118 



SIXTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



They say supply and demand regu- 

 lates the price. Does it? 



If supply and demand regulates the 

 price, honey ought to be twenty cents 

 a pound just now because there is big 

 demand but no supply. 



We have no honey in Minnesota. In 

 Michigan it is all gone. Even if there 

 be any honey in the country we have 

 not enough to last only to February, 



What are we going to do for honey 

 five months before harvest? You will 

 not have it. In the meantime the peo- 

 ple of Illinois will forget to eat honey 

 because they never see it. Then when 

 August comes, and your crop, you have 

 to educate them all over again. 



The success of honey eating is to 

 keep it before the public twelve months 

 in the year, and we cannot say any- 

 thing about the supply being too big 

 until we can supply them with honey 

 12 months in the year. 



Now we are supplying them five 

 months, and in the state of Minnesota 

 I never knew a -time when we could 

 supply them after Easter. 



The demand exceeds the supply to- 

 day, and it sells for seven cents a 

 pound. 



For instance take our coal: In the 

 spring it is $5, in February; in April 

 and May, $5.10; in June, $5.20; in July, 

 $5.30; in August, $5.40. Well, why 

 should coal just begin to go up in 

 price in the spring and quit in the 

 summer? The demand is smallest in 

 the summer, and still it keeps climb- 

 ing all summer long; and whenever 

 there is a chance it keeps jumping 

 up higher and higher — because the 

 coal men are organized and under- 

 stand what the price is going to be. 

 They have agreed you have to pay 

 from April to September 10 cents more 

 a month. If you want to pay it, you 

 get it, and if you won't pay it you 

 don't get it. 



It is not all supply and demand; 

 there is another item in the regulation 

 of prices — manipulation. For instance, 

 the price of food stuffs can be manipu- 

 lated. There are all kinds of tricks 

 of trade besides supply and demand. 



Now, how shall we increase the con- 

 sumption of honey throughout the 

 country? We talk about co-operation 

 and buying and selling — great prob- 

 lems discussed but not solved. 



We talk about Foul Brood — such as 

 cleaning up our neighbors. Is it not 



time we took the matter up seriously? 



What about County Inspection ot 

 Foul Brood? We have to go after that 

 if we want to eradicate it. 



Then the National Bee Census. Do 

 you think we ought to have a bee 

 census in 1920 so that the bee census 

 will be really a census and show some- 

 thing about the industry? 



But they won't do it unless we go 

 after them, and we have to have a 

 National organization. 



In State Fairs and Exhibits. What is 

 being done throughout the United 

 States? Is there a system, a plan, or 

 anything being done in that line? Very 

 little. 



Honey and Wax and Commerce. 



What do you know about it? All 

 we know is that people use so much 

 honey and sell it. Would it not be 

 interesting to find out where our honey 

 and wax go? How much to tobacco 

 manufacturers. How much to biscuit 

 manufacturers, to syrup concerns? 

 Let somebody investigate and find out 

 every place that honey goes. 



If we could size up all the markets, 

 all of the places where honey goes, 

 you would find out honey is a big com- 

 mercial article, bigger than you rea- 

 lize — the same as wax. The commer- 

 cial importance of wax. At a honey 

 bee exhibit in 1913 they showed thirty- 

 two uses of commercial wax; thirty- 

 two different manufacturing systems 

 where wax is being used. 



How many do you use? I know one 

 — Foundation — I know of only four, 

 and that would leave twenty-eight 

 more. 



Then standards of packing and 

 shipping. How are we going to pack 

 and ship our honey? Two and one- 

 half first class rate by freight they 

 charge now. Do the railroads know 

 about bees? How ignorant they are 

 in the rates they charge. The Na- 

 tional can fix those laws, 



I bought a colony of bees and shipped 

 them seventy -five miles; sent my man 

 down to pack the bees and put them 

 in the car; went to the commercial 

 agent and got rates — the whole car 

 with 14,000 pounds came to $36.75. 



I looked at those bees — they were 

 black bees with crooked combs, but 

 heavy; each hive weighed 60 or 70 

 pounds — something like 180 of them. 

 Bought those bees for $1.40; I thought 

 what is the use of monkeying with 



