Dec. 29, 1904. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



875 



are going to sec that tlic brains will be kept on the farm, for 

 if we need medicine we have gone forward and put it up 

 in packages, if I need a cathartic I can go to the mediocre 

 and say, "Give me a package of it." The time is coming 

 when we can see that the farmer w-ill be an intelligent niaii 

 and he will go in partnership intelligently with God and that 

 is what they are going to do ; and he won't be a one-eyed 

 man. that is, simply raise hogs and corn ; he will be able 

 to raise everything that is produced on the farm. Producing 

 honey is intimately connected with farming. Let this brother 

 be a specialist that is a specialist indeed. If j'ou are manu- 

 facturing goods put them in marketable shape for the least 

 money you can furnish them at. There is no such thing as 

 laws of nature, it is Divine action. I want to say we get very 

 closely in harmony with Divine action when we touch Mother 

 Soil., Try; if you make a failure, all right. Look at the 

 olden days when they tried to convert the baser metals into 

 gold, what they brought to us? They brought Mother 

 Chemistry. Look at her children today. Look at Columbus 

 when he tried to open the back door to India. It was a 

 miserable failure, but he has thrown wide open the portals 

 of America. If yon meet with success go on; if you fall 

 down, get up again and get stronger. 



Mr. DeLong — I am an enthusiastic bee-keeper. I am like 

 the brother who said, 'T don't believe nobody can get me 

 to quit keeping bees ; they might hang me but I am not a 

 coward." How Mr. Hutchinson's paper did scorch me. Per- 

 haps I didn't get at it right. I want to say to Mr. Abbott 

 — I have known him a long time — if the whole lot of the 

 farmer bee-keepers were specialists, will you please give us 

 the estimate of your sales of supplies? We are going to 

 make you some specialists if we can. When men come to 

 see me I can give them milk and honey because I have a 

 dairy. I have 100 head of cattle, 50 acres of orchard and 

 400 acres of land. I can give you milk and honey and peaches 

 and apples ; and people come and ask my advice on bees and 

 I give them that. I have made money in keeping bees. I 

 have had 525 colonies. I live in Central Nebraska. Yester- 

 day morning as soon as I approached the Denver Special for 

 St. Louis I got in company with a very fine man. This gen- 

 tleman was somewhat of a Jew, and he got all there was in 

 life and he found out that I was a bee-keeper, and said to 

 me, "In this bee-keeping, they kind of take care of them- 

 selves." I said, "Oh yes, they take care of themselves just 

 like your business does ; they don't need attention any more 

 than your business." He had $5,000 worth of orders in his 

 grip. He said the footpads could take his clothes as long 

 as they left his orders. People come to me and they want 

 honey sometimes butter and bread, or milk and honey, and 

 I would give it to them ; and then, by the wai'. some of them 

 want canteloupes, and I could give them those because I have 

 raised them ever since we had the-round-up on canteloupes in 

 Omaha. This gentleman said to me, "How did you get so 

 so many bees?" I said, "I got them sitting down at the 

 corners whittling those grocery boxes and telling yarns, and 

 the bigger the yarns the more bees I got." [Laughter.] 



Pres. Harris — I ask your indulgence for a moment. In 

 appointing a committee to wait upon the Pure Food Congress 

 I omitted to put the mover of the motion on that committee. 

 If there is no objection I will put him on that committee at 

 this time. 



Mr. Pressler — I ask that Mr. Dadant be substituted for 

 me. as after we adjourn I wish to meet another committee. 



Pres. Harris — Then we will put Mr. Dadant in your 

 place. 



Mr. Reinecke — I would like to know where you get your 

 specialists if we cannot keep these going; it would be like 

 taking a queen away from a colony — your specialists will 

 all die out in a short time. The few colonies I have make 

 more than one hundred percent on my investment. I don't 

 think there is anything else would do it. I can take care of 

 an apiary at home, and take care of my other work. If I 

 find I have success then I can go on further. It takes only 

 a few colonies to start with. 



Mr. Krebs — It does seem to me that this question has 

 had sufficient argument, yet I would like to suggest that 

 it seems people do not seem to understand the idea Mr. 

 Hutchinson wished to bring out. While he speaks of spe- 

 cialists, as I understand it. he simply means those that intend 

 to make a living of it should make a specialty of that business 

 by understanding all the rudiments. I don't think Mr. Hutch- 

 inson would even hint at such a thing as nobody beginning 

 while he is yet in another business. 



Mr. Abbott — Is there any man here that has not had 

 any source of income from any other direction except from 

 his bees this year? 



( Six members stood up.) 



Dr. Miller— I don't consider that a fair question, really. 

 If I should find a quarter on the street it would rule me out. 



Mr. Abbott — But you didn't find any quarter. 



Dr Drunert— I would like to ask Mr. Abbott a question; 

 I have a farm and an apiary, and I run the two together. 

 The farm lost me money but I made $500 out of the bees. 



Mr. Abbott — That shows you are a good bee-keeper, but 

 a poor farmer. 



Dr. Drunert— I have farmed successfully and paid ofif 

 the mortgage on my farm, and I have made a success of bee- 

 keeping. 



Mr. Diebold (III.)— I understand from Mr. Hutchinson's 

 paper that if a man gives his money and his intelligence to 

 bee-keeping there is more profit from it on account of the 

 fact that you can buy manufactured goods in larger quan- 

 tities, and get down to the wholesale price. 



Mr. Andrews fCal.) — I suggest we leave this question 

 like J. P. Israel left the question of hives. He claims the 

 world's record for making hives. After they had discussed 

 the hive question through all the bee-papers he said it seemed 

 to lie with the bee-keeper, and he could judge for his locality 

 the best hive to use in that place; and that is the only way 

 to leave the question of the number of colonies of bees to 

 keep. 



SELLING GR.\XULATED HONEY. 



"Is granulated honey in the Aikin paper package a benefit 

 to our markets?" 



Mr. France — At the request of one of our members I 

 wrote that question. It possibly does not cover the ground 

 intended. The idea is whether the effect of granulated honey 

 upon the market is injurious, or should we educate the neople 

 on that point? This gentleman referred t© the Aikin package 

 from the fact that it was put up in that form. 



Mr. Abbott — I want to call the convention's attention to 

 a condition of things that exists that might be of some ad- 

 vantage to them in that line. I have been receiving circulars 

 from people in St. Louis, I don't know who they are, ad- 

 vertising what they call a paper pail which they say will hold 

 od. If it will, !t will hold honey. I wonder if those people 

 who wanted a sack could not get that pail. You could make 

 them of paper with thin tops and bottoms if you want to. 



Dr. Miller — I would say that any kind of package, in 

 the matter of honey, which did no harm to any other kind, 

 might be a benefit. If Mr. Aikin's package can make cus- 

 tomers that would otherwise not be made then it is a good 

 thing. That does not say that I or anybody else must adopt 

 that. Just answering that question, I do believe Mr. Aikin 

 has done good by introducing that thing amongst the bee- 

 keeping fraternity. 



Mr. Brown (Cal.)— I would like to say we had a little 

 experience in California in trying a package similar to that. 

 We used the common oyster-pail made of one piece of heavy 

 manila paper. We put up several tons of honey, that way, 

 and in the winter and spring season up until the hot weather 

 in our climate, they stood firm, but I was told a few days 

 ago, when leaving there, in some cases when it got real hot 

 the package had absorbed a little bit of moisture and, there- 

 fore, to some extent, spoiled the looks of the package. But 

 they had no paraffin on them, simply manila paper as you see 

 it in your stores today. 



Mr. Weber (Ohio) — I believe it would be a good thing 

 to educate the people to the fact that granulated honey is 

 pure. While you would bring it before the public and teach 

 them it was pure it would result in consuming more honey, 

 because when the people see granulated honey they think it 

 is adulterated. I believe that is a good thing for the smaller 

 associations particularly, to take up and teach the people it is 

 pure honey. 



Jlr. Muth — I understand now that granulation of honey 

 is not a proof of its purity : it can be mixed with almost 50 

 or 60 percent and then granulate. 



Mr. Lovesy (L'tah) — Mr. President, in our country we 

 have been trying for years to educate the people to eat 

 granulated honey. Last year a gentleman in one of our 

 towns brought over a wagon-load in these paper boxes to 

 Salt Lake City, and around the County, and he had to open 

 those boxes and let each person eat a piece of it before they 

 would believe it was honey. It was almost as white as snow. 

 If we try to put our honey on the market in that way they 

 insist that it is sugar, and, in fact, I cannot even sell it in 

 glass in Salt Lake City. I have to put a little portion of 

 what we call amber honey in it to give it a kind of golden 

 tint, and then they believe it is honey. It is well known 

 that .\lfalfa honey will granulate quicker than any other. 



