144 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOLHINAL. 



Feb. 25, 1904. 



Mr. Abbott— The price ought to be exactly the same for 

 the same kind of goods every place. That is the way we are 

 trying to do with honey ; we are trying to make it bring what 

 it is worth all over the country, and that is the importance of 

 having this very thing. Now, Mr. France has about the level- 

 est head of any man I ever heard talk, or ever had anything 

 ' to do with this National Association. I am talking right to 

 his face ; but I have a way of talking what I think whether 

 it suits or doesn't suit. My wife says I have too much of 

 that. But let that be as it may. Now, it seems to me that 

 we are getting at something, that we are mapping out sorne 

 work that is consistent, sensible, that is on the earth, and that is 

 on the principle of "live and let live," and the principle of 

 general helpfulness. When you are asking all of these ques- 

 tions, and talking about these combinations, you must always 

 remember that the other fellow can do the same thing. Now, 

 I read in an agricultural paper the other day that certain 

 trusts were doing certain things with the farmer, and if 

 they kept on doing that the farmer would do certain things, 

 and then look out! The editor thought that this was an evil, 

 iDut in order to correct that evil the farmer should do some- 

 thing else that was evil ; he should go at him in the sarne 

 way. Now that was a mistake. If the thing was wrong in 

 the other fellow, it was wrong in the farmer, and it was the 

 wrong principle. Everybody in the world has to live. The 

 man who belongs to a union wears clothes, and the man who 

 doesn't belong ought to wear clothes if he doesn't, and he 

 ought to have an opportunity to get the clothes, and to get 

 them honestly, and fairly, and boldly, and stand up and look 

 every other man in the face, as a man should do, and he 

 should not be disgraced and held up to public ridicule because 

 he is not this or that. He ought to be honored because he is 

 a man, and has within him a living soul, and because there is 

 something more of him than flesh or blood — because of his 

 manhood, and ability — or because of her womanhood, you 

 should apply it to women. Now we don't want to forget 

 this ; we are going to remember it. Now I am in St. Joe 

 dealing in supplies, and if you drive me out of keeping sup- 

 plies I will go to keeping bees and get in competition with 

 you, and give you a rattling time, and then you would want 

 to form a combination and drive me out of the honey-busi- 

 ness, and I would ,go to farming. I would be certain to go 

 to doing something, because I cannot die right away, and T 

 don't want to, and I would have to do something, and I 

 am just as apt to be in competition with you as I am in doinf 

 the thing that I am doing now. Now this is the way all this 

 looks to me. I wanted to say this several times, but I did not 

 have a chance to-day. 



EXHIBITING HONEY AT FAIRS. 



A Member — "Would it not be beneficial to the bee-industry 

 to make honey exhibits at fairs?" 



Mr. Hutchinson — It is one form of ad-Wt^r, _ing. 

 show the public how the bees look, and when they go up to 

 the hives and see the bees storing honey you have a chance 

 to show them the honey and show them where it comes from 

 and show them the glass bottles, and you may get people to 

 eating honey that have never seen it before. It is one form of 

 advertising that is of benefit to us— to bee-keepers at large. 



Mr. Niver — At the Pan-American they had a very elab- 

 orate show of honey, and immediately after that I went to 

 selling honey at Niagara Falls, and I found that had educated 

 those people there to the desirability of eating extracted 

 honey, and I had a very .good time selling it there. Now I 

 have thought if the National would take hold of the St. Louis 

 Fair in a practical way, and work it strong, it would pay 

 largely. I have thought sometimes of starting a booth there 

 myself, and selling buckwheat cakes and honey. 



Mr. France— Right on that line of the Fair at St. Louis— 

 someone, I believe, made a suggestion at Los Angeles, of 

 having some central head to the St. Louis Exposition, and 

 that the various States, through the National Bee-Keepers' 

 Association, could, by some system, make the honey display 

 there a credit to the bee-keeping industry. Some of the States 

 have very liberal appropriations, so that they will have fine 

 exhibits, but I am ashamed to say that my own State has put 

 so much in other exhibits that if there is anything it will 

 have to be individual donations. A good many of the States 

 are going to wait a little too late, and the honey product of 

 this year, which is so fine, will have been disposed of, and what 

 will we have to make the earlier of the display at St. Louis? 

 I am afraid that_ vi^e are now even a little late, and if the 

 various State societies, through their secretaries, could come 

 in touch with the National Association through correspond- 



ence, I believe we can, even yet, systematize this matter to 

 make that e-xhibit a little more creditable. 



Mr. Duby — May I ask if there are any here who have ever 

 made exhibits at fairs, and what the results were? 



Mr. Johnson — I exhibited honey once, in Allen County, 

 Kan., about 15 years ago, and I got the first premium. There 

 was no other honey there. 



Mr. Abbott— I might say that I have exhibited at 

 fairs, scores of times. At the last one I had $1,200 worth of 

 stuff, and it all burned up, and I have not made any more 

 exhibits since. I had no insurance on it. But I think that 

 anybody in any community where there is a fair, can go to 

 work in four or five years, by working the matter properly, 

 and get liberal premiums offered — premiums enough to pay for 

 setting up their e.xhibits. and build up an excellent honey- 

 trade. When I came to St. Joseph there was nothing there 

 in the way of honey exhibits ; but I soon had them so that 

 they were paying $250 premiums. One season I got it — 

 my wife bossed the job. She set the exhibits up and bossed 

 the job, and I furnished the money. But really there is a 

 wonderful possibility to it, especially if you have a city like 

 St. Joseph behind you ; and you have no idea, if you have not 

 studied the matter, how it will attract the attention of 

 people, if you put out colonies of bees. The people would 

 come along there, of those worthy 400 — they live to eat, and 

 eat to live — and they would say, "Oh, there, see the wax ! 

 See the bumblebees!" Or, "What is that? Is that maple 

 syrup, or is it beeswax?" And they would ask you questions 

 for awhile, and say, "Oh, mamma, I wish you would buy a 

 case of that fine honey." And they buy it, maybe people who 

 had not used a case of honey in their lives, and the next year 

 they would have more honey, and the next year the coach- 

 man would drive around and say that Mr. So-and-So wanted 

 a case of honey, and he always paid a good, big price. Charge 

 him 5 cents a pound extra for it. And the problem was 

 solved as to where there was a market for some honey: 

 Now it seems to me that you could do a lot of that in any 

 large city, or even in a small place. 



Mr. Whitney — I was simply going to say that I have 

 made a few exhibits at county fairs. I do not know whether 

 it resulted in any particular benefit or not. I never produced 

 any great amount of honey, but always got rid of it. 



Mr. Craven — I think Mr. Root can tell us more about 

 exhibits at fairs. He was at the Pan-American, and ought 

 to be able to give us a few hints. 



Mr. Root — I do not know that I can give any good in- 

 formation about this business. From the manufacturer's 

 standpoint it is of little value, if I am correct ; that is, during 

 my stay at the Pan-American I did not sell enough goods to 

 pay my v/ay, but it was simply in advertising and educating 

 people. I believe that it is a good thing to educate the people 

 at a fair. I will never forget some of the things I heard there. 

 People came in, and one very nice lady explained to another 

 how the bees bored a little hole into the cake of wax, and an- 

 other little hole next to it, and they bored so many little holes 

 that they had the combs, and the aueen-bee came along and 

 laid an egg in each of these little holes I It is very amusing. 

 I explained something to her after that that made her look at 

 it in a different way ; but they don't seem to know anything 

 that is the truth of it. They called extractors "ice-cream 

 freezers," and they even called my frame of bees "cock- 

 roaches." These things I will always remember. But the 

 thing, it seems to me, that makes this exhibiting profitable 

 is educating the people. I do not see how anybody could buy 

 honey, or would want to eat honey, if he thought it was made 

 by cockroaches or turned out in ice-cream freezers. The peo- 

 ple came there and were so interested that they staid two or 

 three hours when they had only one, two or three days at the 

 Pan-American ; and I am sure those people are going to buy 

 honey. And then there is another thing: I don't know 

 whether it is of any great practical advantage or not, but that 

 is, a good many school-teachers came up and wanted to learn 

 all they could about the bee-business, and they were going 

 home to teach the children in the public schools these very 

 things. I do not think that it does any harm, and the 

 school-teachers do not have an opportunity to find out about 

 such things. They don't seem to know where to get their 

 information. I think that it is a very good thing; but take it all 

 in all, it's educating the people that makes it advantageous. 



Mr. Whitney — I happened to think that, speaking of edu- 

 cating the people, I have had during the past summer three- 

 score of people visiting my bee-yard, and I have taken special 

 nains to give them all the education I could possibly impart 

 in the yard. Even Mr. Baldridge was there. I did not at- 

 tempt to tell him an^'thing about bee-keepin.g, but there were 



