530 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 



Jones, and when she came the queen and bees were 

 all dead. I then sent Jones one of my cae-es, telling' 

 him how the feed was made. He sent the second 

 queen in my cage, and she came through all right. 

 Last week I received a letter from Jones, and he 

 says that ho has adopted my kind of cage and feed, 

 and finds them just the thing. He sent me a queen, 

 as a present, iu one of the cages, and she and the 

 bees came through all nice and clean and lively — 

 not a dead bee in the cage." 



The cage that I sent to friend Doolittle, in which 

 he found two dead bees, was returned to me con- 

 taining a queen and bees. The queen arrived in 

 fine condition, and not a bee was dead. From friend 

 Good I have received a cage containing bees, and 

 every thing was in fine order: bees were all alive 

 and lively, and the cage was neat and clean. Dur- 

 iixg tho past season I have received queens from 

 Hayhurst, Viallon, Henderson, and several others, 

 and all have arrived in good condition, bees and 

 queens lively, and the cages neat and clean and law- 

 abiding. Although I have replied rather critically 

 to friend Doolittle, I think his article was timely, 

 and will do good, because queen breeders are quite 

 apt to forget that in sending queens by mail they are 

 placed entirely upon their good behavior — one case 

 of the mails being soiled, or some one being stung, 

 would, if reported, cause queens to be thrown out of 

 the mails, and they wculd, probably, never be ad- 

 mitted again. 



HOW LONG BEFORE SHIPPING QUEENS SHOULD THEY 

 BE CAGED? 



I believe the most of us breeders try to ship 

 queens as soon as possible after they are caged; 

 but, is it best to do so? Here is a friend who thinks 

 not, and perhaps he is right; listen to what he says: 



Friend H. :— It may not be new to you, but I think 

 queens go through the mails safer and with less lia- 

 bility to injury, if they are taken from the hives and 

 put into themailing-cages with their attendant bees, 

 and allowed to i-emain there quietly 34 or 36 hours 

 prior to shipment, as they then have time to reduce 

 themselves, as they naturally do before leaving the 

 hive in swarming. Pushed right off in the mail, 

 they are full of egg's, and can not save themselves as 

 well from rough usage as when reduced. 



John A. BucaANAN. 



Holliday's Cove, West Virginia. 



The majority of my queens are caged about 3 p.m., 

 and go off the next morning on the 9:30 train. 



SELLING EXTRACTED HONEY. 



From Ann Arbor, Mich., a correspondent writes as 

 follows: — 



I have about 600 lbs. of extracted honey, and be- 

 tween 300 and 300 lbs. in 2-lb. sections: no market 

 for it. One old woman from the country could sup- 

 ply this city. 



Now, I should ask for no pleasanter task than that 

 of developing a market for exti-acted honey in Ann 

 Arbor or any other city. First, I should put the 

 honey up in tin pails of the following sizes: pints, 

 quarts, and two quarts. I should use twice as many 

 quart pails as 3-quart, and twice as many pint pails 

 as quart. I should adorn the front of each pail with 

 a neat label, and upon the back of the pail I should 

 place a "Take Notice" label; that is, a label ex- 

 plaining in regard to the candying of extracted hon- 

 ey, how to restore it to the liquid state, etc. I know 

 that a great deal has been written in regard to the 

 importance of having packages neat and attractive, 

 and adorned with handsome labels, but I do not 

 think that it is possible to make a package too at- 

 tractive. We can not compel people to buy our 

 wares, but we can make the wares so attractive that 

 there will be something about them that will say, 

 " Buy me, buy me." I should make some honey- 

 stands, similar to the one in the Sept. Juvenile, 



and, after placing upon the counter, I should ar- 

 range the honey something like this: Upon the 

 counter, in front of the stand, I should place the 2- 

 quart pails, and upon the first or lower shelf the 1- 

 quart; and upon the second or vipper shelf the pint 

 pails. Before taking the honey to mai'ket I should 

 allow it to become candied perfectly solid. I know 

 that candied honey does not present so fine an ap- 

 pearance as liquid honey, and iu order to show cus- 

 tomers how the honey appears when liquified, I 

 should fill some four-dram vials with honey that had 

 been heated nearly to the boiling-point. The sourc- 

 es from which the honey was gathered can be cut 

 from one of the large labels, and pasted in a spiral 

 direction around the vials of honey. In the top of 

 my honey-stand I should bore some shallow holes, 

 and iQ these holes I should place, in an upright posi- 

 tion, my sample vials of honey. I have watched 

 would-be purchasers of honey, and they will take 

 out these vials of honey, hold them up to the light, 

 and exclaim, "Well, that does look nice!" Thus you 

 see we appeal to the eye fully as much as though all 

 of the honey were in the liquid state. I should also 

 have a pint pail of each kind of honey melted and 

 set in behind the honey-stand. One of the 3-cent 

 tinned-iron spoons should also be handy, and, when 

 every thing else failed, a grocer could appeal to the 

 customer's taste. I have noticed that this " last ap- 

 peal" usually "fetches 'em." I should ncvrr at- 

 tempt to sell extracted honey to a grocer who had 

 never handled it. I have tried it a great many 

 times, and succeeded in a few instances. I should 

 visit every reliable grocery-store in a city where I 

 wished to develop the honey market, and, if satis- 

 factory arrangements could be made, should leave 

 honey to be sold on commission. A great many gro- 

 cers have never handled extracted honey, and, if 

 honey is left with them to be sold, they should be 

 thoroughly instructed in regard to the matter. I 

 should try to call upon such a man at a time when 

 he is not very busy, have a good long chat with him, 

 thoroughly posting him in regard to all of the objec- 

 tions that might be raised against the honey. Any 

 one who has extracted honey to sell can not do bet- 

 ter than to obtain friend Dadant's little book on ex- 

 tracted honey. I have had honey, put up in Mason's 

 fruit-jar=, on sale in several stores this fall; but as 

 soon as I carried the little tin pails of honey to the 

 same places, not another jar has been sold, and I 

 have been obliged to bring the jars home, while the 

 little pails of honey were going off like hot cakes. 



PAY FOR CORRESPONDENCE. 



Away back in the first volumes of Gleanings I 

 remember reading something like this: "We are 

 prepared to pay for any new and valuable matter; 

 but unless the writer has had the care of a consider- 

 able number of colonies, the chances are much 

 against his article being considered one we can af- 

 ford to pay for." Lately I have seen nothing in re- 

 gard to the matter, and quite a number of woiild-be 

 correspondents have quizzed me as to the " profits of 

 the business." Only a few days ago I received a let- 

 ter, from which I extract the following :— 



"I believe I must write something for Glean- 

 ings one of these days. Will you tell me what is the 

 prospect of pay for the articles where accepted? 

 Does Mr. Root ever pay any but old experienced bee- 

 keepers? How did you get your position on the first 

 page, and keep it? I have thought that you might 

 be some relative of Mr. Root's." 



W. Z. Hutchinson. 



Bogersville, Mich., October, 1883. 



