have faster growth rates, which means more swarms splitting off from a nest and eventually dominating the environment.

Second is that hybrid worker bees have higher amounts of "fluctuating asymmetry"—small, random differences between the left and right wings—than African honey bees have, even when raised in the same hive.

"Imperfections like fluctuating asymmetry that increase with hybridization may end up reducing worker viability and colony survival," says DeGrandi-Hoffman. "But this is a controversial factor right now, and it will take long-term studies of African, hybrid, and European colonies in the same habitat to truly understand its influence."

But the third factor is undeniably true: EHB queen bees mate disproportionately with African drones, resulting in rapid displacement of EHB genes in a colony. This happens because AHBs produce more drones per colony than EHBs, especially when queens are most likely to be mating, DeGrandi-Hoffman explains.

We also found that even when you inseminate a queen with a 50-50 mix of African drone semen and EHB semen, the queens preferentially use the African semen first to produce the next generation of workers and drones, sometimes at a ratio as high as 90 to 10," she says. "We don't know why this happens, but it's probably one of the strongest factors in AHBs replacing EHBs."

When an Africanized colony replaces its queen, she can have either African or European paternity. Virgin queens fathered by African drones emerge as much as a day earlier than European-patriline queens. This enables them to destroy rival queens that are still developing. African virgin queens are more successful fighters, too, which gives them a significant advantage if they encounter other virgin queens in the colony. DeGrandi-Hoffman and Schneider also found that workers perform more bouts of vibration-generating body movements on African queens before they emerge and during fighting, which may give the queens some sort of survival advantage.

AHB swarms also practice "nest usurpation," meaning they invade EHB colonies and replace resident queens with the swarm's African queen. Nest usurpation causes loss of European matrilines as well as patrilines. "In Arizona, we've seen usurpation rates as high as 20 to 30 percent," says DeGrandi-Hoffman.

Finally, some African traits are genetically dominant, such as queen behavior, defensiveness, and some aspects of foraging behavior. This doesn't mean that EHB genes disappear, but rather that hybrid bees express more pure African traits. The persistence of some EHB genes is why the invading bees are still considered Africanized rather than African, regardless of trait expression, she points out.

A coincidence may have contributed greatly to an overwhelming takeover by AHBs in areas they've invaded. Just as AHBs began their spread throughout the Southwest, the U.S. feral honey bee population was heavily damaged by another alien invader—the deadly Varroa mite, an Asian honey bee parasite first found here in 1987. "Varroa mites emptied the ecological niche of feral honey bees just as AHBs arrived," says DeGrandi-Hoffman. "If they hadn't been moving into a decimated environment, AHBs might not have replaced EHBs so quickly."

Since this is a somewhat long article - click here to finish it .......

Keeping Tabs on the Invaders
Where Did They Go?
Keeping on Beekeeping
Living with AHBs
Not All Bad

 

Caribbean Turkey Burgers with Honey Pineapple Chutney

Recipe Source:
The National Honey Board
& EastTurkey.com

Yield: 4


Honey Pineapple Chutney
1 Ripe fresh pineapple, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch slices
1 Large sweet onion, peeled and sliced 1/2-inch thick
1-1/2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1/3 Cup honey
1/4 Cup red wine vinegar
1 Tablespoon grated orange peel
1 Tablespoon peeled and grated fresh ginger root
1/4 Teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 Cup red bell pepper, seeded and minced

Brush pineapple and onion slices with 1-1/2 tablespoons oil.
Using the direct grill method, grill for about 5 minutes per side over medium-high heat or until lightly charred; remove and let cool slightly. Discard tough pineapple core.
Finely chop pineapple and onion and place in a medium saucepan with honey, vinegar, orange peel, ginger and allspice; stir well.
Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer, covered for 45 minutes. Add minced bell pepper and cook for 10 minutes more; let cool.


Turkey Burgers
1-1/4 Pounds GROUND TURKEY, extra lean
1-1/2 Teaspoons Jamaican jerk seasoning
2 Teaspoons vegetable oil
4 Hawaiian sweet sandwich rolls or potato burger buns split and toasted
As needed butter lettuce leaves, washed, drained and chilled


In a medium bowl, stir together the ground turkey, 1/2 cup honey pineapple chutney, jerk seasoning and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper.
Shape into 4 large flat patties and brush each with 1/2 teaspoon oil.
Using the direct grill method, grill burgers over medium coals for 5 to 8 minutes per side or until cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees F.
Serve on toasted buns lined with lettuce leaves. Place a heaping spoonful of chutney on top of each burger.

From our readers

This is a section for comments/questions/recipes from our readers. Please read the comments & feel free to put your 2 cents worth in.

Visit the Readers Comments page to view all the content of these messages. Here are samples of this months e-mails:  

Grape leaves,  ••  Raw honey,  ••  Purchasing grape vines,  ••  Growing vines questions,  ••  Observation hive

The "From our Readers" Page

Candle W*nner & Laugh of the Month

August candle winner: ang672@yahoo.com

Will this months w*nner,
ang672@yahoo.com
please contact us and so that I can ship your candles.

Our list of previous candle w*nners.

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Click below for something silly to end this newsletter with.

Snowball Fight - Nice cool thing for hot summer month!

See You Next Month!

Honeyflow Farm Main Page

Honeyflow Farm
4939 Mill Rd.    PO Box 275
Dryden, Michigan 48428
(810) 796-2344 (Phone & Fax)

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