158 



TWELFTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



that he is producing' only extracted 

 honey now, but that, if he went baclc 

 to comb honey production, he certainly 

 would use that super; a shallow ex- 

 tracting frame super. He has had bees 

 that worked fifteen minutes on a 

 foundation after the super was given 

 them. 



Mr. Root asked Mr. Townsend why 

 he dropped the production of comb 

 honey. Mr. Townsend replied by say- 

 ing that in going- into the handling of 

 out yards more extensively the swarm- 

 ing bothered too much in the produc- 

 tion of comb honey. Still when he run 

 his bees for comb honey on the method 

 described he only had 15 per cent of 

 swarms. 



Mr. Allen stated that he sold a lot 

 of comb honey in frames direct to the 

 consumer. 



Mr. Root stated that in the produc- 

 tion of comb honey they used a starter 

 two-thirds of the way down, also bot- 

 tom starter and used thin foundation. 

 He placed emphasis on the importance 

 of putting the foundation in the frames 

 in a warm room, where the tempera- 

 ture is near 90 degree, or else use 

 starters only. After the honey is pro- 

 duced then cut the honey out of the 

 frames, and place it on a wire cloth, 

 and then cut it into squares the pro- 

 per size for the individual service pack- 

 age. It is allowed to remain there for 

 24 hours to drain, and then is wrapped 

 in paraffine paper. In thisi condition 

 it is ready for the market. 



Mr. Foster now followed with an ad- 

 dress on "The Needs of the Wester.i 

 Bee-Keepers." He stated that in the 

 west the honey localities are far apart. 

 This brings the bee-keepers in groups, 

 the different groups being widely sep- 

 arated. The first thing the western 

 bee-keeper did was to club orders in 

 purchasing their bee"" supplies in small 

 lots; later they increased their orders 

 and secured carlots of supplies; still 

 later the Colorado Honey Producers' 

 Association was formed for the hand- 

 ling of their honey. They began with 

 a store room and a warehouse. At first 

 it was only open on Saturdays and bee- 

 keepers came in on those days, brought 

 in their honey and secured their sup- 

 plies. The voting was done at monthly 

 meetings, according to shares of stock 

 held. Mr. Foster stated that a co-oper- 

 ative association is not purely co-oper- 

 ative when the voting is done accord- 

 ing to the stock held and advocates 

 the voting to be done according to the 



membership on account of the liability 

 of the stock of a corporation getting 

 into a few hands who, where the stock 

 controls the votes, would be in control 

 of the Association. In some Western 

 Fruit Associations Mr. Foster stated 

 over 50 per cent of the stock was held 

 by outside parties. 



Mr. Foster stated that the west 

 needed more co-operation by members 

 of the local Associations. Second, by 

 the distribution of their product in the 

 eastern markets. He stated there is 

 from 35 to 60 cars sent out of Colorado 

 every year. Idaho is running Colorado 

 a close second, if it is not surpassing 

 it in the production of alfalfa honey. 

 Colorado comb honey granulates earlier 

 now than it did formerly, and Mr. 

 Foster thinks this is hecause there are 

 more honey bearing plants and that 

 this mixture of honey from different 

 sources has a tendency for causing 

 early granulation. He stated that the 

 honey during the past year was dark 

 and would not grade the best, that 

 about 75 per cent this year was No. 2, 

 and 25 per cent was No. 1. The prob- 

 lem, however, is in marketing extracted 

 honey. They cannot afford to produce 

 comb honey if they can get 8 cents for 

 extracted, but at the present time if 

 they have a car of extracted honey 

 they are lucky if they can get over 

 6 to 6% cents, and under these condi- 

 tions comb honey production is more 

 profitable. During the past year it 

 brought from $2.50 to $3.00 for a 24 sec- 

 tion case. The logical market for Idaho 

 and Oregon is the Pacific Coast, but 

 owing to the unjust freight rate they 

 can deliver extracted honey in Denver 

 cheaper than they can in Portland, 

 Oregon. 



The rate on bees to a certain point 

 mentioned by Mr. Foster was $4'00 

 per car while on live stock to the same 

 point the rate was only $75. This mat- 

 ter was taken up with the Railroad 

 authorities and they succeeded in get- 

 ting a reduction of about $100 per car. 

 They did this by giving a special tar- 

 iff. Thej' wrote to the Classification 

 Committee asking that bee hives and 

 bees be classfied as implements of toil. 

 In this way a lower rate was secured. 

 Mr. Foster closed by stating he believed 

 the production of comb honey is in- 

 creasing in the west over the produc- 

 tion of extracted honey in most of the 

 large honey producing localities. 



During the discussion on Mr. Foster's 



