While it is expensive and dangerous to attempt to summit Mt. Everest (29,032 feet), it could boost your honey sales.
Sir Edmund Hillary found this out after he and his sherpa guide Tensing Norgay ascended as the presumed first people to summit the world’s tallest peak. They did this on May 29, 1953, seventy-three years ago yesterday.
Sir Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay, first men to summit Everest, 19531)Public Domain image [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edmund_Hillary_and_Tenzing_Norgay.jpgFor Hillary, a New Zealand beekeeper, a side-benefit came with increased honey sales. Norgay’s payoff was likely shared with other Sherpas, who became the essential guides for Everest attempts, and I believe remain so.
After their feat, an American firm, in June 1953, ordered two tons of Hillary Honey. Part of the post-summit furor was based on the idea that not only could you enjoy honey from a famous explorer, but it was possible that Hillary’s honey contributed to what made him succeed.
“It is futile for dietitians to disagree on whether honey has special strength-giving qualities,” one story noted. “The proof of the honey is in the climbing.”2)The Sydney Morning Herald, June 13, 1953.
The Evening Star (Washington, DC), July 16, 1953.
Strangely, it looks like Hillary sold his honey in paper cups.
A waxed cardboard honey container from the apiary of Sir Edmund Hillary and family3)“150 years of quirky Kiwi collectibles,” RNZ online.
An earlier post reported the rising alarm about artificial and adulterated honey during the late 1800s. But for a time, artificial honey was a celebrated new product.
Probably this was rooted in the excitement about the industrialization of everything. Corn syrup was invented in 1811, and before long was sold by the barrelful. Margarine came in 1869 to challenge butter. It’s not surprising that a fake honey, ‘just as good’ as the real thing, took its turn.
The Baltimore Sun, September 24, 1868
How to make artificial honey:
How to make artificial honey. Note alum is readily available today in the spice aisle at groceries, so is essence of peppermint. The Republican, December 29, 1877
War years are a time for making do with artificial forms of products, which in the US have included ersatz coffee and margarine, supplied with a packet of yellow dye you could stir in the better simulate butter. Perhaps focused on it because of World War I shortages, and under the title “Making Honey at Home,” the Evening Sun shared this:
Artificial honey has been manufactured for many years in Europe. It gives satisfaction in cakes, etc. These recipes will give excellent results, and the finished article can scarcely be told from the genuine.
The recipes laid down used glucose and some pure honey.1)The Evening Sun, April 7, 1919.
The adulteration of honey is an ongoing issue, with roots in the far past.
Honey, in the 1800s, was considered adulterated in two ways: if it was mixed with, or replaced by, non-honey ingredients, such as glucose, or, if the bees who made it were fed sugar, rather than collecting nectar.
One of many news bits about adulterated honey from the 1800s1)Brooklyn Eagle, October 9, 1867
Worry about adulterated honey started at least as early as the 1810s and intensified by the 1870s. At first, beekeepers seemed to most worry that the very mention of the possibility of adulteration would cast doubt on the quality of own their natural honey in the marketplace. And it surprised some that it was an issue at all.
“It would naturally seem that the very last article of consumption that would be adulterated is honey, an article which is so plentiful in this State [California] that many times beekeepers can find no market for their crops of honey.2)San Francisco Chronicle, July 2, 1877, p. 2.
Adulterated honey a big discussion at the National Beekeepers’ Association in 18743)The Perry Chief (Perry, Iowa), December 5, 1874
But they soon decided that it would be a better defense of their product to denounce adulteration. All this is while other honey producers routinely adulterated their honey for economic reasons, usually by cutting it with cheap glucose.
Charles Muth (1834–1898), the “Honey King of Cincinnatti,” for whom the Muth honey jar is named, wrote:
“It is a pity that adulterated honey cannot be told more readily. It will seriously damage the honey business as consumers will become suspicious. … I should be an object to every bee keeper, and especially to the editors of every bee journal, to post everybody in regard to the matter.”4)quoting C. F. Muth, writing in the Bee Journal, The Southern Plantation (Montgomery, Alabama), October 14, 1875, p. 7.
Beekeepers learned to explain to people that a sure sign of real, unadulterated honey was granulation.
“we must be teachers, showing how much better the pure article is than the adulterated, even when the latter has the advantage of cheapness to recommend it.”5)citing Moon’s Bee World in The Southern Plantation (Montgomery, Alabama), October 21, 1875, p. 7.
Beekeepers began to seek laws making adulteration of honey illegal by the 1870s. It was a state-by-state effort.
In 1898, beekeepers in western Maryland formed the Beekeepers’ Association of Western Maryland, electing a slate of officers. At their formation session, they immediately chose a board member to draft a bill asking the state legislature to prohibit the sale of adulterated honey unless the honey was label as such. Their purpose for organizing was to press for laws against adulteration.6)The Baltimore Sun, March 10, 1898.
