ILLINOIS STATE BEE -KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



1«7 



Pres. Huffman — I think we under- 

 stand Mr. Pyles in regard to the re- 

 marks he made; that was the way the 

 manager of the National handled 

 things at that time. If the party was 

 in the wrong, he did his best to have 

 it settled outside of the National. 



Mr. Cavanagh — The weight that a 

 letter has from the National often will 

 decide those things. One time I had 

 an account for honey I sold and the 

 man refused to pay up; he kept claim- 

 ing the honey was not sold, and gave 

 one reason and another for nearly a 

 year. He was advertising 1u 

 Gleanings. I wrote to the Root Com- 

 pany and they told him his advertising 

 account would be at an end if he did 

 not square up, and he squared up 

 promptly. There is a way out of these 

 things. 



I want to tell the members of the 

 Association, who are not familiar with 

 the workings of the Colorado Associa- 

 tion, that they are doing business, I 

 believe, on business principles. They 

 have an Association consisting of bee- 

 keepers who buy stock in the Colorado 

 Bee-Keepers' Association, at Denver, 

 with Mr. Rauchfuss as manager. They 

 have a stock company composed of its 

 members, who take so many shares at 

 $10 a share each, and the Company 

 buys their honey at a stipulated price 

 for the quality bought, or handles it 

 on commission. It is all graded by 

 the manager. Mr. Rauchfuss, or his 

 assistants. They have an up-to-date 

 company; they own their own bottling 

 plant. They use Denver as a dis- 

 tributing point; they sell honey in 

 small sized glass packages to the job- 

 bing or retail trade, and sell honey 

 also in a wholesale way. I believe 

 they also sell bee supplies to their 

 members, and sell outside; in fact they 

 conduct a general honey and supply 

 bu.siness on a business basis all the 

 ^■ay through. 



At the end of the year, having 

 counted all expense for operating and 

 overhead expense, and on the other 

 side the profits of the business, they 

 declare a dividend to the bee-keepers 

 or to the members of that stock com- 

 pany, and Mr. Poster told me last year 

 that since they have been in that com- 

 pany they declared a dividend of, I 

 think, something like 10 per cent, so 

 that they had got interest on their 

 money and at the same time had re- 

 ceived the Ijenefits of the Association 



in the selling of their honey at good 

 prices and a ready market without any 

 trouble. The members turn their 

 honey over to the Stock Company As- 

 sociation and receive dividends at the 

 end of the year and also good prices 

 for their honey. 



That strikes me as a business propo- 

 sition through and through. 



I would like to see (not for my own 

 particular benefit but for the beheflt 

 of bee-keepers at learge) such a busi- 

 ness proposition promoted here as has 

 been done by the men in Colorado; 

 men who are not only bee-keepers, but 

 men of good common sense; it cer- 

 tainly is a success there. We want 

 something of that kind here; some- 

 thing that will run right along suc- 

 cessfully as does this Colorado Asso- 

 ciation. 



Mr. Dadant — I might call attention 

 to the fact that that Association is 

 radically different from the National, 

 from the fact that they have all got to 

 put in enough so it makes it worth 

 their while to concentrate their efforts. 

 If a man has a crop of honey he sells 

 it through his Association, he does not 

 look around for other buyers; he lets 

 his Association sell it for him, and in 

 that way they keep the prices on a 

 uniform basis. 



You do not often And a man, though, 

 like Mr. R., He works his head off;, 

 he is an indefatigable worker. I do 

 not know of any one who works like 

 he does; he works very hard for the 

 little he gets out of it; I will make an 

 exception to that statement— Mr. 

 France of Wisconsin. 



Pre=. Huffman — As I understand 

 you, they are incorporated. 



Mr. Dadant — They are. 



Mr. Cavanagh — I had a letter from 

 Mr. France, in reply to one which I 

 wrote him. He has always helped the 

 bee-keepers, gratis, and I wrote to him 

 about buying and selling honey, and 

 he wrote back a card and said he had 

 been left out of everything, and he 

 feels a little bit hurt. Mr. Franpe has 

 been a faithful, hard worker, and a 

 rrrand mc-.n. I think it would be a 

 pretty nice thing for this convention 

 to draft a resolution and send to Mr. 

 France. I was in Wisconsin one year 

 when he was acting as Inspector and 

 I know what everybody in Wisconsin 

 thinks of Mr. France, and I believe we 

 all think the same of him throughout 

 the bee-keeping fraternity. 



