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QEORQE w. YORK, Editor. CHICAGO, ILL, OCT, 13, 1904. VoL XLIV— No, 41. 



(f bitortal Hotcs anb (Eommcnts 



^ 



The St. Louis Convention of tlie National. 



This meeting of bee-keepers will be remembered as one 

 of the most harmonious of all gatherings of the National. 

 It was like the calm after a storm, when the Los Angeles 

 convention of 1903 is recalled. 



There were 160 members in attendance, with about 25 

 States, the District of Columbia, and Russia and Cuba, rep- 

 resented. It was somewhat amusing to hear the remark, 

 " This is the largest and best convention of bee-keepers 

 ever held in this country". We mean it was amusing to 

 those who had not missed a meeting of the National during 

 the past dozen years. The L,os Angeles convention num- 

 bered about 200 ; the Chicago meeting, in 1900, about 300. 

 And as to the " best meeting " — several former ones were 

 far ahead of St. Louis, we think. But the last one was a 

 good meeting, and very enjoyable in many ways. 



There seemed to be an effort to get in some public nomi- 

 nations for officers and directors, which manifestly would 

 have been unfair, and we think contrary to the new consti- 

 tution, as revised last year. It provides that the Board of 

 Directors shall arrange the details of nominations and elec- 

 tions, and they decided that nominations should be made by 

 the membership through a postal-card informal ballot, 

 which has been done. Of course, it is an experiment, but 

 we say, let the constitution be followed, and if no ofKcers 

 are to be elected at the annual meetings, as was done pre- 

 vious to 1904, then let no nominations be made there, either. 

 Unless a/l the candidates for a certain office were nomi- 

 nated, or mentioned publicly, at the annual meeting, it 

 would be unfair to those omitted, and would give an advan- 

 tage to those so nominated. If we were a candidate for any 

 office in the National, we would not want to be mentioned 

 publicly at the annual meeting unless the others who might 

 be candidates for the same office were also so named. We 

 would desire absolute fairness to all. 



One of the dangers in these things is the tendency to 

 inject questionable political methods. We believe the office 

 should seek the man, and not the man seek the office, t'p 

 to the present time we believe that the National offices have, 

 in almost every instance, been given to persons who did not 

 seek them. It's a good plan. Better officers are secured in 

 that way. 



So we say, let the National Association keep as far 

 away as possible from political methods that are the least 



questionable or tainted with self-seeking. Unless it does 

 so, there likely will be trouble ahead, and the Association 

 will become worse than useless to the bee-keeping fraternity 

 and industry, in whose behalf it was organized and is kept 

 in existence. 



Next week we will continue these convention com- 

 ments. 



A little later we expect to begin the publication of the 

 report of the St. Louis convention in these columns. 



Scraping the Refuse from Cakes of Beeswax. 



Generally there is more or less refuse that must be 

 scraped from the bottom of a cake of beeswax, and it isn't 

 the easiest thing to do. Here's a bright kink from J. A. 

 Green, in Gleanings in Bee-Culture, that knocks off three- 

 fourths of the labor ; 



" Lay your cake of wax upside down on the grass in the 

 hot sun until the part exposed to the sun is thoroughly 

 softened, while the rest is still hard. You can then scrape 

 it as deeply as you wish, and do it easily. Do not lay it on 

 a board or the bare ground, or it will get hot where you do 

 not want it to." 



Candor in Dealing With Customers. 



A contributor in the Bee-Keepers' Review, who sells 

 honey partly of his own production and partly bought from 

 others, says : 



" I create the impression that I produce all honey sold 

 by me, but I do not say so. A party will say : ' You must 

 have an awful lot of bees '. I answer : ' When I get done 

 I will have 20,000 pounds of honey sold '. It is not always 

 wise to iell even the truth, but I make it a point to tell no 

 lies." 



When the editor allowed that to go to press without 

 note or comment, he lost a fine opportunity to "point a 

 moral ", especially for the younger portion of his readers. 

 The contributor does not say anything that, taken by itself, 

 is not strictly true, yet he frankly says that he creates a 

 false impression ; which is only another way of saying that 

 he makes his customers believe that which is false. 



Without dwelling upon the moral side of the question, 

 is such a course good business policy ? One of the impor- 

 tant requisites of a good salesman is the ability to secure 

 the confidence of a customer. In the case in question, is 

 not that confidence in danger of being rudely shaken ? For 

 a time all will go well, and a fine list of customers will be 



